“It’s the first time that we have had an out-and-out cancellation over the issue, and this is a group that has been coming here every three or four years since the 1980s,” said Joe D’Alessandro, president and CEO of S.F. Travel, the city’s convention bureau....
The doctors group told the San Francisco delegation that while they loved the city, postconvention surveys showed their members were afraid to walk amid the open drug use, threatening behavior and mental illness that are common on the streets....
Tourism is San Francisco’s biggest industry, bringing in $9 billion a year, employing 80,000 people and generating more than $725 million in local taxes — conventions represent about $1.7 billion of the business.
July 3, 2018
"SF’s appalling street life repels residents — now it’s driven away a convention."
The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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Ha, ha. A doctor convention turned off by SF street life. And here I always thought it was only patients who were afraid of a needles.
afraid to walk amid the open drug use, threatening behavior and mental illness
Well then STAY OFF MY LAWN!
San Francisco is an outside toilet.
San Francisco (and California in general) is just one more example of the Left killing the goose who lays golden eggs.
Without all that tourism money SF will have to raise taxes in order to address the two highest priorities of government: services for the homeless and free lawyers for illegals.
Maybe they can put a head tax on employees, plus making Uber and Lyft rides more expensive.
According to the lefties at althouse, the reasons for all the human excrement on the sidewalks of San Francisco include "Kansas", "midwestern McMansions" and large corporate farms in the midwest.
There were about 25 other just as scintillating hot take reasons as those.
Naturally, we must return these people to power at the first opportunity.
Plus, No Borders, No Prisons, No Profits!
This is the team the gadfly's, Never Trumpers and many LLR's are working hard to empower.
Naturally, normal types are going to look askance at mountains of human excrement on the sidewalk as a "bad thing and it's going to affect their travel decisions.
Probably because they are all Hitlers too....
Tourism is San Francisco’s biggest industry, bringing in $9 billion a year, employing 80,000 people and generating more than $725 million in local taxes — conventions represent about $1.7 billion of the business.
Huh... I always assumed tech was SFs biggest industry.
So lots of people like to visit SF? I guess all that human poo in the streets may turn a few people off.
I blame San Francisco's Republican government.
Oh, wait.
I blame California's Republican government.
Oh, wait.
Fuck it. It's all Trump's fault.
Leftists, progress on the road to socialism. Socialism = free ice cream and flowing abortions.
Weird how we don't ever discuss the real issue. Over-population. The world needs mass sterilizations.
We can poke fun at this but it's a tragedy that California,which is our most beautiful state, is becoming a 3rd world shithole.
This is a brown spot on the city’s reputation. The needles puncture the viewer’s attention.
Several old classmates live in San Francisco. The area around Market Street and the Moscone Center is indeed littered with a lot of aggressive bums. Of course, if you declare a hands off approach to vagrancy, you can expect your municipality to be a magnet for vagrants. Local San Francisco government has proven very adept at keeping low-rent minorities out of their neighborhoods. Apparently not so adept with the homeless.
We kowtow to drug addicts and make excuses for them. We refer to it as an epidemic as if they were not responsible for their own troubles. Wikipedia defines an Epidemic as:
"An epidemic is the rapid spread of infectious disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time, usually two weeks or less. For example, in meningococcal infections, an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic."
I wonder if we need to cut the addicts off by making our main goal to shut down the supply lines including building a wall and arresting every stinking dealer of addictive drugs and jailing for a minimum of 3 years and stopping the rampant drug use in jails.
@Dickin'Bimbos@Home:
Weird how we don't ever discuss the real issue. Over-population. The world needs mass sterilizations.
Very Malthusian of you. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb was published 50 years ago this year. There is actually only one region of the globe where overpopulation will be a serious problem: Africa. And for all kinds of political and historical reasons, you can best Western leaders will do their best to ignore and deny the problem and attack those who point it out. Nonetheless, "mass sterilizations" are not going to happen. Well defended borders are going to be the only real defense. Luckily we have a political class devoted to defending our borders. Oh, wait.
Who needs conventions? Who wants to cater to tourist privilege?
This is progress. After all, as the anti-ICE demonstrators helpfully added, "Abolish Profit."
Forty years on and the Left still can't accept that deinstitutionalization is and has been an enormous failure, with the end result being crazy people living on the streets and accosting people who don't want to be accosted.
You may not be interested in capitalism but capitalism is interested in you.
@AJ Lynch:
I wonder if we need to cut the addicts off by making our main goal to shut down the supply lines including building a wall and arresting every stinking dealer of addictive drugs and jailing for a minimum of 3 years and stopping the rampant drug use in jails.
That has been the strategy for more than 40 years. Unfortunately, the drug problem is not so much a supply-side problem as a demand-side one. A drug market will persist so long as there is a demand for drugs, and it would take a very large police state system to effectively stop the supply. See, for example, how efforts to restrict the abuse of pharmaceutical amphetamines helped create the methamphetamine market.
Local San Francisco government has proven very adept at keeping low-rent minorities out of their neighborhoods. Apparently not so adept with the homeless.
Limousine liberal elites have zero tolerance for lower middle class anywhere near them but believe having a fair number of the lowest class, the homeless, in their general vicinity makes them "humane", thereby absolving them of certain other types of bad behavior. Plus it's easier to relocate incompetent homeless than competent, but poor home dwellers.
I Googled "San Francisco Street Scenes Homeless" images. One of the pictures shows a sanitation worker with blue gloves picking up a white sheet or paper from the gutter - with a big brown spot on it. I wasn’t sure if it.... was ….. the brownness of the spot—with its possible menstrual or scatological connotations—or just the spot’s function as a focal point that drew (me) in, that narrowed (my) attention (like the punctum of a photograph, in Roland Barthes’s phrase—the point of interest, “that accident which pricks me”). Unfortunately I can not come up with a link.
Seems to me, that if you kicked out all of the illegals in California, it would free up a lot of housing for the homeless.
The rake of reality stepped on again.
I just started reading "The Camp of the Saints." Interesting -- and relevant.
"Forty years on and the Left still can't accept that deinstitutionalization is and has been an enormous failure, with the end result being crazy people living on the streets and accosting people who don't want to be accosted."
The only way they get treated for their mental illness is when they commit crimes and end up in prison.
A foul odor permeated from a massive bag of human excrement sludge left on a street corner in San Francisco's Tenderloin district Saturday.
The horrendous smell and sight quickly gained notoriety when a Reddit user posted a screen shot of a report made to San Francisco's Citizen app for identifying crimes.
"Twenty pounds of feces dumped onto sidewalk," the report called out....
"Forty years on and the Left still can't accept that deinstitutionalization is and has been an enormous failure, with the end result being crazy people living on the streets and accosting people who don't want to be accosted."
-- This is the problem with government often times. The government went in with a sledgehammer to mental health institutions instead of fixing what were real, legitimate problems. The government decided fixing problems was hard, so they'd just level it all and hope for the best.
Hah - this cracks me up!
San Francisco is breathtakingly beautiful -- the hills, the water, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marina, the Cable Cars on Hyde Street, Nob Hill, etc, etc.
And, yet, you have one-party, leftist-rule. These political geniuses have, literally, created these pockets of "shitholes" in the city, mostly around the Civic Center, known as the "Tenderloin."
And, instead of cleaning up these shitholes, they keep piling up the shit!(and discarded needles)
There are no "shitholes" in Pacific Heights (the nice part of town where Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsome, Gordon Getty and the elite live).
If you have a lot of money, San Francisco is a lovely place. If you own a home there, you have a lot of money. If you own rental property, you have a shitload of money! So much so, that you can pretty much avoid all the "shitholes"!
@Big Mike:
Forty years on and the Left still can't accept that deinstitutionalization is and has been an enormous failure, with the end result being crazy people living on the streets and accosting people who don't want to be accosted.
The effects have been too varied, I think, to definitely declare it a "failure" or a "success." On balance, it probably has been better than the old system for a majority of mental health sufferers. But it is wrong to frame deinstitutionalization as merely a left-wing initiative. Fiscal concerns and a desire to reduce costs were a large driving factor, as well. Plus the invention of effective psychotropic medicine that made it possible to manage many patients in the community.
