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Recent social media posts by tourists visiting San Francisco casts a troubling light on the City by the Bay over its homeless issue, open drug use and filthy streets.

Since the beginning of the year, reports have surfaced of hypodermic needles dotting the streets, piles of human ***** and expanding shanty towns for the increasing homeless population -- and now tourists are noticing, SFGate reported.

"Is this normal or am I in a 'bad part of town?'” an Australian Reddit user asked the San Francisco Reddit community Wednesday.

 

“Why is this city so terrifying?” a Canadian visitor asked on Reddit Sunday.

Staff at local hotels and travel businesses have empathized with “shocked” tourists over the state San Francisco's streets.

"I've never seen any other city like this — the homelessness, dirty streets, drug use on the streets, smash-and-grabs," Joe D'Alessandro, president of S.F. Travel told the San Francisco Chronicle in April.

"You see things on the streets that are just not humane," Kevin Carroll, executive director of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, also told the paper. "People come into hotels saying, 'What is going on out there?' They're just shocked.”

The city’s voting citizens are also grappling with the crises plaguing their streets in addition to their rising costs as they prepare to elect a new state governor in November.

The Golden State's homeless population of more than 130,000 people is now about 25 percent of the nationwide total, and cleaning up after the surging group is getting costly -- topping $10 million in 2016-17.

San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell announced in April a $750,000 initiative to hire workers solely to help clean up the city’s “hot spots” of needles and syringes—of which about 275,000 are collected every month by public health officials and nonprofit organizations.

“We’re the most beautiful city no one ever wants to come back to."

- Anna Coles, San Francisco real estate agent

“People are starting to ask, ‘Maybe we need a Rudy Giuliani?’” Jason Clark, chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party, told The New York Times, speaking of the former Republican New York mayor whose tough stance on crime helped clean up the city in the 1990s.

Even though “The City by the Bay” was named by the editors of Conde Nast Traveler as one of its 50 most beautiful cities in January 2017, it may not be enough to expect visitors to return a second time.

“We’re the most beautiful city no one ever wants to come back to,” real estate agent and city resident Anna Coles told the Times.

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Br’er Rabbit posted:

That's funny. I was in San Fran about 6 months ago and never saw a pack of homeless or felt unsafe nor did I find it nasty or dirty. Sorry, but I'll have to trust my own eyes over the Rt. wingnut propaganda.

Proof

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https://www.sfgate.com/news/ar...F=#item-85307-tbla-5

 

 

Clean up San Francisco’s streets, tourist industry pleads

As president of S.F. Travel, the city’s visitors bureau, Joe D’Alessandro’s job is to promote San Francisco. You’d think he’d be hyping the city’s gorgeous vistas, top-notch restaurants and glorious museums.

Instead, he’s getting honest.

Sure, San Francisco has great facets worthy of postcards and travel books, but it also has a worsening underbelly that D’Alessandro says he can no longer gloss over.

People injecting themselves with drugs in broad daylight, their dirty needles and other garbage strewn on the sidewalks. Tent camps. Human *****. The threatening behavior of some people who appear either mentally ill or high. Petty theft.

“The streets are filthy. There’s trash everywhere. It’s disgusting,” D’Alessandro said, adding he’s traveled the world, and San Francisco stands out for the wrong reasons. “I’ve never seen any other city like this — the homelessness, dirty streets, drug use on the streets, smash-and-grabs.

 

 

“How can it be?” he continued. “How can it have gotten to this point?”

Remember, this is the man whose job is to glorify San Francisco, which tells you something about how far the city has sunk.

“We can’t be quiet anymore,” D’Alessandro said. “We’ve got such a glorious history, such a beautiful setting, and the fact is, we’re letting it all slip away into this quality of life now that is not good for anybody. We’ve become complacent, and I think we’ve taken this as a kind of new normal, and it’s not. It’s wrong, and we have to do something about it.”

He said so many visitors are sending complaints to him about their experiences in San Francisco, he’s got to speak up. He joins a growing chorus of people whose jobs make them dubious about telling a columnist their real opinions of San Francisco, but who say they have to because working behind the scenes isn’t moving the needle. Well, so to speak.

In January, I told you about hotel managers and owners speaking out. Kevin Carroll, executive director of the Hotel Council, which represents 110 hotels, said at the time, “People say, ‘I love your city, I love your restaurants, but I’ll never come back.’”

In February, I told you that the Union Square Business Improvement District, which assesses extra property taxes to pay for services in the shopping mecca, was having to train retail workers on what to do when a severely mentally ill or drug-addicted person wreaks havoc in their store.

“We’re desperate enough to expose ourselves to look for solutions,” said Karin Flood, executive director of the business improvement district.

Add S.F. Travel to the list. D’Alessandro and Cassandra Costello, the vice president of public policy, said they’re hearing increasing complaints from business organizations that pay a lot of money to hold events here.

For the first time, the group has hired its own safety consultant: Michael Deely, a retired San Francisco police captain. He’s charged with coming up with strategies to keep convention-goers safe around Moscone Center and downtown. He’ll also be directing He’ll also be directing 10B police officers — uniformed, off-duty officers who are paid privately — hired by S.F. Travel during big conventions.

