San Francisco. My walk to work: Homeless in San Francisco
Originally uploaded by Kaustav Bhattacharya
An apparent 'new arrival' to San Franciso took pictures and posted them on Flickr.
She talks about her being afraid of aggressive panhandlers.
You can click on the link below to read her original posting on Flickr.
The story she told is an example of how bad acting homeless people can make tourists nervous.
Many people in our society have a bad tendency to do 'group think' (hey, Obama used that word in his press conference yesterday!) where they project the bad acts of one onto an entire group to make assumptions about all 'this group' or that.
According to what she wrote and from conversations we've had with tourists all around the City and especially around Union Square, it seems that most foreigners cannot understand why San Francisco, one of the most affluent and fortunate cities in the world, has what seems to be so many aggressive homeless residents.
In their countries, they 'take care' of their people without shame or blame. In France, for instance, homelessness is outlawed and local governments are required by National Law to provide Safe Spaces for ALL of their homeless residents and their sick and elderly.
In this posting, we commented that it's not the fault of the residents of San Francisco, but the fault of City leaders, politicians and special interest groups who PROFIT when there are more homeless people in the streets where they are easy prey for all kinds of abuse and scams.
In San Francisco we have some elite types and others that are not from here and we have some public leaders that KEEP CUTTING off funding for mental health, safe spaces, shelter beds and that keeps creating bad debt in the form of harassing tickets and too much money ($300 Million) is being spent on police and city workers for overtime.
And we also commented on the lack of oversight which means we cannot even account for the money spent on our people or tell you exactly, with any accuracy, how many shelter beds are really available or how many people are being turned away or denied basic services each day. Simply put, elite and shortsided politicians and special interest groups here (and in other cities) are WASTING MONEY AND RESOURCES meant to help our people properly.
Then because of this City's bad policies, we end up with more residents becoming stressed out, desperate and mentally ill (and aggressive) and criminalized. All of these bad things are a direct result of the cutting off of these vital social and health programs and safe spaces, which used to keep us all much safer than we are today. Mayor Newsom (and others that think the same way) are stuck in a stone age pattern of cutting off funds that prevent problems, such as mental health and shelter beds and affordable housing.
This constant lack of proper planning and funding for these preventive and harm reduction type services and programs causes more panic; bigger crisis and often results in more sickeness and premature death for our residents.
Our people are harmed and our tourism, in part, is harmed as the result criminal neglect; ignorance and indifference about these bad policies which are still being followed by City Hall today. Mayor Newsom seems to keep moving in the direction of limited business and special interest groups, which is the exact opposite direction we should be heading in, in order to help keep all San Franciscans safe which makes our City safer for tourists to enjoy, as well.
Safe, happy and productive residents make San Francisco a better place for all San Franciscans and for our beloved Tourists who deserve to leave here feeling good with respect for the way that San Francisco takes good care of our people, just as they do in their countries.
Right now, due to bad policy habits built up over many years of shortsided 'fake' planning, our City appears to be abusing our people which is going to keep turning off our tourists which are our life blood for our local economy.
Which all in turn, makes our people sicker and more desperate and aggressive. It's the behavior caused by desperation that scares off our tourists.
When our people are not treated right, they get worse off and bitter about their life here.
What we do to our people, homeless or not, affects every other person, business and aspect of our lives here. We cannot treat people badly like we are living in some isolated vaccuum where we assume that we can mistreat or neglect others without there being consequencs that come back to haunt us later. When we harm our own people, tourism suffers. If we had clean, safe and happy homeless people, it would be entertaining to the tourists who would be safer. Our Own City Leaders Are Often Times, Our Own Worst Enemy.
Especially when the ideas come from on high or from out of town, they always fail and make everything worse for everyone. We must include our people and listen to their ideas and do what they want to keep us all safe. Happy Thanksgiving ! SFHomeless Yahoo! Group Moderators
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