The famous psychiatrist Leon Eisenberg ably reviews the history in Were we all asleep at the switch? A personal reminiscence of psychiatry from 1940 to 2010
Could not have happened to a more deserving city. JPG
"We can poke fun at this but it's a tragedy that California,which is our most beautiful state, is becoming a 3rd world shithole."
Literally for San Francisco.
This is the problem with government often times. The government went in with a sledgehammer to mental health institutions instead of fixing what were real, legitimate problems. The government decided fixing problems was hard, so they'd just level it all and hope for the best.
Noooooooo.
The googoos were trying since the 70s to get their way passed. Ronnie signed the bill then got blamed for the fallout when their utopia didn’t happen.
(Goody goodies)
It’s not a tragedy, it’s what they voted for. And still vote for.
@AllenS:
Seems to me, that if you kicked out all of the illegals in California, it would free up a lot of housing for the homeless.
Getting illegals out of California would be good in and of itself. But it would probably do little to alleviate homelessness. After all, most people are not homeless because of a lack of housing supply. They are homeless because they usually suffer from several psychiatric problems or debilitating addictions or both.
Fake news! San Francisco is a lefty paradise on Earth.
The real problem may be they ran out of clean whores.
Seattle’s going to start fixing its problem by deploying shoot-up vans. Go to the van, do your drugs.
Seattle’s going to start fixing its problem by deploying shoot-up vans. Go to the van, do your drugs.
They used barges on the canals in Holland...didn't work out so well for them.
Plus the invention of effective psychotropic medicine that made it possible to manage many patients in the community.
Only if they take their meds.
They put the shit in shitholes.
They need to put the shit in shit holes.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/letter-to-seattle-convention-leaders-your-homeless-problem-is-out-of-control/770150626
I know, Gahrie. Sweden failed. Let’s do the same thing! It’ll work this time!
But it is wrong to frame deinstitutionalization as merely a left-wing initiative.
@Farmer, where I was in Maryland at the time deinstitutionalization was being pushed, it was pushed through the legislature by a coalition of Democrats with liberal Republicans. I believed at the time that deinstitutionalization was being pushed to free up money for Great Society programs, and nothing since then has done anything to change my mind.
Yes it does cost money to look after people with mental issues, but leaving on the street to harass ordinary citizens and freeze to death in the winter doesn't strike me as being the right thing to do.
"The rake of reality stepped on again."
I am stealing the fuck out of that one!
I've been to Fall AGU a couple times in SF. Way too big a conference, and SF is too expensive -- and too far away. I prefer National Conferences that are more centrally located. AGU's been absent from SF for two years now -- New Orleans last year, DC this -- while Moscone Center gets revitalized or something. Still, I haven't gone.
I don't blame the Doctors for abandoning ship.
It's funny. Mental health may be one of the biggest issues our society faces. It really hasn't been properly addressed or even discussed that much in the decades since deinstitutionalization. Despite violent crime being at an all time lows, we seem to have a growing number of mass shootings being committed by deranged loners who are far more often than not "known wolves". The suicide rate continues to climb. And of course there's the metally ill homeless.
Yet, in terms of the concerns of most voters, it's not something that even ends up in a top ten list.
These are difficult and complex problems though. I certainly don't have any easily workable solutions.
When I was single, I lived in SF (the Marina) for many years. Very special place. At the time, many young post-college young adults lived there. Lotta hot young women, no homeless.
The thought of raising a family in the Marina? Too expensive. Impossible to buy a house.
The thought of raising a family in the Sunset? Possible. Great part of the city, mostly Asian.
In general, the thought was to find a girl, and then move to the suburbs to start a family.
Most people work in SF, but live elsewhere. But there are many nice, old neighborhoods, south on the 101, towards the Airport. Many Asian and Fillipino and other ethnic families. Buwaya knows this much better than I do.
The median home price in SF, yes, median, is north of $1 Million. Have fun getting that $100K down payment, with all that student loan debt, Progs!
At least the CA state legislature didn't pass a mild religious freedom bill--we all know THAT would tank tourism forever.
Street shitting & violent homeless roaming about can be forgiven for a while but some things are just too much.
Silver lining: The more crazy people collect in SF, the less crazy people there will be everywhere else.
Its not a new problem at all, but it is worse than ever.
I commute to Montgomery daily so this is normal to me. For residents it is the "boiling pot" situation of gradual deterioration.
I was at 4th and Market yesterday, pretty much as "downtown" as it gets, lots of tourists shopping, and the bums were everywhere. Most dont even try to beg anymore.
All the close suburbs, Daly City, San Bruno, etc. are unaffordable today, as is the Sunset, and even the old ghettos. In the Mission half the people on the street are upscale DINKs (double income, no kids).
Heck, Richmond and West Oakland are ridiculous.
Affordable housing is now way, way out, we are talking Sacramento or Tracy.
Dems wonder why most people don’t want to live in these places, or live under similar rules/laws as these places.
I don't know which meeting. I used to go to the College of Surgeons when it was there but haven' t been in a couple of years .
Pretty soon gays will start fleeing the city. Then it will get very dirty.
The SF homeless, or some of the people ones that would be homeless today, many of them, had slums, like the Tenderloin, to live in, full of "residence hotels", i.e., old buildings with tiny rooms, shared baths, etc. Some of this still exists. Housing demand outstripping supply has turned most of these into condos. So there is some reason to think that some of the homeless would have homes in a cheaper housing market.
But most, especially the truly annoying ones, aren't of this sort, true.
MadisonMan said...I don't blame the Doctors for abandoning ship.
--
abandoning shit..
buwaya said...Most dont even try to beg anymore.
--
I haven't been back there since maybe 2000. Even then I was struck by the aggressiveness of panhandlers. Some were pretty generous in terms of how much of my money they wanted. Once had to duck into a restaurant to shake off a really obnoxious 10 year old-ish boy that was like a pit bull. Back then, the issue in the summer was the heated piss smell here and there...not 20lb bags of shit.
I went -- for the last time -- to a convention in Austin this past winter. The panhandlers there around the Convention Center were horrible. That was a huge complaint by everyone. Traffic to/from the airport was also horrible. But at least people weren't -- as far as I saw -- pissing in the street.
Gays are indeed fleeing the city.
The population is much more yuppies and dinks than it ever was, and much more Asian.
Took the kids (hs senior and freshman) to SF and LA in December. We like to expose them to different cities outside of our midwestern bubble and explore places they may want to live in someday. Daughter was particularly excited about LA visit as she bought in to the Hollywood cachet. Used Zillow and a couple apps to look at housing and rental prices; general living conditions, etc. SF has beautiful locations but the homeless and drug problems were excessive. LA was crowded and dirty. Neither have expressed any desire to go back and California in general has dropped way down the list of targeted places to live.
There might be shit in the street but none of those abominable plastic straws.
Turns out that a lot of that plastic in the ocean is “leakage” from Asian dumps where recycled US plastic goes because millions of tons of it never actually get recycled. So maybe banning plastic straws and plastic knives and forks is the way to go, since nothing is more useless. IMHO.
'"Twenty pounds of feces dumped onto sidewalk," the report called out....'
That was not 20 lbs of feces, it was Maxine Waters.
When I was a kid, my father used to drive the three hours to Chicago to show us Maxwell Street, which he referred to as Skid Row. It was memorable.
"Silver lining: The more crazy people collect in SF, the less crazy people there will be everywhere else."
They have to live somewhere. It seems fair that affluent liberals should bear this burden. Really, how often do they have to live with the consequences of their stupidity?
"Daughter was particularly excited about LA visit as she bought in to the Hollywood cachet."
Yeah, the two bums sleeping full-length on the sidewalk in the middle of the day doesn't seem that glamorous.
Tolerance and indifference go hand in hand. I see your pain but, hell, I see it all the time. Just another day.
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, where I was in Maryland at the time deinstitutionalization was being pushed, it was pushed through the legislature by a coalition of Democrats with liberal Republicans. I believed at the time that deinstitutionalization was being pushed to free up money for Great Society programs, and nothing since then has done anything to change my mind.
