Clean up San Francisco’s streets, tourist industry pleads

Homelessness, both in San Francisco and elsewhere is not rooted in housing but in drugs and mental illness.<p>Building more low income housing won&#x27;t address those root causes or noticeably ameliorate homelessness as a symptom, because most homeless people cannot hold down a job and have 0 income, aside from begging.<p>There is no easy solution, but allowing the mentally ill to fend for themselves on the streets in the name of freedom is morally naive. Put them in institutions and get them off the streets.

Mental healthcare, drug decriminalization, effective rehab, actually affordable and&#x2F;or donated housing, actual comprehensive-integrated social work and criminal justice reform would make more lives better. But when some rich, sheltered people callously suggest “others” are dirt in need of “cleaning,” it’s abhorrent. Fuck the tourists, they’re tourists.

Tragic. The Bay Area has one of the highest concentrations of raw brain power and talent in the world. And they can&#x27;t fix problems in their own backyard.<p>What a shame. Yet another symptom of what people say that so much talent and brain power is being wasted on showing better ads to people.

Sure, when the global property bubble pops. Until that time, I kind of hope it gets worse. Everyone needs to suffer together and the ills borne by the homeless and lower classes need to be experienced by all.<p>Housing is a good investment for a limited number of players. When EVERYONE wants to invest in housing &#x2F; real estate &#x2F; whatever, it quickly becomes a long-term very bad investment, sustained through momentum, the fact that moving away usually happens across generations, and that the law changes slowly.<p>Case in point, if you look over the last 40 years, housing is a great investment. If you also look from 1870 to 1914, 44 years, Europe looks like an extremely peaceful place. But that will change very quickly and violently soon enough, to the point that only a federal, workforce based intervention like the New Deal can help (not the “Fiscal New Deal” we had under Obama). When that happens, housing will be super cheap and jobs you just have to show up to to get hired, and the crisis will abate.

I recently visited SF for the first time in like 10 years, I was surprised at how safe and clean everything appeared after reading these sorts of articles for years. I walked 40 miles over the course of a week doing touristy stuff and spent lots of time in lots of neighborhoods at day and night and it wasn&#x27;t nearly as &quot;scary&quot; as everyone seems to think it is.<p>If anything Denver has more homeless per street, and they seem to be much more aggressive and&#x2F;or unstable. The Mission District was pretty hip and relaxed in comparison.

Euphemism for move them on for many values of them.<p>Better idea: house people, give them jobs and healthcare