Street life, Daly style
Maya writes:
"Hello -
Thanks for putting up your blog! I'm really sick of the stuff that goes on in our neighborhood too, and I've never been able to even get ahold of Chris Daly to ask what he can do to improve things. Some of my friends support him (and I have to confess that I voted for him the first time) but after they visit my studio a few times, they start to share my opinion about the way that our neighborhood has been neglected by City Hall. It's like a third-world country here! And it's so unfair, because of how nice many of the buildings and restaurants there are, and how great the location is.
I wanted to show you something that I see almost every day. (Sorry, my phone doesn't take the best pics.) It's this guy in a wheelchair who scoots around between the cars at the intersection of Larkin and Geary almost every day, panhandling from the cars as they drive by. I see Police cars go by all the time, but I've never seen them pull over and tell him to get out of the street. I can't believe he's never been hit (who knows, maybe he has!) but cars honk and every time I hear tires squealing, I think I'm going to hear a crash of them hitting him. Surely there's got to be some city agency that could deal with this, or some group that Daly is involved with that should be involved. It's just so symptomatic of our neighborhood, that everyone turns a blind eye to the problems. Anyway, thanks and good luck. - Maya"
Thanks, Maya!
"Hello -
Thanks for putting up your blog! I'm really sick of the stuff that goes on in our neighborhood too, and I've never been able to even get ahold of Chris Daly to ask what he can do to improve things. Some of my friends support him (and I have to confess that I voted for him the first time) but after they visit my studio a few times, they start to share my opinion about the way that our neighborhood has been neglected by City Hall. It's like a third-world country here! And it's so unfair, because of how nice many of the buildings and restaurants there are, and how great the location is.
I wanted to show you something that I see almost every day. (Sorry, my phone doesn't take the best pics.) It's this guy in a wheelchair who scoots around between the cars at the intersection of Larkin and Geary almost every day, panhandling from the cars as they drive by. I see Police cars go by all the time, but I've never seen them pull over and tell him to get out of the street. I can't believe he's never been hit (who knows, maybe he has!) but cars honk and every time I hear tires squealing, I think I'm going to hear a crash of them hitting him. Surely there's got to be some city agency that could deal with this, or some group that Daly is involved with that should be involved. It's just so symptomatic of our neighborhood, that everyone turns a blind eye to the problems. Anyway, thanks and good luck. - Maya"
Thanks, Maya!
posted by the clicker at 7:37 PM
6 Comments:
Are there really people so lost to charity and empathy that they can think of a beggar primarily as a traffic hazard?
I can't answer for Maya, but I don't think that you can construe that she primarily thinks of this guy as a traffic hazard, and not first as a human being. But the fact is that he's chosing to go out into the street to beg, which (a) puts his life in danger, (b) puts OTHER peoples' lives in danger, and (c) is against the law for those and other good reasons.
You also perhaps have a different perception of "charity" than some. San Francsico has many times the number of panhandlers of any other city in America, for two main reasons (and not because we have more needy people than elsewhere): we tolerate it and there are people here who believe that they're helping the needy, which is often not the case.
In the past 20 years, San Francisco has become the panhandling capital of the US. Simply giving panhandlers money, or taking a laissez-faire attitude like Chris Daly has, or turning a blind eye to the practice like the police and DA's office, isn't going to take care of people in need, or make the problem go away.
- Well, everyone has a different definition of "choice," I guess. If the guy's choice is between begging and not having money, yeah, I suppose he's making the choice to beg. Isn't a professional political fundraiser doing the same thing, possibly for more noxious purposes?
- Can you cite to any genuine statistic in any independently published report on relative numbers of panhandlers in U.S. cities? How do we know you're not guessing at the numbers?
- You're assuming (a) that it's possible to get rid of visibly poor people by punishing them, (b) that visible street poverty is a willful crime rather than an un-willed condition of life, (c) that any of the world's major moral or religious value systems condones scapegoating the poor for any purpose, let alone the unworthy purpose of influencing elections, and (d) that Chris Daly has more control over the Police Department's behavior in the Tenderloin than, say, Mayor Newsom, the Tenderloin Task Force police captain, or the San Francisco Police Officers' Association, all of whom I suspect you'd prefer not to criticize.
>> Can you cite to any genuine statistic in any independently published report on relative numbers of panhandlers in U.S. cities? How do we know you're not guessing at the numbers? <<
I don't want to broaden this topic too far, but here is some data:
SF County has a population of 750,000 with somewhere between 6,000 and 14,000 homeless (depending on whose statistics you choose to believe). Alameda County, which is more than twice our size, has a homeless population of only about 1,200. Contra Costa County: 1 million people, but only 500 homeless. LA County: 10 million, 7,000 homeless. We're the homeless capital of the US; there's no doubt of that.
Wikipedia says "The city of San Francisco, due to its mild climate and its social programs that have provided cash payments for homeless individuals, is often considered the homelessness capital of the United States. The city's homeless population has been estimated at 7,000-10,000 people. It is believed that New York, which is 10 times as large in population, has only 5 times as many homeless individuals."