Yes it does cost money to look after people with mental issues, but leaving on the street to harass ordinary citizens and freeze to death in the winter doesn't strike me as being the right thing to do.
I do not deny this, but I still think it is wrong to frame deinstitutionalization as "merely a left-wing issue." For one, as I said, the mass availability of effective psychotropics was a major cause of deinstitutionalization. Second, I think we should always resist the urge to constantly cram every social problem into the false binary of left versus right. Third, we don't so much have deinstitutionalization currently as we have shifted psychiatric care from state hospitals to the prison and jail systems. Fourth, consider the amount of social antipathy and myths surrounding the concept of "not guilty by reason of insanity." Fifth, there are important civil right implications to locking someone up indefinitely based on the opinions of psychiatric experts despite people not committing crimes against persons. We already live in a country where in virtually every jurisdiction a mental health professional can sign a piece of paper and have you held against your will for usually 72 hours. I have signed them myself, and it's a power that I think is very susceptible to exploitation and abuse. In other words, deinstitutionalization is a complicated matter that is not solved by simply pointing fingers at "the Left."
Who pays for all the drugs these people are shooting up ?
As an aside: Try to imagine what cities must have been like before modern sanitation practices! Some San Fran-ers don't have to imagine, I guess. And naturally don't include big Roman cities, although even with their fantastic sewers they probably had some horse waste problems.
The TRUTH has set those doctors free to go to a better (and likely less expensive) place.
The big advantage to living in a small rural higher altitude town in California is that the homeless don't hang out in our area. Too hot in the summer. Freezing cold in the winter. Sub zero temperatures, ice and snow. No free services available. No housing or comfy spots to hang out. Even when the County and State dump these people in our area, they don't stay long and voluntarily go to SF or the coast where the livin' is easy and the benefits flow.
Adios!!
The people in this area are hard working, farming, ranching, logging types and don't look kindly on beggars, thieves, freeloaders, drunkards, tweakers, druggies and in general scummy people. The "homeless" don't get much of a friendly or helpful hand because ....get a job you slacker! Plus...almost everyone is armed in one way or another. A common sign posted on property is No Trespassing! I have a gun and a backhoe. No kidding either.
Now, we do have the occasional local crazy person who is obviously in need of medical and psychological help. We all know who they are by name and family connections. The County gets called or the church groups will pick them up and take them to the nearest city (80 miles) to get some much needed mental health help.
San Francisco and other progressive cities with their Democrat Progressive (ha!) policies have brought this plague upon themselves. Boo hoo! :-)
1. The SF Left still blames the homeless on Reagan for 'closing the mental health facilities.'
2. SF hands out 4.5 million free needles annually which they then have to pick up off the sidewalk.
3. If you're repulsed by SF's homeless, drunks, druggies, feces, tent cities, burnouts and panhandlers - do not visit Oakland.
Negative Vignettes of SF Area:
In the article, it mentions a Director was assaulted outside the convention center.
Video of Union Square Hair Salon owner that had to get a TV Station involved to get help with a Homeless that was harassing customers.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/11/28/holiday-decorations-cant-hide-homeless-situation-in-san-francisco-union-square/
My Daughter's Car being towed in SF - not cheap to get it back.
Video of Junkies shooting up in the Bart.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5665041/Shocking-footage-shows-junkies-taking-San-Francisco-BART-station.html
Attack on Bart Customers in Oakland
Sign talking of Hunger for Children in the Bay Area
Car Window broken into for a jacket I left in the back seat in SF. Parking on the street was an expensive decision. 25 years ago? After I got married.
30 years ago - me at Moscone for a Job Fair, being harassed by a homeless.
There is a tour in SF I am interested in, by the Emperor Norton, but I doubt I will be booking.
I still have family in the area, so I visit frequently.
WK @ 10:39 - Took the kids (hs senior and freshman) to SF and LA in December. We like to expose them to different cities outside of our midwestern bubble and explore places they may want to live in someday.
*******************************
Good idea, especially if coupled with knowledge of housing prices. My rural high school had a class for older students that explained the risk in getting married and having kids right out of school, with no job/financial preparation. I think its time for a high school class on The Economics of Big Popular Cities.
@tcrosse,
Who pays for all the drugs these people are shooting up ?
Your tax dollars, my friend. (See, Great Society, Johnson et al.)
Correlation may not be causation -- but the creation of the welfare state by Johnson in the 60s does seem to nicely coincide with the epidemic of drug use.
Just sayin'.
I've avoided SF itself. I rented a Citabria once and flew all around it, did some rolls and loops over the hills to the south, and returned to the airport.
"In other words, deinstitutionalization is a complicated matter that is not solved by simply pointing fingers at 'the Left.''"
Don't you get it J. Farmer? All identifiable problems in the world emanate from "the Left!"
If you're not a left-hater, you're a left-lover! Dirty left-lover!
Your tax dollars, my friend. (See, Great Society, Johnson et al.)
It was a rhetorical question. The next question is, cui bono ? Who gets all that drug money ? Is the drug trade not illegal in SF ?
Eh. I was there in the 80s with family for a legal convention. At that time, people were pulling guns on one another over parking places. Mayor Feinstein was pleading for peace.
Move along, not much of a story, though the poor and middle class can no longer afford to live there, that's true.
What's this??
"So maybe banning plastic straws and plastic knives and forks is the way to go, since nothing is more useless. IMHO."
"Huh... I always assumed tech was SFs biggest industry."
"Silicon Valley" and San Francisco are two different jurisdictions.
The next question is, cui bono ? Who gets all that drug money ? Is the drug trade not illegal in SF ?
Didn't you watch The Wire? The drug dealers get the money, and they fund Dem politicians to perpetuate the status quo. Heh.
I was there last week. Still beautiful, but it long has been described as a great place to visit (as long as you skip Fishermans Wharf) and a lousy place to live. I wouldn't move back.
The city distributes an 4.5 million clean syringes per year to protect addicts from diseases transmitted by re-use. But only two-thirds of the syringes are dropped off at the city's 11 syringe depositories, and so the city has 10 employees to pick up the ones that are left on the streets. I don't know what else can be done; not many people can transition from opioid addiction to non-addicted status, a process that takes years and mostly doesn't work.
Don't you get it J. Farmer? All identifiable problems in the world emanate from "the Left!"
Maybe not all Comrade Marvin, but certainly most of them.
Dems wonder why most people don’t want to live in these places, or live under similar rules/laws as these places.
Ha. Seattle used to be somewhat conservative until a lot of Californians who got sick of the crap they created in CA moved up here and started doing the exact same thing to it.
So, all you red state people, beware the blue state refugees: They're coming for you as well. Like a parasite: Cripple one host and then move on. .. . . .
I think you grossly oversimplify the picture, something similar has happened in DC with a lot of the "Smart Growthers," many of whom came from Boston, Mass. They are ruining our beautiful neighborhoods in Washington, DC. They look fondly towards Seattle. I cringe whenever they do, unable - as I see them - to appreciate what makes us unique here.
" (as long as you skip Fishermans Wharf)"
On the contrary, its a great place for "street photography"
It too much, and too little, in all sorts of desiderata, but if you are more interested in the humans than in the "attractions", then its something else.
And coming soon to Seattle.
You built this, leftists.
Embrace the suck.
I agree that the rise of the Welfare State/Great Society in the 60's was the beginning of the end. I saw that when I was living there in the late 60's and early 70's. The hippies and homeless kids who wanted in on the Age of Aquarius were just the beginning.
Previously, if you were a wastrel, drug addict, etc you were either on your own or if you wanted help families, private and religious charities were the way to get help. You worked or starved. Now the government gives you everything for free with no responsibilities on your part. Money money money! You get MORE of what you subsidize. DUH.
San Francisco used to be a beautiful city. Of course there were always bums, always will be, but not to the extent as now. Going to THE City, was a big deal. Shopping. Lunch. Sight seeing. We used to get dressed up! Imagine like the women in the show Mad Men. I even remember wearing white gloves as a child (late 50's)to go to THE City. It was an event. Now...it is also an event. An awful one trying to dodge the panhandlers, drug addicts, piles of shit and the smell of piss.
