I found this interesting article from the Daily Caller - Tents, Homelessness and Misery - 9 Things I Saw in San Francisco - in my email box and took the time to read it for a couple of reasons. And, although it was fairly long and well written, I could totally relate to what the woman author shared.
In my early years as a student in high school I attended only 70 miles north of San Francisco, I had many an opportunity to visit S.F. because of a female of interest who I dated occasionally, which never turned out to be any more than that. Back then, it was only the Tenderloin district of the city that one avoided because of the drug use and prostitution which prevailed there. The rest of the city was free of any pan handlers because the city police enforced the vagrancy laws of the city. The tourist industry flourished during the late '60s and early '70s; with the only other exception being the Haight/Ashbury district that became a pilgrimage for the "Hypie culture" of that same period.
During the mid-'70s, I ran the Bay To Breakers race across the city twice. At that time the appearance of Gay Community members within the crowds and the race was just gaining momentum, but the city was basically decent to visit.
Fast forward 50 years...
After retiring 10 years ago from the classroom in the Pacific NW, I decided to spend several years doing guard work at the two sports arenas in south Seattle; what's known as the SODO district near the Amtrak Station. CenturyLink Field is the northern of the two, with what was then Safeco Field. The Seattle Seahawks, along with the Seattle Sounders Soccer team, play in CenturyLink, while the Mariners baseball team play in what is now called T-Mobile Park due to new sponsorship.
In the fall of 2009, when I first began working at CenturyLink Field, homelessness was mostly non-existent. Yes, there were a few hanging around on the streets, but of no real significance. They didn't live in tent communities or pan handle because the city police enforce the existing ordinances and kept the streets free for the tourists; a big industry which is now suffering from the homeless influx of the past few years.
As the years went by and I picked up doing guard work also at Safeco Field in 2015, the scene in the SODO district began to change exponentially. More and more tent communities - such as the infamous "Jungle" underneath the raise freeway of Interstate 5 along the eastern edge of that area which made news after it was discovered that drug dealing and use, along with prostitution, were rampant, and at least one person was killed by someone with a gun inside the area - pan handlers and street sleepers became much more noticeable to the fans and stadium workers coming to games or work.
Sadly, this has resulted in several deaths of individuals in Seattle by homeless persons over the last several years of the past decade. The first and most tragic of that time was Prof. Troy Wolf who was walking through Pioneer Square north of CenturyLink stadium from a Sounders game and was knifed to death by a delusional homeless man.
Changing policy and the involvement of the federal DOJ during the Obama administration's A.G. Eric Holder, created a climate among city police which caused most police officers to "choose their battles" very carefully. A series of different incidences - a Sounders fan walking home through the Pioneer Square area from a game was murdered by a homeless individual, a homeless man was shot dead by police when he refused to drop a knife he was wielding, and other similar situations - brought about an imposed set of federal requirements that snuffed any real enforcement of low level crimes as a result.
Then too, the writer of the Daily Caller article cited above didn't mention the Kate Steinle incident of 2015 and the perpetrator's consequent overturned conviction for murdering her, or the influx of illegal immigrants who've been allowed to remain at large due to the city's "Sanctuary" policy of refusing to notify ICE of their presence when getting out of jail for a felony conviction.
Now S.F. has voted in a new kind of District Attorney, Chase Boudin, who has announced that low level crimes will not be prosecuted out of supposed compassion for the homeless. His campaign was known to be funded by George Soros; a former Hedge Fund manager who, from his European residence, is working to turn law and order on its head, as this article points out.
So, both S.F. and Seattle have plenty in common when it comes to the homeless issue. Yes, folks, the liberals/leftists/socialists are doing their best to "progressively" move this nation into their utopia of concocted rights for everyone with no rational basis backing them. Personally, I believe it's virtue signaling which is part of their modern religion.
My question is... If we continue to allow this trend to move forward, at what point will we have to get to for a "tipping point" to occur in triggering a reversal and return to civility and decency?
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