“We want to create a safe and secure environment between the hotels and Moscone Center itself,” Deely said. “We don’t want to wait to find out about it in surveys afterwards.”

To preemptively answer some complaints I know this column will bring: No, tourists and businesspeople don’t matter more than homeless people, those addicted to drugs and others in desperate need of help. But their outsider’s view can jolt us into not merely rushing past those who are down on their luck and to realizing that the status quo is not compassionate or effective.

Also, paying for shelters and supportive housing, teams to coax the homeless inside, and drug, alcohol and mental health services costs a lot of money. And who brings in the biggest pot? Yep, the tourists and conventioneers. They spend $9 billion in San Francisco every year, $725 million of which goes to City Hall in the form of taxes.

Third, too many San Franciscans conflate homelessness and street crime, which is inaccurate and unhelpful. It isn’t and shouldn’t be a crime to be homeless. These people need our help. But that doesn’t mean street crime — such as bicycle chop shops, theft, drug dealing and harassing pedestrians — is OK.

The vast majority of those business groups struggling with whether to continue hosting events in San Francisco won’t speak publicly because they don’t want potential attendees to be scared off.

But the Game Developers Conference, which drew 28,000 international gaming professionals to Moscone Center last month, found itself in the public eye after some tweets from frustrated conference-goers went viral.

An Australian gamer tweeted that San Francisco “is a dangerous city” and the conference should no longer be hosted here. He cited a mugging, credit card theft and the general feeling of being unsafe. Others chimed in with stories of car break-ins, a knife fight and assaults. One attendee tweeted that all the developers he’d talked to were “still shell shocked after this year.”

The conference is scheduled to take place again at Moscone in March, but a spokesperson told me, “We’re evaluating feedback from GDC attendees and our post-show survey, and are keen to hear about everyone’s experiences as we plan for the future.”

It’s not just young international techies who feel unsure about San Francisco. Ron Olejko, senior director of meeting services for the American College of Rheumatology, plans conventions for 16,000 people and last brought the event to the city in 2015.

One of his big conferences alone is worth 53,000 hotel nights, he pointed out, not to mention all the meals and other items participants spend money on. But he said conference attendees last time reported feeling unsafe — being followed and screamed at, and having to step around needles and *****. One colleague walking with Olejko was spit on.

“San Francisco is one of the great cities in the world, and it’s like you’re in the Third World,” he said, adding that for now, San Francisco is still in his rotation, but more for the image than the reality.

“The idea of San Francisco is iconic to most people,” he said. “At some point, I think there will be a tipping point, and people will reconsider.”

Olejko was a co-signer of a letter to the late Mayor Ed Lee in 2015, joining a number of other associations that hold events here, including the American Chemical Society, the California Dental Association and the National Automobile Dealers Association.

The letter complained of dirty streets, threatening street behavior and public defecation and said that if the situation didn’t improve, “your city will see that citywide conventions will not rebook San Francisco and will choose other cleaner and safer West Coast destinations.”

That letter was written 2½ years ago, and the misery on our streets has gotten worse. Here’s hoping there’s only room for improvement.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

 

Once upon a time the Golden State was one of the most desirable
places on earth to live, work and play. Venezuela couldn't make
socialism work for them either. It's sad people don't learn from past
failures and maybe they never will with the US school system hatred
for the study of Histories. Any of those would be better than no
knowledge of the way things were during earlier times.
What's taught is a twisted lie of events.
 
The west coast does have the largest trees on earth, that's good.
It's also good you can't snort or smoke them, or they would be
extinct by now... Liberals have a way to deplete anything.........
  
Jutu posted:
Br’er Rabbit posted:

That's funny. I was in San Fran about 6 months ago and never saw a pack of homeless or felt unsafe nor did I find it nasty or dirty. Sorry, but I'll have to trust my own eyes over the Rt. wingnut propaganda.

Proof

*************************************


 

Of what? My family vacation? I don't think I'll be posting pictures of my family vacation for you, sorry. I was there over Thanksgiving, last year. Sorry if you can't accept my word.

Br’er Rabbit posted:
Jutu posted:
Br’er Rabbit posted:

That's funny. I was in San Fran about 6 months ago and never saw a pack of homeless or felt unsafe nor did I find it nasty or dirty. Sorry, but I'll have to trust my own eyes over the Rt. wingnut propaganda.

Proof

*************************************


 

Of what? My family vacation? I don't think I'll be posting pictures of my family vacation for you, sorry. I was there over Thanksgiving, last year. Sorry if you can't accept my word.

No. I posted proof of the things going on in SF. Sorry if you have a comprehension problem.  You did try to cast doubt, and I think I and others have posted plenty of proof that what the articles say are true, and what you claim SF looks like is just made up balderdash. I doubt you have ever been near SF, or California for that matter. It would be impossible for me to care less about you or your "family vacation".

Last edited by Jutu
Kraven posted:

It's understandable not taken the word of lying Lib.