Why would anyone want to live in these big decaying urban cesspools is beyond me. But...Hey...to each his own. Just don't ask us to subsidize this (literal) shit with our tax dollars.
To be fair, I take my daily constitutional in SF's downtown, and its always pleasant - for me.
Up or down Market, to Chinatown, to the Embarcadero, to the Powell street cable car, to Union square, to Moscone, etc.
I am more tolerant of the urban "oddities" of existence I suppose.
Housing prices in SF are still the highest in the country; so obviously there are still a lot of rich people who want to live there. A commenter above pointed out something similar: there are a lot of beautiful neighborhoods, and it's a wonderful place to live if you are rich. When people start moving out of SF at such a rate that housing prices begin to fall, I'll revisit the question of whether the city has been ruined.
Farmer contends: That has been the strategy for more than 40 years. Unfortunately, the drug problem is not so much a supply-side problem as a demand-side one.
Absolutely right. And as I suggested recently we [yes, the American government] needs to collect the drug addicts and the untreated mentally ill [sometimes there is overlap], triage them and treat them in locked facilities or camps. If taxes can't pay for their treatment then let us all pitch in to a giant Fund Me campaign to accomplish it. Right now, no one, NO ONE, has a better answer.
“what’s this?”
Well, I personally don’t care for them, and they go right in the trash, so all of you people should be banned from using them too.
What I really think is that if people want to keep trash out of the Pacific Ocean, they should back a law that says that “recycling” can’t be exported to countries that don’t meet US standards for recycling and disposal, that way millions of tons of recycled plastic won’t make it from virtue signaling hands straight to the Pacific.
People do not move to red states in order to turn them blue.
Ask them about that in New Hampshire, or us about it in Vermont. I blame the Interstate Highway system.
I used to live in the Sunset and in order to raise a family moved up north past San Rafael and commute into SF now It's simply amazing to see how bad the financial district and SOMA have gotten with the feces and needles. A part of me thinks there will be a tipping point where some enterprising techie will leapfrog our present paradigm by having drones harass serial poopers and drug addicts until the police are shamed into action. I notice the city makes a big deal of publicizing the removal of tent cities now and then but they just return in a month or two. The real estate and assets are just too valuable to see them get destroyed by schizophrenics and drug users. Even the limousine liberals now have skin in the game as they can't escape the poop on the sidewalks.
People do not move to red states in order to turn them blue
They don't intend to do so. But, nevertheless they do. They can't help themselves. They think that if they ask for or demand the same things as they had in their "old" neighborhood/city/state that THIS time it will be different.
We see it up here in our RED corner of California. Ex Bay Area people who move and then gradually recreate the same bullshit that they claim to be trying to run away from.
@mockturtle:
And as I suggested recently we [yes, the American government] needs to collect the drug addicts and the untreated mentally ill [sometimes there is overlap], triage them and treat them in locked facilities or camps.
And who determines who is a "drug addict" or an "untreated mentally ill" person? I am a mental health professional. Are you comfortable with a system in which I get to unilaterally decide you are mentally ill and then have a judge lock you up and forcibly medicate you against your will, despite you not actually breaking any laws? Unless you propose to criminalize illness.
SF used to be the regular layover to pick up a MATS DC-6 across the Pacific; later changed to Honolulu in the jet age.
Also later again to visit SRI in Menlo Park.
Motels are the same everywhere.
"And who determines who is a "drug addict" or an "untreated mentally ill" person?" Actually it's pretty easy here. It's the guy screaming like a lunatic wearing one shoe, smeared with feces and dragging a pee stained blanket (like I saw last week off Kearney) I am guessing even a "mental health professional" like yourself can easily discern who should be gathered up and taken off the streets.
Farmer, all people currently living in the street should be triaged and treated as follows:
1. Homeless due to purely economic circumstances, can include families.
2. Drug addict [e.g., meth-heads--just ask me how to identify them--and heroin addicts].
3. Mentally ill w/o drug abuse.
4. Mentally ill w/drug abuse.
Medicating and even institutionalizing psychotic people against their will used to be done routinely. A grave disservice was done to these people, to their families and to society when this practice was ended.
Grist for the next Texas vs. California roundup...
I bet the medical group that changed its mind was the American Gastroenterological Association. Docs like to get away from their work environment when they go to conventions. they see enough shit at work and don't need to see more.
FullMoon:
Bullshit.
People do not move to red states in order to turn them blue.
Not all of 'em, and not always consciously or intentionally among those who end up doing just that.
They leave in order to escape.
Yes, but the problem is that many who migrate don't seem to understand what created the conditions from which they are trying to escape. If they did, we wouldn't see the relentless "Californication" of places like Colorado and the Northwest. And yet that's exactly what we do see.
Another constantly stupid thing I hear is how new people from California drive up real estate prices. Don't blame them. Blame your greedy neighbors and real estate agents for gouging the new guys with higher prices. That is what drives the price up.
Speaking of stupid...guess you think supply and demand doesn't apply to housing costs.
Do you actually know any transplants who bring the blue wave with them? Everybody I know who leaves Ca does so to get away from the libs, not to change the place they move to.
Full Moon, that may be a recent phenomenon but I can assure you that Californians moving to WA state in past decades brought their blue wave with them. And the rest of their culture.
What I don't understand is why the association, which goes to SF only every 3-4 years, is going to come to SF this year and in 2023. If things are so bad now, why not just pull out now? Who knows what SF street life will be like in 2025 or later?
This seems like a story with little substance and a hidden agenda.
I get a palpable feeling whenever I am in Oregon that the locals hate Californians moving in to turn it into another blue state hell hole. There are lots of ha-ha kidding, not kidding signs posted about 'Californians please visit but don't move here' billboards and bumper stickers. Who would blame them? Oregon has a lot of natural beauty and is very 2nd amendment friendly. Why louse it up with blue state freaks who can't even figure out which bathrooms to use?
40 Years of Political Change in WA
Do you actually know any transplants who bring the blue wave with them? Everybody I know who leaves Ca does so to get away from the libs, not to change the place they move to.
@ Full Moon.
The blue wave doesn't come all at once like a giant tsunami. It is an insidious drip drip drip like gradually increasing water in the basement. Until one day the blue water has swamped the existing culture. It isn't everyone who moves. There are many, like my husband myself who would LOVE to leave this State and NOT want to bring anything California with us. Well....except guacamole and dungeness crab. However, it is enough that it (the blue wave) happens.
They don't mean to do it. They can't help themselves. In fact, they are like giant toddlers who keep getting surprised that the stove is hot but keep testing just in case.
If you don't believe the people who are living the experience, who have seen over the last 35 years the changes that the liberalized way of thinking wreaks....well I don't know what would convince you.
@mockturtle:
Farmer, all people currently living in the street should be triaged and treated as follows:
Now you've narrowed yourself. You originally said "And as I suggested recently we [yes, the American government] needs to collect the drug addicts and the untreated mentally ill..."
Most drug addicts and untreated mentally ill are not homeless.
@GK1:
Actually it's pretty easy here. It's the guy screaming like a lunatic wearing one shoe, smeared with feces and dragging a pee stained blanket (like I saw last week off Kearney) I am guessing even a "mental health professional" like yourself can easily discern who should be gathered up and taken off the streets.
And then what? Once hospitalized and medicated they will get better and no longer require inpatient treatment. Keeping them med compliant in the community is the challenge. Basic medical ethics require maintaining people in the least restrictive environment possible. Go spend a week in an inpatient psychiatric setting and then come back and tell me how easy a problem it is to solve.
What I don't understand is why the association, which goes to SF only every 3-4 years, is going to come to SF this year and in 2023. If things are so bad now, why not just pull out now? Who knows what SF street life will be like in 2025 or later?
The Professional Society of which I am a member is starting a new 4-year rotation among 4 cities in the next couple years. It's those 4 cities through 2036, if I'm remembering right. Maybe 2032. Contracts for meetings extend years into the future.
This is what I felt when I visited SF recently - a very singular and beautiful place, for sure, but with a menacing undertone to the place.
"Once hospitalized and medicated they will get better and no longer require inpatient treatment" Oh, really "mental health professional"? It's really that easy? Are you sure you are an expert in this field? Pretending there is no solution to this problem and just letting the city slide into a shit hole is no longer tenable. Involuntary institutionalization may make seem terrible but where is the humanity in letting people wallow in their own filth and disease?
