“Two full-time city employees will begin patrolling [Sixth Street] and its alleys this month. They will have two-way radios to report crimes, provide advice and clear paths for pedestrians, under a program adopted by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.”
Cleaning up Sixth Street [San Francisco Examiner]

83 thoughts on “Sixth Street “Shooers” Hit The Corridor This Month”
  1. This is fantastic news. The rampant drug trade and subsequent violent crime that plagues 6th needs to come to an end once and for all. Providing a safe environment on this block is crucial to helping bridge the east and west market/mission st. areas, bring more business into SOMA and provide a safer environment for both residents and visitors. Feet on the street is the only way to get this done considering SFPD are stuck in their “fast response” vehicles.
    I’m sure some bleeding hearts will claim this is a plan to “sweep away” the homeless. Instead and will some proactive policing that could be used to get people on the street into the treatment they need. Additionally it’s finally an example of preventative policing in an area of The City that seems to have a reactive crime policy.
    Good stuff. I actually have hope for that part of town (5-10 years out).

  2. “Coalition on Homelessness Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach said such programs are often designed to “remove the presence of poor people,” regardless of whether they are homeless. SOMEONE HELP ME OUT ON THIS ONE…ACTUALLY I AM RELATIVELY POOR BUT THERE IS NOT A CAUSAL CONNECTION BETWEEN BEING POOR AND PEOPLE SMOKING AND DEALING CRACK…AT LEASE I WOULD HOPE.
    Supervisor Chris Daly, whose district includes Sixth Street, didn’t attend the hearing or send a representative, but said he’s skeptical of the program.” HUMMM OF COURSE, IT HASN’T WORKED IN FAIRFIELD, I’D BE SKEPTICAL TOO…

  3. I walked down that street 17 years ago, and I recall it could have used a couple of shooers back then.
    San Francisco certainly knows how to do “better late than never!”

  4. “Coalition on Homelessness Executive Director Jennifer Friedenbach
    Pimp for the poor. We need to put an end to the poverty industry; like the war on drugs, the war on poverty is a failure. You can’t help people who do not want to help themselves.

  5. “The rampant drug trade and subsequent violent crime that plagues 6th needs to come to an end once and for all.”
    You aren’t going to get rid of it, all you can really ever do is to move it.
    Anyone have any better location for it? If not, leave it where it is. We all know it’s there so at least we can avoid it.

  6. I walked down that street yesterday evening after 5:30PM (yep, I know… Not doing it again anytime soon) from Market to Bryant. The worst blocks are obviously Market to Folsom.
    If you looked up you could see the slightly stylish “SFRA 6th street” hanging signs showing a presence and preparing for what they’re planning to do.
    I don’t advise anyone to look up for too long though, be careful where you put your feet… In a 2-block stretch we saw a couple of people stumbling on their feet obviously high or drunk, small groups had overtaken the sidewalks on both sides (though more on the western side), a guy was laying on the sidewalk east side between Mission and Howard “pleasuring himself” almost in plain sight. The overall stench of old urine was incredible. I lived many years in Paris and I am pretty much weathered when it comes to homeless. But I felt like someone had emptied a mental hospital and left the patients to their own device. Really shameful for a city like SF.

  7. This is great news. I’m sure that once shoo’d away from 6th Street, the crime, drug, and homeless problem in the area will just disappear!

  8. La plus ca change . . .
    I just saw a show where the guest described how Maiden Lane (now a fancy row of boutiques and galleries) got its name. It was where all the prostitutes and drug dens were concentrated in the late 1800s. A real cesspool. The city wanted to clean it up but decided not to do so because the public consensus was that they preferred this mess all be in one spot so they could know what to avoid (and where to go, if so inclined).

  9. While looking at a property online in my neighborhood a few weeks ago, I followed a link to find out where the registered sex offenders live. I found almost none in my neighborhood but a very large cluster on 6th street.

  10. “and clear path for pedestrians”
    doesn’t sound very pleasant. if i need law enforcement to escort and protect me i’d still prefer to avoid the area altogether.

  11. What’s wrong?
    In June 08 vs. June 09 crime reports:
    Burglary up 38%
    Auto Burglary up 79%
    Aggravated Assault up 75% (from 5 cases to 20!)
    Drug charges up 93% (4 cases to 59!)
    Or, you may just look at those numbers and think to yourself, “the police finally started paying attention”.

  12. Have you noticed that every one of these reports quotes Jennifer Friedenbach? BORING! Oh well, I’m sure she’ll move to Fairfield soon so we can all move on from her tired logic.

