On Christmas Day in San Francisco, a 43-year-old woman was stabbed by a homeless man named Michael Jacobs. A second female victim, age 70, was pronounced dead from stab wounds in the same neighborhood hours earlier. Police suspect Jacobs was responsible for her death as well but haven’t proved it yet. Murder (and attempted murder) are extreme examples of problems connected with homelessness but incidents of violence do happen. Just last week I wrote about a business owner who got fed up after one of his employees witnessed a homeless man stomping another man’s head into the sidewalk outside his office in broad daylight. But even apart from the violence, the city is feeling the impact of thousands of homeless people in other ways as well. From CNN:
Outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in downtown San Francisco, a woman urinates on the sidewalk and smokes a crack pipe.
Inside her purse are about a dozen used heroin needles. She shoots heroin up to 10 times per day, she says.
About 50 yards away, a man injects another woman in the neck with a needle. She puts her thumb in her mouth and blows on it to make her vein more visible. Her right arm is caked with dried blood.
This San Francisco neighborhood is home to the headquarters of Uber, Twitter and Salesforce. But stroll around here, and you’re also likely to find used drug paraphernalia, trash, and human excrement on the sidewalks, and people lying in various states of consciousness.
Public drug usage and homelessness are not new problems for the city of San Francisco. But residents say the situation has gotten worse in recent years. As of October, 7,500 complaints about discarded needles have been made this year, compared with 6,363 last year. In 2015, the number was less than 3,000.
The city has a new mayor, London Breed, who campaigned on making homelessness her number one issue. While the number of tent camps is down, it’s still common to see drug needles and human waste on the street, not to mention people sprawled across the sidewalk or, as you’ll see below, in the street. Restaurant owner Adam Mesnick has been using his cell phone camera to document what he sees on the streets in the SoMa area every day. Here are a few of his recent tweets:
Please at least consider a needle exchange. You can’t pick em up faster than they use around here. pic.twitter.com/0yAbmza8n5
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 1, 2018
Status quo. Same. Months later. Still using our building as restroom and needles strewn on russ at Folsom. Yes. Bessie Carmichael student passage zone. https://t.co/FJtVsrVkDP across street from playgrounds at Victoria manalos. These ladies would not tolerate this at namesakes. pic.twitter.com/xcEwJys9vW
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 9, 2018
Somebody left their stuff on our front yard. Actually. Maybe a few people… activate civic pride here @sfpublicworks @SF311 @sfdistrict6 @JaneKim @MattHaneySF @LondonBreed pic.twitter.com/BbkVYYTJGW
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 12, 2018
It’s not normal to see people in the middle of streets. Immobilized. The activity on mission at 7 and in between market a few blocks every way, everyday is caused by one common denominator. pic.twitter.com/y1utJxsqiD
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 13, 2018
Ninth district courthouse appeal pic.twitter.com/Vnmd9XmOTn
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 15, 2018
Highlights of camp russ street. @sf311 30 days of reporting in a row. Tents grow. pic.twitter.com/zhMCrTHOP6
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 16, 2018
Full moon broad daylight. Not even homeless. Just had to go, and everyone else does it. Zero civic pride. Zero accountability. Zero leaders. pic.twitter.com/Bcg2o9vi2q
— bettersoma (@bettersoma) December 27, 2018
Meanwhile, another local resident who chooses to remain anonymous has been tweeting out his (or her) own pictures:
A little much…
1233 Howard has been taken over. Nightly. Home to Mikes Bikes & apartments@LondonBreed @JeffKositsky @SFPDSouthern @sfpd @SF_HSH @SF311 @mikesbikes @bettersoma @auweia1 @gazooly12 @TheMarinaTimes @TheMarinaTimes @kron4news @hknightsf #FilthySF pic.twitter.com/qfffuXeest
— CleanUpSOMAWest (@CleanUpWestSoma) December 5, 2018
Breakfast of champions!@SF311 1204 Howard @LondonBreed pic.twitter.com/fJZRua6dMF
— CleanUpSOMAWest (@CleanUpWestSoma) December 6, 2018
The Pit Stop Program at Natoma & 9th is not working! It only creates a place for loitering and encampments. Its been here for 3 years now & it’s time for a move, a new location. Some other neighborhood can carry the burden of it. Worse than a liquor store!
Feces near 747 Natoma pic.twitter.com/xllSGVZydX— CleanUpSOMAWest (@CleanUpWestSoma) December 18, 2018
All of the tweets above are from this month. CNN put together this handy graphic showing complaints about poop on the streets. Notice that the 2018 bar in this graph only covers complaints through October.
The city has launched a poop patrol and has a special team cleaning up needles, but as you can see from the images and videos above, the city is a long way to go to make the streets look like something other than an outdoor heroin meth den.
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