@Gk1:
"Once hospitalized and medicated they will get better and no longer require inpatient treatment" Oh, really "mental health professional"? It's really that easy? Are you sure you are an expert in this field? Pretending there is no solution to this problem and just letting the city slide into a shit hole is no longer tenable. Involuntary institutionalization may make seem terrible but where is the humanity in letting people wallow in their own filth and disease?
I have worked in residential mental health settings my entire adult life. Perhaps you can share the source of your knowledge on the subject. And of course I never said that "there is no solution." I said that it is a very complicated problem that is not amenable to easy answers like, "let's just bring back institutionalization."
If you care to go back to one of my earlier comments, I provided a link to an article by Leon Eisenberg, one of the most preeminent clinical psychiatrists of the second half of the 20th century who recounts the changes to the field during his 60+ years of clinical experience.
Fullmoon, well "mental health professionals" tell me there is no solution other than politely asking crazy people to take their meds and just shrugging if they don't. I am thinking we need to try something different before we have a massive typhus outbreak.
@Full Moon:
Exactly correct. Some crazies OK with meds but will stop as soon as they are out the door. And, not gonna show up for the outpatient appointment next week either.
And once someone is successfully treated with psychotropics and no longer demonstrating acute symptoms or posing a danger to themselves or others, good luck getting a judge to continue to hold them involuntarily.
@Gk1:
Fullmoon, well "mental health professionals" tell me there is no solution other than politely asking crazy people to take their meds and just shrugging if they don't. I am thinking we need to try something different before we have a massive typhus outbreak.
Perhaps you can tell us how many chronic homeless individuals you think there are in this country?
In fact, let's hear from anybody who actually has met a transplanted Californian. Like I said, why move anywhere else except to get away from the politics here?
First of all it isn't JUST Californians we are talking about, although those are the prime example. It is liberals in general and even some non liberals who are moving out of their liberal enclaves. Many are moving for the weather....like to Arizona. Moving for recreational activities. Others are moving for economic reasons, retiring and getting a cheaper home. Others are moving to be close to other family.
Whatever the reason, they keep bringing their liberal attitudes with them and fucking up the place.
Next and more importantly. I AM A CALIFORNIAN SINCE 1959 LIVING IN CALIFORNIA The area that I live in now for the last 35 years is in the north eastern part of the state and is about as RED as you can get.
The transplanted Californians {and we have a lot of them) that we see who are the problem, come from LA, Bay Area, Marin County, Santa Barbara, and other blue controlled areas. Many of them say they are trying to escape, but they keep bringing their bullshit with them.
Want an example? Sure you do. In our remote area, due to new county building code enacted by NEW transplants to the county offices...... IF you want to build a two car garage, you MUST install two charging stations in the garage. Whether you ever plan to have an electric car or not. Whether an electric car is even feasible for our remote area. Not a state law, just some asshole save the planet idiots who live in the city and brought their city ideas with them.
Another one? Guy bought a 20 acre parcel next to a remote area. Discovered that there are range cattle, allowed and legal for the last 40+ years, who don't understand survey markers and occasionally wander onto part of his unfenced land. Threw a giant hissy fit and was lucky that he wasn't found face down in a pit in the lava beds. Normal people would go to the rancher and work out a way to deter the cattle or just freaking ignore it.
Another? I work as a volunteer at our local, privately owned, non profit library which we started in the late 1980's because the County decided we weren't worth putting in a branch. Our branch is better, larger than the actual County branch in a nearby town. Some new transplants came in to complain that they thought the children's section had some insensitive books and they should be removed. Not politically correct enough or something. We politely told them that we aren't a government agency and they can stuff it.
Not all transplants are that way. There are many who truly relish the change and blend into the community. Once you prove you are going to fit in and not be a PITA, life is good.
@Full Moon:
The overwhelming majority of people with schizophrenia do not experience homelessness. And only a minority of the homeless suffer from schizophrenia. That's conflating two different problems.
I know - the conversation has devolved into a less relevant realm IMO.
Why did you let that happen?
Because it is illegal to shoot them :-D
@Full Moon:
My point was, some know they are crazy and do not want to be that way.
Oh I agree. But it is not some, it is most.
Take the example of your friend. Do you think indefinite confinement to a psychiatric hospital is in his or her best interest? After all, we can never be sure that he or she won't stay med compliant and become psychotic again during a manic episode.
In the early 70's a friend's husband, a high school teacher, was institutionalized for psychosis [my friend believed it was due to, or exacerbated by, marijuana use]. I visited him with her a couple of times. He was able to go out to dinner with us but was anxious to get back afterward. When he was released he killed himself a short time later by driving his car into a tree at high speed. I think the institution gave him a feeling of security and structure that he desperately needed with his disordered mind. It is my opinion that some do need permanent placement. The real problem is that mental institutions are not properly funded nor are they well run, for the most part. These folks deserve better than they get. But freedom isn't the best situation for everyone.
J.Farmer I need to ask you, where do you live? Do you live in the bay area? Have you ever visited? I am not a "mental health professional" so I'll cede that the laws for keeping mentally ill people off the streets changed in the 70's to an outpatient model to cut costs. How has that worked out for the country? I have no idea the number of mentally ill vs. drug dependent or truly homeless in the bay area but I would hazard a rough estimate of "a lot". It sounds like we need to change the laws back to what they were in the 1960's and shoulder those costs rather than let the crazies run wild.
@Gk1:
J.Farmer I need to ask you, where do you live?
Tampa, Florida is my primary residence.
Do you live in the bay area?
See above.
Have you ever visited?
I'll quote my first comment to this post: "Several old classmates live in San Francisco. The area around Market Street and the Moscone Center is indeed littered with a lot of aggressive bums."
I am not a "mental health professional" so I'll cede that the laws for keeping mentally ill people off the streets changed in the 70's to an outpatient model to cut costs.
That is not the argument. Cost shifting is one component but certainly not the most prominent one. The most proximate cause of deinstitutionalization was the advent of effective psychotropic medication.
How has that worked out for the country?
For the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness it has been a success, since they are maintained effectively in the community with psychotropics and outpatient treatment.
I have no idea the number of mentally ill vs. drug dependent or truly homeless in the bay area but I would hazard a rough estimate of "a lot".
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in January 2017, "There were 86,962 homeless individuals who were considered chronically homeless." That is about 0.03% (or one-third of one-tenth of a percent) of the US population.
It sounds like we need to change the laws back to what they were in the 1960's and shoulder those costs rather than let the crazies run wild.
What laws do you imagine those are?
I'll repeat an earlier question. If a person in a psychiatric hospital is medicated, not displaying acute symptoms, and is not a danger to themselves or others, what is the justification for continued involuntary holding?
@Full Moon:
Surely you agree there are plenty who will never be capable of behaving responsibly.
It is without doubt. What I deny is that we can ever return to a system that existed prior to the advent of psychotropic medication and when psychoanalysis was the dominant modality of treatment. Arguing for a return to institutionalization is about as constructive as arguing for a return of leucotomies.
What I deny is that we can ever return to a system that existed prior to the advent of psychotropic medication and when psychoanalysis was the dominant modality of treatment.
No one has suggested that, Farmer.
If a person in a psychiatric hospital is medicated, not displaying acute symptoms, and is not a danger to themselves or others, what is the justification for continued involuntary holding?
Well and good IF he/she stays on his/her medications. If he/she cannot, he/she is certainly a danger to him/herself and possibly others. As a mental health professional you are probably aware that noncompliance is a major issue with schizophrenics and those with other chronic psychiatric diseases.
As a university student I worked part-time on an acute psychiatric floor in Seattle. Virtually all of our patients came in off their meds. Our unit's goal was to get them back on their meds and stable. Maximum two week stay. If they couldn't be stabilized they were turfed to another facility. It was like a revolving door and I got to know several of the patients pretty well.
@mockturtle:
No one has suggested that, Farmer.
True. You have advocated something far more radical and intrusive.