Since we see the actual videos on TV daily that disprove your
fake news account. 
 
Why do Libs think if they apologize they should be rewarded and
believed...??? Just so much BS.....

Instead of arguing all they have to do is put "Pictures of the havoc the homeless have wrought on San Francisco" into search and see for themselves.

Last edited by Jutu
direstraits posted:
Kraven posted:

..............WELCOME TO DEMOCRATS LAND.........................

WE'RE FLYING HIGH AND FILTHY THANKS TO CORRUPT

LIBERAL DEMS * NOT EVEN RATS CAN COMPARE TO US

WHEN DESTROYING A STATE AND OUR COUNTRY *

Like I've said before, Demmies and zombies, same difference. Guess the Zs lurch more. 

I, for one, am glad I live in Alabama. The great state of Alabama is run by Republicans and likened to a third world country, under Republican rule. Please tell me more about the 'filthy corrupt liberal Dems'.

In San Francisco, city agencies clear out homeless encampments at a near constant rate.

Discarded needles were scattered across 41 blocks.

Dr. Lee Riley, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, told NBC Bay Area that getting stuck by a disposed needle can pass on viral diseases like HIV and hepatitis B and C.

A whopping 91 blocks were dirtied with *****. The investigation found over 300 piles.

Los Angeles, an outbreak of hepatitis A has been linked to the city's 50,000 homeless people, who sometime defecate in the streets and spread the disease between tent cities.

Despite how dirty San Francisco may seem to many residents New York took the cake as No.1 in dirtiness, litter and pests index.

Los Angeles followed NYC at No.2 with a dirtiness index of 317.8.

 

"You see things on the streets that are just not humane," Kevin Carroll, executive director of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, also told the paper. "People come into hotels saying, 'What is going on out there?' They're just shocked.”

Think he meant "human"? A state that allows this, and the left thinks that same state should elect our president.

 

 

Last edited by Jutu
direstraits posted:

There is freedom of movement in the US.  We have no internal passport system, unlike the totalitarian nations.  If, one doesn't like Alabama, leave. That stated, coastal liberals, please stay and live with your creation.  Conservatives in the coastal areas, however, I would welcome. 

If I were an Alabama GOP supporter, I'd be ranting about California too. Whatever it takes to deflect from the corruption running rampant in Alabama.

Last edited by Br’er Rabbit
direstraits posted:

There is freedom of movement in the US.  We have no internal passport system, unlike the totalitarian nations.  If, one doesn't like Alabama, leave. That stated, coastal liberals, please stay and live with your creation.  Conservatives in the coastal areas, however, I would welcome. 

How hard can it be for them to get a job in one of their liberal utopias? San Francisco needs clean up crews to go behind the drug addicts ******** and ******* in the streets.

Jutu posted:

"You see things on the streets that are just not humane," Kevin Carroll, executive director of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, also told the paper. "People come into hotels saying, 'What is going on out there?' They're just shocked.”

Think he meant "human"? A state that allows this, and the left thinks that same state should elect our president.

 

 

How many times have you seen the State of Alabama interfere in, say, Sheffield litter/homeless? Hmmm?

Kraven posted:

BR'ER

 Do Conservatives not realize how hypocritical they look when speaking of 'corrupt California?'

-----------------

All the other states including other Countries criticize California
for the home grown ****hole liberal state it has become, they
deserve all of it.

Nope. All the other states and other countries make fun of Alabama for the homegrown conservative corruption running rampant in Alabama. So, according to your logic, or lack there of, Alabama deserves it.

Dr. John posted:
Jutu posted:

"You see things on the streets that are just not humane," Kevin Carroll, executive director of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, also told the paper. "People come into hotels saying, 'What is going on out there?' They're just shocked.”

Think he meant "human"? A state that allows this, and the left thinks that same state should elect our president.

 

 

How many times have you seen the State of Alabama interfere in, say, Sheffield litter/homeless? Hmmm?

Nope, globally the Liberal  criminal activity of the FBI, CIA, IRS,
US News Outlets, the Liberal Congress and their spies.
The corruption of the previous administration and it's intent to
steal the Presidential election, the corruption of the liberal party
to steal the Presidential election. The unlawful attempt to impeach
a sitting US President by fraudulent deceptions. Long story short.
 
All this is an attempted Coup of the highest Treasonous level....
Constitutionally treason carries a death penalty, as it should...
 
No one cares what's going on in Bama........
Jutu posted:

Are you suddenly the spokesrabbit for TVT? I know you think you control the site, but rabid rabbit, you don't. So please try to make sense. You seem confused. There are more discussions than things that pertain only to Alabama.

You're the one who declared nobody cared what happened. Obviously, by your whining, you do care.

Br’er Rabbit posted:
Jutu posted:

"No one cares what's going on in Bama........"

 

They sure don't care about Sheffield.

Then why are you on an Alabama newspaper forum whining about how dirty California has become?

Cool it Thumper, it's a forum, you got new guidelines for people
that don't give a dam what you think, say or do.
 
It started as a San Francisco thread, why do you whine about
everything..........???

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