  13. Actually Fronzi, under Reagan we did empty most the mental health hospitals and that is part of the reason you see segments of every city with so many totally tuned out people with no way of making it on their own. Add crack to the mix and you have disaster areas like this.
    I used to drive up 6th every day, and it is nothing short of an open air drug market, virtually every city has one of these somewhere, but they are never so close to the tourist areas. This is one block from the Bloomies and from where tourists line up to catch the cable cars.
    It is unreal they have let this area stay like this for so long, I would see open drug dealing every day from my car when I passed by at 6 PM. I think the police basically gave up on it long ago. I never understood that, they should move it off of the Market corridor and to a more industrial part of town. I don’t see 2 people on foot making a real difference here either, they need an all our effort to move this to another location.

  14. Sixth is definitely Hamsterdam (cf. “The Wire”), but yeah, it’ll just move, I predict over to Seventh. Actually I only find the worst part of Sixth to go only about halfway between Mission and Howard, unless you like to wear a shiny watch or something, but even then it would probably be someone who followed you down from Market. Walking up from the south there’s no problem until you start getting close to Mission.
    The problem with this section of Market is that it’s like five long blocks long. The Warfield? How are they going to tackle all of that?
    And to throw all of this into the crapper, two random walkie-talkies? What happened to beat cops, too corrupt? These sound like drug/violence versions of a meter maid.

  15. So this is the latest in a long line of attempts to clean up 6th. Anyone remember when they sent beat cops up and down the street several times a day? It didn’t last long, but while it did, the drug dealers just came up with an early-warning system (whistling, hooting, etc.) as their network vastly outnumbered the authorities’.
    If this latest attempt is successful, the “undesirables” will simply recede to the TL, of which Sixth is an extension of, and come back as soon as the RA lets their guard down or runs out of money.
    The core of the issue is really the high concentration of drug users living in the cheap, seedy, seemingly-protected SROs in the area. This perpetuates and concentrates the drug culture, which in turn attracts the “commuter” drug dealers, which in turn attracts drug users from outside the area and the criminal element.
    You can’t stop people from wanting drugs, but you can certainly eradicate the drug dealers with enough enforcement. But in my 17 years of living near Sixth, I have yet to see the kind of sustained, heavy-handed approach that it would take to bring lasting change.
    But on the bright side, as bad as it is now, Sixth has certainly come a long way from where it was in the 90’s.

  16. “The problem with this section of Market is that it’s like five long blocks long. The Warfield? How are they going to tackle all of that?”
    Are you serious? The physical area that we most typically associate with drugs and homelessness in San Francisco is tiny when compared to cities like New York and Chicago. If they can do it why can’t we? To add two people to patrol the area is a token gesture. Much more agressive measures (which doesn’t neccessarily translate to inhumane treatment) are required.

  17. 6th street between Market and Mission is almost entirely pawn shops and resident hotels. So I guess they can shoo the addicts over to 7th, but they are still going to come back to 6th to sell their stolen goods and find a bunk for the night.
    I am too young to remember, but have often heard that Governor Reagan closed the mental health hospitals. (Why does nobody ever mentions the governors since who have kept them closed?) Anyone know what sort of hospitals these were? Were these generally involuntary lock up facilites?

  18. “location”, IIRC, the idea was to “mainstream” some of those who really shouldn’t have been institutionalized and move the rest to so-called “community based facilities.” And of course the money to support and sustain the “community based facilities” never materialized, like everything in California.
    The result is lots of people who should be getting treated end up on the street abusing recreational drugs. How Ronnie managed to preside over that debacle and still get elected to higher office is one of the mysteries of California politics, in my opinion.
    As others, above, have pointed out, the SFPD could sweep this area out and lock a bunch of people up, which is what I’d prefer and I’m a liberal. If you can’t get a hold of yourself and are abusing/selling drugs, then the next best opportunity for you to clean up your act (next best to rehab, for which there is no money, of course) would be to do so in jail.
    I swear, in a few more years California’s going to become a Libertarian’s wet dream.

  19. That’s a very slanted, revisionist view of the closing of the mental hospitals. A much shorter version does like this:
    Reagan had a mandate to shrink the federal government. He couldn’t see why the federal government needed to be in the business of dealing with the mentally ill – it wasn’t like national defense or anything. So he pushed it onto the states.
    A study that was fairly well accredited came out around the same time that stated that most inmates of mental institutions were simply drugged and zombified, and would have been better off if they had never gone into the institutions. The authors of the study said the institutions rarely helped anyone.
    The states, suddenly having the costs of the mentally ill dumped 100% in their laps, eagerly adopted the results of the study and simply closed the institutions.
    So it wasn’t Reagan who shut the mental institutions, he set in motion their closing because they were costing a fortune and not really achieving any results, other than to hide the problem. He knew that the congress wouldn’t do anything but raise taxes without addressing the cause of the problem, but the states would address the problem. They did, though perhaps not in the way that a lot of us would like to have seen, however, we all pay lower taxes and get better services in return for letting mentally ill people roam around.
    As it stands now, most suburban dwellers don’t really have to deal with the problems it cause because the mentally ill tended to migrate to the cities, where they were better treated and tolerated.