Well and good IF he/she stays on his/her medications. If he/she cannot, he/she is certainly a danger to him/herself and possibly others. As a mental health professional you are probably aware that noncompliance is a major issue with schizophrenics and those with other chronic psychiatric diseases.
As I wrote several hours ago: "Keeping them med compliant in the community is the challenge."
You cannot indefinitely commit someone because they might go off their meds in the future. Plus, as I have said repeatedly, the overwhelming majority of schizophrenics, probably close to 95+% are never homeless. Even schizophrenics who have chronic trouble with med compliance do not end up homeless.
Tony Bennett sings it best:
"I left my.....turds...in San Francisco..."
The phenomenon of Californian immigrants ruining the places they moved to is not new. It happened in Colorado almost fifty years ago. I know, I was there, I experienced it.
I arrived in Boulder Colorado in 1970. Boulder was still essentially a farmer's town with a university plopped down in the center of it. There were feed stores and there was angle parking on Pearl street and on weekends the parking places were filled with pickup trucks sporting racked rifles. There were only three bars within the city limits that served liquor and only one of these was located downtown (the "Catacombs" in the Boulderado Hotel). The other two were located on the outskirts and the clientele consisted of farmers, ranchers, and CU jocks. Plus there were several "three-two" beer bars, mostly on or near "The Hill." On Baseline Road stood a cluster of newly build high-rise dorms in a field overrun by prairie dogs. It was kind of a shabby little town but charming and quaint and affordable even for financially strapped students like me. In-state tuition at CU was $600 PER YEAR!!!, an amount I earned in tips and salary in the space of a few weeks bartending at Tulagi on the Hill.
All that changed, not quite overnight, but in the next 12-24 months. The town was flooded with refugees from California, especially San Francisco. In their usual fashion, and as described in preceding posts, these newcomers from the West Coast changed things utterly (and rather swiftly), turning Boulder to the left into what quite soon became a smaller version of San Francisco. The old-timer Coloradans -- the ranchers, the farmers, the stockmen, etc. -- fought the changes and there was some violence and legal proceedings as a result. But the natives were overmatched and effectively -- and, after a fashion, quite literally -- driven from Boulder. I fled in c. 1975, moving to Denver, which was undergoing a similar albeit larger-scale transition. Eventually I fled Colorado altogether. What had formerly been an overwhelmingly conservative red state became, over time, deep blue.
Except maybe on the Western Slope. I last visited Colorado several years ago and although the Western Slope was still reddish, the towns were wavering to the left. Sometimes I think about and look into buying a small traveler's pied-a-terre in Durango which along with the rest of southwestern Colorado and the Four Corners area is my idea of paradise. But I dunno if that region has been infected by the blues.
We had a saying in the early 70s when the degringolade started, we'd say "Don't Californicate Colorado." Alas, our resistance was in vain, Colorado was mostly absorbed by the West Coast Borg Collective, it was effectively Californicated.
Hmmm, lots to get through here.
Nonapod, the tech industry is big in SF, but relatively few people both live and work there. The biggest clump live in SF, but work in San Mateo County. There also those who work at (e.g.) Google in SF, but live in Oakland or other parts of the East Bay. But it's the former group that really riles the neighbors. Who do they think they are, taking all those free shuttles?
J. Farmer, you are spot-on about Malthus and Ehrlich. The places on the planet with unsustainably low reproductive replacement levels are Europe, America, Canada, Japan (especially Japan). These are also the places where people complain endlessly about other people having too many kids. If it weren't for immigration (legal and illegal, most of it from majority-Catholic nations), we'd be below replacement level right now; as it is, we more or less break even. But who gets lectured about selfishly wanting children? Us, that's who. Never, ever anyone on the African continent or in the ex-British Raj.
FullMoon,
I not only know a CA transplant, I am one; we moved here seven years ago to Salem, OR after 25 years in the Bay Area (for me, that is; my husband was there much earlier, but I first came out from NY to go to Cal). We, personally, haven't done anything to Californicate the place, and indeed there are few signs of it in Salem, though Portland is another matter. My point, though, is that there's plenty of evidence as to how this does shake out on a large scale. NH and VT really are being damaged by being nearby MA and CT. Austin, TX is a top transplant spot for Californians, and evidently what they want is the Bay Area with better weather.
The Pacific Northwest (whose weather, btw, is neither worse nor better than the Bay Area's -- the real grief is the lack of sun in winter -- you wouldn't believe what a difference 600 miles north makes) isn't ceding everything just yet. OR still has no sales tax on most things; WA still has no income tax. If you live in CA, especially the Bay Area, you know that it has both, and at among the highest levels in the nation. But we are wary.
Oh, and re: DBQ's two-chargers-per-garage story, you appear to be under the misapprehension that there are no electric cars but Teslas. Which is possibly understandable, as you live in a vast state -- sixth-largest economy in the world, isn't it, unless it slipped to seventh or eighth when I wasn't looking? -- in which the only cars of any sort being manufactured at all are ... Teslas. Whereas if you'd look, you'd find that essentially every automaker has one, and many, more than one. Now, as it happens, we have a Tesla, and are extremely happy with it; as it has double and more the range of any of its competitors, and comes with a network of superchargers that's expanding every month, we ought to be. But I imagine DBQ is thinking more along Volt/Bolt/Leaf lines.
Fullmoon said: "Really? Who is running the govt in those places? The Ca transplants, or the locals who grew up there? Do you actually know any transplants who bring the blue wave with them? Everybody I know who leaves Ca does so to get away from the libs, not to change the place they move to."
In Boulder in the early 70s the California transplants made a deliberate, determined, concerted, and ultimately entirely successful effort to take over the town council. It was a veritable putsch, and it was accomplished in the space of a few years. The Bolsheviks among them -- i.e., the leaders -- were from San Francisco and they had fled that city because the Haight-Asbury and other counterculture neighborhoods had become either drug- and crime-infested heroin shooting galleries or because they had been priced out of them by gentrification. They had a created a leftist-progressive-hippie utopia in San Francisco but it had imploded on them so they pulled up stakes and moved to Boulder where they immediately set to work transforming the town into what another progressive paradise. These Bolshevicki leaders were quite adept at engineering this transformation, possessing as they did a decade and more of experience as left-wing political activists in California. They were experienced and seasoned radicals in the mold of Russia's Bolshevist inner-circle whom they deliberately emulated and admired -- and imitated in a number ways. They didn't murder anyone (so far as I knew) but they manipulated the system to undermine the system and seize the levers of power. They bought property and set up businesses and ran for office and cultivated the vote of the many Californian immigrants who flooded into Boulder and who eventually tipped the electoral balance in their favor.
"My memory of Haight Ashbury is that it was a ghetto before the druggies and worse after. "
Its a very expensive residential neighborhood now, and a tourist destination.
Not a lot of genuine hippies there. Though there are some homeless. As in most places where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic.
The bulk of San Francisco, where the people actually live, is not overrun with the homeless. Out of @850,000 residents there are at most 10,000 "homeless", and these aren't all out on the streets. And a lot of the people on the street looking homeless aren't actually homeless, they are just there to make money.
There are a very small number of public nuisances in the city, a few hundred to a thousand-odd on any given day, that infest public areas and especially tourist destinations.
I gather that in the old days the cops would roust anyone making himself a nuisance or an eyesore. Modern mores no longer permit this sort of judgment call, preferring a sort of ideal of justice and due process, that is inhuman and impractical.
And the above has been so since the 1980's.
A question -
Has the rate of mental illness truly increased?
Is the US overrun with the hopelessly insane?
I gather that there are very large differences between countries in the rate of diagnosis.
I haven't seen San Francisco style public insanity in most countries.
buwaya puti, you are by far one of the most knowledgeable posters on Althouse but I am taken aback you do not mention the dimension of the homeless tent cities & encampments https://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/division-street/ in SF, Oakland and Alameda for starters. Last year I thought I was in Calcutta driving by the underpass on the way to Alameda. How does the city turn a blind eye to this? Is it really just 10k in your assessment? I don't think I have seen any reliable figures from the city which has basically been awol on the whole matter. When they do manage to clean up a strip of temporary tents and lean tos, it just comes back a month or so later.
