Funny, but something similar happened to librarians in public libraries: They became unofficial social workers! (I know this from my friend, who was a librarian in the Houston public libraries.)<p>Also, I find myself doing what amounts to social work in my volunteer life now.
An unfortunate side effect of the overuse of these emergency vehicles it that makes it difficult for residents to get a healthy night's sleep. Frequent sirens and air-horns are the number #1 cause of noise pollution in the Tenderloin. Many residents here are elderly and low-income and cannot afford double-paned windows and thick curtains to protect from the noise.
It's sad that the SFFD is becoming demoralized by this. They're a good fire department. (The SFPD isn't very good.) A decade ago, the SFFD had a better plan for dealing with this.[1] Even now, there are better practical plans.[2]<p>[1] <a href="http://www.sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/mocj/CommInvlv_News/FD_HOME_Team.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/mocj/CommInvlv_News/...</a>
[2] <a href="http://endsfstrugglewithchronichomelessness.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://endsfstrugglewithchronichomelessness.blogspot.com/</a>
Here in the UK, if you call the emergency services they ask which service you require (police, ambulance, fire). It would be absolutely unthinkable to respond "fire" if there wasn't a fire. How does it work in the US? Is the fire dept. a different number that is somehow acceptable to call for this kind of problem?<p>There have been a number of times when I've been in difficult situations with severely drunken or otherwise vulnerable people, and every time I've called the local police station (rather than the emergency number) and they've sent someone over. But it's always the police I would call - never the fire brigade.
> just over 1.5 percent of its runs last year involved fires<p>The issue here is not homelessness, it's the waste of resources by sending the firefighters to tag along almost each and every ambulance call.<p>Looks like a classic case of perverse incentives. Somebody somewhere wanted to give them more work or more exposure and they ended up doing useless runs.
"By the end of this year 500 new single-occupancy units will be built and existing homeless resources will be expanded."<p>Are these units temporary housing for people on the street? What does the path away from homelessness look like in the bay area, with real estate costs and rent as high as they are?<p>Its hard to see how someone living on the street is going to be able to afford $1,000+ rent just for a studio apartment on whatever employment they can get coming off the street.
Interesting article. I see SF's finest out taking care of the homeless population more than they do anything else. I applaud them, and agree that society needs to do something better here. Unfortunately, I do believe that "the average american" believes homeless people are in fact not people, and should be left to die.<p>There was another callout to that video of '14 police officers taking down a one legged black man': "Many onlookers saw not the police grappling with a mentally disturbed man as he kicked and bit, but yet another incident of police brutality."<p>I strongly believe in facts and information about the world, and the medium piece was one of the most one-sided unfair articles. Yes it was an opinion piece, but in the past we recognized that those who are in privileged positions of publishing have a special responsibility. Now a days when anyone can be a journalist, and hit-count are the name of the game, this has really pushed a lot of bad-faith and lazy journalism.
If you live in SF and you're reading this and you want to help the homeless, this may be a good option:
<a href="https://handup.org/giftcards" rel="nofollow">https://handup.org/giftcards</a><p>Also consider donating to a local organization, there are many good ones. I personally like Larkin Street Youth Services. They help homeless children and young adults (12-25) get back on their feet through housing, education, etc. At that age you really can put it all behind you with the right support.
> <i>Mayor Ed Lee said this week that the homeless are “going to have to leave” the streets before the Super Bowl comes to town in February</i><p>China had similar approach for their Olympic Games :-(
Firefighters in general are becoming more social services or general emergency services providers than actual "fire fighters".<p><a href="http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/07/firefighters-dont-fight-fires.html" rel="nofollow">http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/07/fir...</a>
> Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, a nonprofit in the city, said a lack of reasonably priced housing was the biggest problem.<p>Ms. Friedenbach, you make yourself and your ideological camp appear naive and out of touch. No doubt, there are a handful of gainfully employed, productive and law-abiding citizens of SF who are homeless solely or primarily because they cannot afford an apartment. I am sure that the time they are forced to spend living in shelters, sitting on the BMR housing waiting lists, and looking for better opportunities in other cities with more affordable housing is painful, degrading, and infuriating. That sucks.<p>As for the other 6600+ of SF's 6700 homeless population, it's not going to make any difference whether housing is $10,000 a month or $100. These are people with no marketable skills (not even the ability to show up), no desire to work, major addictions (usually following multiple treatment interventions), severe mental illnesses, a preference for the street lifestyle, or some combination of those. Most live in SF not because they were born there or because they have jobs or family there but because there is no freezing weather and the City is accommodating, like spending a large fraction of the $330m SFFD budget sending trained firefighters to pick up the same few hundred people twice a day every single day of the year. All the free housing in the world isn't going to get them off the streets.<p>Bitching about the cost of housing in SF is fashionable. But I would really expect someone who works directly on the problems of homelessness and with homeless people to know better. The cost of housing is at most a very minor contribution to the problem. When you can show me that most of the people in the City who are homeless have jobs and are reasonably healthy, it'll be time to pin the blame on the housing market. Until then, get serious about addressing the real problems, or just accept that you're never going to and stop pretending.
> Instead, the calls that ring in this and nearby fire stations tend to go like this: Male, apparently homeless, sprawled unconscious on a train platform.<p>I can confirm that this also happens in Tempe (Phoenix), all the time.
While SF's mayor plans to kick out or hide as many homeless as possible to make way so Super Bowl partiers won't be offended or feel obliged to partake in some extrajudicially-unprosecuted hate crimes.<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10130589" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10130589</a>