San Francisco also spends far more per capita on homeless services than any other city -- $250 million per year. That's $333 out of every resident's pocket every year, and it equals about $20,000 spent on each homeless person, or about what they would be earning if they were working full-time at $12.50 an hour.
Interestingly, more than half of all homeless people in SF have lived here for less than 7 years.
As for hard data about panhandlers, rather than just homeless people -- I've never seen such information compiled; I don't know if it's even possible. But I do travel a lot, and I have never seen the level of panhandling in any other US city that I see in SF; not even close. Have you? And I hear that echoed by visitors all the time.
You might find these articles interesting: http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_4_a2.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0305/p01s02-uspo.html
Finally, in response to your last points: (a) I'm not advocating "getting rid of the visible poor", nor do I think that was Maya's point. Her post was about a poor person doing something that was dangerous and illegal. I ride along that stretch of Larkin on my scooter quite often, and I can tell you that it's dangerous enough without having to worry about someone in a wheelchair in the street, surprising motorists and causing them to swerve.
(b) Again, you're conflating "visible street poverty" with panhandling, and with panhandling in the street. These are not the same things.
(c) I don't think that this really has anything to do with the issue.
(d) Without a doubt, Chris Daly wields considerable influence over both the Tenderloin Taskforce Police Station and the DA's office. Or rather, he could if he chose to. His relationship with the SFPD has been antagonistic (just recently he shouted at a policeman that he would get him fired), and his lack of pressure on the DA's office has meant that many crimes in D-6 have gone un-prosecuted. I know this for a fact, having reported two crimes that were never prosecuted, due to lack of interest at the DA's office, despite the police acknowledging that the crimes had been committed, and even one of the perpetrators confessing! I also know that, if these crimes had occurred in say, Pacific Heights, they certainly *would've* been prosecuted, not least because Michela Alioto-Pier would never let the DA's office get away with that.
The simple fact is that Chris Daly does not care about what he considers "lifestyle issues" or "quality of life crimes". The littering, tagging, drug sales and use, prostitution, petty theft, fencing stolen goods on the sidewalk, panhandling, public urination and defecation -- there is a long list of things that make our neighborhood the cesspool of San Francisco, and Chris Daly simply doesn't give a damn about it. And for this, he is paid $120,000 a year.
Tender-Nob, yes, we have a lot of people living homeless in San Francisco. Not all homeless people panhandle, not all panhandlers are homeless. As I think you're edging up to saying, when you look at who's panhandling, you are not seeing a representative face of the homeless population.
As for the reasons, wouldn't you attribute some of our visible homelessness to the whoppingly high cost of housing in San Francisco and the relentless gentrification of all the "bad neighborhoods" where cheap housing used to be found?
...and don't bother with City Journal if you're looking for edification. They're just warmed-over Wilson and Kelling with a little fresh callousness for garnish.
Martha --
You asked "wouldn't you attribute some of our visible homelessness to the whoppingly high cost of housing in San Francisco and the relentless gentrification of all the 'bad neighborhoods' where cheap housing used to be found"?
My answer is -- "not really".
First, because San Francisco has *always* had more expensive housing than its neighbors (officially the second-most expensive housing in the US); that's no surprise to anyone who moves here. And EVERYONE who lives in San Francisco -- homeowners, renters and homeless alike -- all *chose* to live here. That's a simple function of limited supply (due to limited space) and unlimited demand.
Just as no one is forcing anyone to stay in San Francisco, the Constitution doesn't guarantee anyone the right to live where they cannot afford to live. I'd sure like to live in Presidio Terrace. Do I have the "right" to live there, to pitch a tent on the sidewalk? Or can I build a nice little cottage on Yerba Buena Island? Of course not. If I can't afford it, or if the law says that nothing can be built there, then I have no right to sleep there.
If a person cannot afford dinner at Farralon, he shouldn't eat there and then admit that he can't afford to pay the bill. If a person cannot afford to live in San Francisco, he should move to someplace where he CAN afford to live. A large house can be rented in much of the rest of the country for a fraction of what a studio apartment costs to rent here.
As for "gentrification" -- that's a loaded and subjective term. When a nice restaurant went in to lower Polk St., one group complained that the "gentrification" was going to displace the tranny hookers and tweakers! Much of what gets called "gentrification" is really just people trying to do the best with what they have. While I'm opposed to evicting residents, I understand that people who own non-residential properties deserve to maximise their property's value, and doing so often benefits the neighborhood. Here in the Tender-Nob, there have been a bunch of trendy restaurants, galleries, clubs and bars moving in. I think it's great! It's certainly better for our 'hood than the liquor stores, junk shops and boarded-up storefronts they replaced.
SF has the toughest renters' laws in the country. Between rent control, anti-Ellis Act law, advocacy groups, etc., we do more to protect renters than anywhere else, just as we do more to serve the needs of the vastly disproportionate number of homeless, substance abusers and mentally ill that we have, than any other American city.
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