DBQ: Another? I work as a volunteer at our local, privately owned, non profit library which we started in the late 1980's because the County decided we weren't worth putting in a branch. Our branch is better, larger than the actual County branch in a nearby town. Some new transplants came in to complain that they thought the children's section had some insensitive books and they should be removed. Not politically correct enough or something. We politely told them that we aren't a government agency and they can stuff it.
Ha. That's beautiful.
Yes, the "official" count for San Francisco proper is around 10,000
That's enough to create tent cities, or at least fill the sidewalks of many city blocks with them.
I have walked through these settlements, on those sidewalks, often enough, much closer and more personally than driving by. The tents are visible, but they are not Calcutta-crowded, indeed most are empty, the owners evidently being off pursuing their avocations. A dozen tents/encampments per block are enough to give the impression, but there are a limited number of residents.
I think the impression of numbers is much greater than the actual numbers, and similarly the impact of these people is much greater.. I was just at Powell&Market, around noon on a nice sunny day. There were maybe a thousand people within two blocks in every direction, as it is a busy place. Out of those people, and I was counting, there were about two dozen obvious bums.
The city is of course handcuffed by absurd laws and the foolish moral vanity of the usual people, but the problem should not otherwise be a problem.
What did these Ca transplants do for work in Boulder? Must have been a lot of good paying jobs available to attract people from SF to the climate in Boulder.
The Bolshevik leaders came with money after cashing out in California. They bought property and set up businesses. They started small and expanded, gaining and building momentum as they did so. It was the "oil spot" theory of counter-insurgency, but in reverse. They gained a foothold, or a beachhead if you will, that was both material and cultural in its composition and they worked tirelessly and ruthlessly to increase it. Boulder was very inexpensive to live in back then, a place where one could easily get something started with minimal capital if you knew what you were about.
If you want to know how the left seized power in Boulder and transformed it into a progressive town you need only study the tactics and strateges of the Russian Bolsheviks. Remember, the Bolsheviks were not numerous and most Russians disliked both them and their agenda. But they were vastly more competent than their opponents -- more focused, determined, and ruthless. Native Boulderites were no match for these radicalized interlopers, many of whom had ten years and more of experience as leftist political activists in California. The passage of the 26th Amendment in 1971 proved incalculably beneficial to their efforts and sealed the doom of the "Old Boulder." At a stroke the students at the University of Colorado were added to the voter rolls, and they sided overwhelmingly with the leftists in the local elections. In the 1972 election which Nixon won in a landslide, Boulder voted overwhelmingly for McGovern and for leftist candidates running for town council. By then the Vietnam War had been ongoing for over a decade and incoming students -- who hailed from all over the U.S., so popular and affordable was CU at the time -- had pretty much absorbed the leftist counterculture ethos and leaned liberal/left. This process of moving left by the first-time voters in 1972 was, I think, largely unconscious; it was almost as if young people had been infected by a virus they didn't know they had, and without knowing how they got it. Call it Gramsci's triumph. It proved disastrous for Boulder.
The real problem is that mental institutions are not properly funded...
Blame Medicaid:
...there is intense pressure on states to close psychiatric hospitals due to a little known, but very important provision of Medicaid law referred to as the “Institute for Mental Disease (IMD) Exclusion”. The IMD Exclusion prevents federal Medicaid funds from being used by states to care for individuals between 21 years old and 65 years old who live in institutions which specialize in the treatment of psychiatric disorders (IMDs).
The IMD exclusion was included in Medicaid legislation because the federal government did not want to pick up what had historically been a state responsibility: caring for individuals with NBD [neurobiological disorders]. But the IMD Exclusion has had the exact opposite effect: it forces states to kick people out of hospitals so the state can get reimbursed (generally 50%) from the federal government for their care in the community.
In order for states to access the federal Medicaid funds, they have to kick the individual out of the psychiatric hospital, no matter how sick or inappropriate discharge is. Hence we see a trend for hospitals to release individuals sicker and quicker and without appropriate referrals to community based care. This on-going form of deinstitutionalization is being done for one reason above all. It has nothing to do with the advent of new treatments, the desire to treat in the least restrictive environment, or patient needs and wants. It is simply a way to turn non-Medicaid eligible individuals into Medicaid eligible individuals so the state can access federal dollars for their care.
@buwaya puti:
The most recent (2017) count of homeless in San Francisco was 7,499 (42% of whom were sheltered). Chronically homeless was counted as 2,138 (27% of whom were sheltered). You can read the results of their point-in-time count here.
@buwaya puti:
A question -
Has the rate of mental illness truly increased?
Increased from what point? The amount counted as chronically homeless has been decreasing for several years.
Out of those people, and I was counting, there were about two dozen obvious bums.
That's a lot. And 10,000+ homeless is a lot. It doesn't take many to sow chaos and disorder. The perception of disorder actually generates disorder. Hence the "broken windows" theory. Things fall apart when the falcon starts turning in his gyre. The Russian Bolsheviks, e.g. understood this. It's a question of leverage. Rudy Giuliani understood this and used his understanding to save New York City. San Francisco needs a Giuliani now. But I doubt that it will get one.
My gripe is being lumped in with these jerk-offs because I am from California.
Be assured that I'm not lumping you in with those jerk-offs because you're from California.
I voted for Trump. Make of that what you will.
FullMoon: See, right there. You are not talking about Californians like me, Buwaya, Bay area guy, etc. You are talking about Leftists
My gripe is being lumped in with these jerk-offs because I am from California
Yeah, everybody here scuzzing California transplants would really be unhappy if, say, DBQ showed up in their town with a moving van.
Taking this discussion about the phenomenon of Californication rather personally, aren't you? Influxes of Californians have predictable effects on the affected communities, regardless of some of the transplanted individuals not being shitlibs themselves (whether of the "wreck it on purpose" leftist activist type, or the thoughtless prog dingbat who knows not what he does).
If you're not pulling stupid California shitlib shenanigans in the place you migrated to, the complaints don't apply to you.
Full Moon, there are non-jerk-offs in California. You are likely one of them. I have relatives in CA. They, however, are pretty-much jerk-offs. Of course, they don't realize that because Californians are clueless. Most of them. They probably aren't even consciously aware that they Californicate other states. They just think that the Californian way is the only way and want to enrich everyone else with their experience.
You mentioned school systems. Californians took over many of the school systems in WA and Californian architects designed California-style schools--open walkways, etc.--in a place where it rains most of the year. I could go on but I don't want you to feel discouraged.
"My memory of Haight Ashbury is that it was a ghetto before the druggies and worse after."
My wife, when she was 16 and a high school graduate, worked as a baby sitter in Haight Ashbury for a women bus driver. At the time it was a blue collar, lower middle class neighborhood. That would have been about 1961. She lived there about a year. It was pre-hippie.
She had moved up there after high school and returned to LA a year later.
I was last in Haight in about 1970 and by then it had been largely taken over by meth-heads [called speed freaks then]. My last memory of it was some guy angrily kicking a metal garbage can down the street.
"It doesn't take many to sow chaos and disorder."
No it doesn't. That's my point. It should not take much to "fix" San Francisco, at least in this respect.
A lot of rich Californians move to romantic spots. A movie producer bought a ranch in Montana about 20 years ago.
He built a big expensive house and a series of guest houses around it.
He fenced the whole compound and a local nature group pointed out that he had blocked an elk migration route.
They asked him to take down the fences and he told them to fuck off.
That's why Californians are so beloved.
Colorado was a magnet as the scenery is pretty.
The evolution of Seattle is amazing. Sixty years ago, Washington had "Blue Laws" and Seattle was a blue collar town.
A lot is the effect of Microsoft and Amazon, which attract techies who love nature, as long as it is outside.
I would not live in Seattle now but I remember how it was.
I see myself as a stranger in a strange land.
If we were to move to a "red" state it would be just as strange a land, a different sort of strange.
Of course, they don't realize that because Californians are clueless. Most of them. They probably aren't even consciously aware that they Californicate other states.