  20. All of this is pretty interesting but this doesn’t answer one fundamental question:
    Where’s LMRiM?
    I am sure he’d have his own take on the Reagan years…

  21. tipster –
    Is this an example of all the money we’re saving?
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/22/BA3519BTV8.DTL
    Many of these people are still institutionalized, only in a situation that is addressing the symptoms and not the problems that these people have. I’m not saying re-funding and restoring the mental health system to it’s pre-Reagan era glory (sarcasm intended) would fix the problem. I’m more holding this as an example of how eliminating some of the webbing in the social safety net is not always the best policy.

  22. I say privatize the problem–if their relatives won’t take care of ’em, use the insane and addicted as raw materials for food and lampshades.
    (kidding)

  23. OEM, I hate to say it, but YES. That one guy in that article, an extreme case, cost $150K. If he was institutionalized, they ALL would cost $150K. Probably much more.
    I’m not saying what we should or shouldn’t do, I’m not the expert, but the costs were staggering for absolutely zero benefit.

  24. OneEyedMan,
    The article you linked to says that 225 repeat offenders cost the city a lot of money, but it doesn’t speculate on how that cost would compare to reinstating full time straight-jacket and sedation style institutions.

  25. tipster,
    I mostly agree with everything you said except that while perhaps the “costs were staggering for absolutely zero benefit” to the people in the institution, you could argue there was benefit for those outside the institution.

  26. I agree with location, but I would go further. Is it better to be healthy, cared for, and somewhat zombified in an institution, or stark raving mad on the street? If we are not going to provide the community-based support that was essentially promised when the institutions were emptied, well then it’s time to open the institutions again and face the fact that we made a terrible mistake. As a society we have alot of blood on our hands

  27. There is of course the issue of the 1975 Supreme Court case O’Connor v. Donaldson. OneEyedMan’s first reference doesn’t mention the ruling, but alludes to some of its consequences:
    “By the start of the Carter administration in 1977, involuntary commitment had been restricted to those who were deemed as potentially dangerous to themselves or, perhaps more significantly, those around them. Typically, the commitment had to be sponsored by a family member and/or ordered by the court. A result of this policy was that the mentally ill patient who refused treatment typically did not receive any at all.”

  28. Is it better to be healthy, cared for, and somewhat zombified in an institution, or stark raving mad on the street?
    My experience, though anecdotal, is the chronically homeless prefer not to live in shelters or receive the type of “care” you are talking about. They value freedom and independence much more. That is why the majority remain homeless. Many people are mentally ill, many are addicted, many are even homeless on occasion, but really a hardened few — in the hundreds, not thousands — account for the street problems in SF.
    And the externalities of delinquency is a price that
    they are willing to pay in order to not be restricted to following the rules of a group quarters situation, and having their lives managed by someone else.
    So let’s be honest about who is being helped here — we want to get them out of our streets, and I agree with this goal, but I’m not deceived that by doing so I am providing them with “promised care”. I am pushing them out of the way so that they don’t bother me, at the expense of a decrease in their own freedom and life enjoyment. That’s why the institution approach wont work unless we have involuntary commitment.

  29. SFS –
    I too have been missing the postings by LMRiM. I can’t remember the string, but about 1-1/2 weeks ago joe schmoe went after him like a pit bull on a piece of bacon. I thought it went over the top and was surprised the editor allowed some of the posts. I doubt it’s coincidental.

  30. You mean the SEC threat innuendo? I saw that one.
    Here is a choice piece of that thread:
    I’ve never filed a complaint with the SEC or CFTC about Satchel/LMRiM’s postings on his trading activity because I believe socketsite is a useful resource and don’t want to put socketsite in the position of getting subpoenas because the expenses of complying with that type of investigation could make the site untenable. However, be aware that if anyone were to make such complaints with the SEC or CFTC, or were to sue LMRiM, it would be a big headache for socketsite’s owners though they have done nothing wrong. (Socketsite, don’t remove Satchel’s trading posts or if you do preserve them in an archive with ip addresses to avoid charges of obstruction of justice).
    A few big words from this quote:
    – subpoenas
    – expenses
    – investigation
    – complaints
    – obstruction of justice
    No post from LMRiM that I could find after that. That’s a big loss for SS.

  31. ^^^Apologies, I did not see your post SanFronziScheme. Need to remember to hit refresh.
    Agreed, that this is a “big loss for Socketsite”.

  32. We’ll have to keep his spirit alive. Using a few choice words like “money heaven”, “first loss position”, “Diemos hero”.