You're right about that. However ... the California radical activists who came to Boulder in the early 70s knew exactly what they were doing and what they were about. I knew several of them personally, including the prominent ones, the leaders. They were like Bolshevik commissars in Revolutionary and Civil War Russia. They reminded me of Strelnikov in "Dr. Zhivago." For them the personal was completely and utterly political and the political struggle consumed their energies. They fancied themselves social revolutionaries. Had their been an actual armed leftist revolution in the U.S. of the sort envisioned and promoted by the Weather Underground they would have been the willing executioners putting bullets in the necks of the wreckers, roaders, reactionaries, Kulaks, etc.
My wife and I spent our honeymoon in SF 54 years ago. We don’t live all that far from SF. We went to old school SF restaurants, stayed in a hotel that has been torn down, whatever replaced it, torn down, now it’s a parking lot where parking your car all day will cost you more than a two nights stay in our honeymoon hotel. With a jazz combo fronted by a nationally known pianist. We rode the cablecars when they were still used by San Franciscans to go to work. It was magic. We went back for a lot of years. Last time we spent overnight there we were helping some friends do some research into his great grandfather. Needed to go to the library, the escalator at the Civic Center BART station wasn’t working .... because ..... wait for it ..... bums crap in the works. And the maintenance crews can’t clean the stool up because it’s unsanitary.. seriously.
It should not take much to "fix" San Francisco, at least in this respect.
From your lips to God's ears.
But the lightbulb has got to want to change. And there's the rub.
If we were to move to a "red" state it would be just as strange a land, a different sort of strange.
We moved to Tucson two years ago from Orange County.
I have had connections to Tucson for years and had a house here when my daughter went to U of A.
I know a lot of people in Phoenix who wished they lived in Tucson but live up there for work.
California just got too crazy for me. I was there 60 years and my wife is third generation.
My younger son is planning to retire somewhere else. So is my oldest daughter.
My son's best friend sold out and moved to Atlanta. He bought the Atlanta house for cash and it is much bigger than his Orange County home. More and more are going to do that.
I miss the ocean but that is all.
""My memory of Haight Ashbury is that it was a ghetto before the druggies and worse after.""
Reminds me of George Harrison's absolute disillusion about Haight Ashbury when he visited.
New tourist slogan:
"San Francisco! It's the shit!"
San Francisco has always been a bar town ever since I remember visiting in the mid-60's. Then along came the Summer of Love and they were off to the races. The police have always tolerated open marijuana use going back to that era.
Today's California state laws have rolled back the consequences for drugs making the police even less interested in enforcement. The crisis of having used needles everywhere has to do with the fact that druggies find it is now the cheapest high and it can be supplemented by visiting government sponsored methadone clinics. The government also hands out free needles. LA isn't any better. Welcome to California.
Michael K., I visit Tucson every March. I think the Sonora Desert is more interesting than the ocean. Of course, I haven't been there in the summer. On a hot day, visit Sonoran Delights in the Barrio District and have a Raspados. It will cool you down.
The Mexican food in Tucson and up in Phoenix is much better than the Los Angeles. We like to hike, bird watch and star gaze there.
Is Sausalito still nice?
" I haven't been there in the summer. "
We'll put you up. We spend those afternoons in the pool.
Tucson has one bad month, June and may be early July.
The monsoon is now teasing us with clouds in the east.
I love California and have always loved it. But it's gotten truly fucked up. I do regular business in San Francisco. For years I loved visiting that city, but about 2-3 years ago, I decided that, while I did have to do work there, I didn't have to stay there. I made the change to just keep driving a bit, over the bridge into Marin County to stay, while I do work in the city. It wasn't one thing, but dozens of things. Mostly the bodies on the street and the crap you have to deal with just to get from point A to point B. Having to step around bodies on the way into business meetings, and while up in the beautiful offices that will allow you in only by buzzer, looking out the window from our conference room, seeing a tent city of homeless. I've been doing the meetings for years and watching that homeless city grow from a couple of tents into a virtual city. That, plus the ridiculous mindset of the people in and around that town have taken it from desirable to disgraceful. Look- when the city leaders heard too many complaints about people just pissing and shitting in the streets, their answer was to build outdoor pee holes, encouraging those who would normally just piss in the entryway of a building, to now piss over at the end of the street, onto that piece of concrete with a drain. There are too many nice places to visit. Aside from having to do business there, I'm done with it. Marin may have it's stuff, but at least (for now) they keep it clean, nice. Quite beautiful. And SF looks dirty, old, and monochromatic to me now.
I was in Flagstaff one July day and a monsoon storm hit with hail and lightning. When it was over 15 minutes later, it went back to 80 degrees.
I have visited just about every corner of Arizona hence my moniker. People ask me why don't you move. I tell them my wife said all our family and friends live in LA. I tell them I don't like my family and I can make new friends.
DBQ: I too am a long time Californian.
What folks do not realize, is that in 1994 Californians, in high turnout, voted overwhelmingly (59%) for proposition 187, the Save Our State initiative. SOS would have denied state services to illegal immigrants. It was overturned by a FEDERAL judge, who claimed Californians were trying to limit immigration, which is a Federal concern. That is, somewhere in the constitution, it says "States must give the same services it gives its citizens to illegals."
California was destroyed by the US Federal government.
Now, CA is overrun. I looked at the 2018 General fund, and $50+B is going to K-12 education (> half hispanic), $33.8B to welfare, (they cut out $212 million, .02%, for transportation for the poor slobs who try to balance family and work). Meanwhile, the average Hispanic household income is $48K, and has a large household size, which is to say these households are paying little to no state income tax. In 1980, the first census in which Hispanics were counted, there were 4.5 Million. In 2010 there were 14 Million. I'm willing to bet the vast majority are illegals and their progeny, though to be clear, the primary failure goes to our Federal government.
Check out the growth of Hispanics in CA since records were kept:
1980: XXXX
1990: XXXXXXX
2000: XXXXXXXXXXX
2010: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Now that Trump is going to suck out more money from CA, how are these people going to be paid for? Taxes are extremely high. I'm pretty certain I pay about the same percentage in CA taxes as I pay in Federal income taxes.
Meanwhile, assimilation isn't all that great, as evidenced by gang affiliation, high school dropout rate, and poor college matriculation. Even unto the 3rd generation (which I suppose you have to be careful of, since if you weren't born here some now argue that's the first generation).
In 1990, there were 17 Million whites in the state, and in 2010 there are less than 15 million.
Its unsustainable. I was born in Oakland while parents attended college, and except for a brief sojourn in Europe while young, have lived in SF/SF Bay area ever since.
Yes, my house is worth a lot of money, and thank goodness for Proposition 13, since otherwise I could not afford my property taxes and work at a startup (especially with Trump's clever/nasty/mean tax increases). And since they fired Damore, I decided Google is out of the question.
All this is leading me to getting out of California. I'm an atheist believer in the constitution ala Gorsuch (really appreciated his dissent in Carpenter vs. the US) white, and wonder where I can go without kicking off the antibodies.
I want out of California. Or at least, I want to stop them sucking my productivity support their stupid, idiotic, moronic ideas.
Ideas for a person like me? Please, let me know. I want to have a garden over two or three acres, so water is required (oddly, we have a good well where we live, and its cheap so long as CA doesn't follow through on their threats to tax that too).
becauseidbefired,
Midwest. We were long-time residents of CA (I'm a native), after I retired from the Navy stayed for another 20+ years. Moved to NE 2 years ago, to be closer to our grandchildren. Love it. (Not unexpectedly, my parents are both from the midwest, and wife grew up in the midwest, so we both spent a fair amount of time here prior to the move.(
Having grown up in the beauty of Western WA I admit that the notion of giving up the ocean, glacier peaks and crystal clear rivers for the flat land of the Midwest is a little depressing so I can sympathize with those reluctant to leave CA. I opted for AZ mostly for the weather and we have mountains here and awe-inspiring canyons. Overall, it's a scenic state and, so far, a red state. But I travel half the year [usually] in my RV so I can enjoy scenery even outside of my home state and visit my family still in WA. I'm a nomad at heart but the life is not for everyone.
Perhaps you can tell us how many chronic homeless individuals you think there are in this country?
A conservative would say, "Way too many."
A liberal would say, "Way too many thanks to Reagan, GHWB, GWB and Trump and all the little Hitlers."
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