  33. And don’t forget the classic Satchel H-bomb :
    “Heteroscedasticity”
    one syllable too long to use in a haiku, which is why the word is so rarely used here.

  34. Getting back on topic, clearly it would be more effective to fix 6th street by simply planting a row of palm trees in each sidewalk. Nothing says “quality upscale neighborhood” like a row of palms.

  35. I just moved, this weekend, into a place at the corner of Harrison and Sixth. I sure wish I had done a little more research….

  36. @Greasey Peter – We lived at Sixth/Harrison for four years, and never had any issues. Yes, be a careful urban dweller, but most of the issues are between Market and Howard, and even then, Sixth St. is a hell of a sight better than it was 10-15 years ago. Your major tangent for activity/travel is Folsom, which is not dangerous, and only “scary” to those who don’t know it. If walking to Market and points north, use 5th or 7th, particularly at night. The club kids (EndUp/1015) can be noisy on weekends but are not dangerous. Many of the alleys nearby are now heavily residential and quite friendly.
    Having said this, I’m sure the regular SSers will attack this post, so weigh all opinions.

  37. “Anyone have any better location for it? If not, leave it where it is. We all know it’s there so at least we can avoid it.”
    How about Oakland?

  38. Kind of funny that the one post (and hardly worth censoring, at that) that the SS editor didn’t allow in that fateful thread was mine. Especially considering that joe schmoe had shown symptoms of “LMRiM derangement syndrome” for some time previous and had actually made some of the same threats towards Satchel on a prior thread.
    As I’m no expert in that area, does anyone have an informed opinion on the legal feasibility of joe schmuck’s threats?
    I suppose one possible scenario for Satchel’s disappearance may be that joe schmuck sniffed out Satch’s identity and dropped a(n) (incriminating??) detail or two in a post that spooked him out. If this were actually the case, LMRiM may have been a bit “foolish” to broadcast so many details of his life.
    There was a poster, Jimmy (Still a Hoser, eh) IIRC, who once posted about trying to “out” LMRiM based on looking at law school alumni directories and knocking on doors in LMRiM’s neighborhood. Given the fact that Satchel and joe schmuck went to rival high schools at the same time, and given the specific details of Satchel’s life that he revealed on SS, it probably wouldn’t have been too difficult for an even more obsessive type like joe schmuck to figure out his real life identity.
    Of course, another scenario may be that LMRiM is currently in the process of changing the second M in his name from Marin to Miami before the school year starts. However, the timing and abruptness of his disappearance seem to belie this.
    In any case, LMRiM’s astute financial analysis has been missed on SS, for sure.

  39. nnona,
    The LMRiM attack I pasted yesterday is also a threat to the SS editor. The not-so-subliminal message there is “you can fight but the cost of the legal battle will shut you down”.
    I wonder if this is someone genuinely outraged by what he sees as an attempt at giving financial advice (I for one never took action on financial posts on the web, or from financial web sites for that matter), or if this person is taking a shot at a messenger when he cannot shut down the message. There are a few people angry at LMRiR and I wouldn’t exclude this possibility.

  40. Yeah, the site just isn’t the same without LMRIM insulting everyone that isn’t him. It’s hard for me to get through the day without getting to read comments from a millionare that is retired lambasting people that work minimum wage jobs.

  41. Wow, missed all that joe schmoe saber-rattling in that thread. Of course, he completely misstates securities law — an area I am quite familiar with. I suspect LMRiM understands that as well. I hope he is simply on vacation and will return soon. He is about 40% of why I pay attention to this site.

  42. LMRIM insulting everyone that isn’t him.
    ???
    If you had followed the history of insults on SS you’d see that Satchel/LMRiM has been very polite all along. Then he got insults thrown at him by people wanting to silence him again and again and again.
    LOL. Of course professionals do not like him when he denounces the idiocy of today’s valuations!

  43. I think everyone needs to stop taking themselves so seriously. It is amusing so please feel free to continue feeding the trolls. The threats, veiled or otherwise, are so weak that I’m sure neither the editor or anyone else is losing an ounce of sleep.

  44. eddy,
    I beg to disagree. These threats were the most serious ones I have seen on SS. I wouldn’t call them weak by any standard. And I doubt any web moderator likes to see these following words on a MB:
    – subpoenas
    – expenses
    – investigation
    – complaints
    – obstruction of justice
    All in one paragraph.
    Of course bulls have tried to make LMRiM shut up for a long time therefore I understand the attempt at minimizing the issue.

  45. Sparky, the editor can be a hair hit and miss in removing posts. I was suggested that an early morning message from Anonn was the result of insufficient caffenation, and had it removed. I can now see that if I had made accusations of fraud. . .
    Regardless, I on Folsom in the area west of 7th. I want to echo that particular neighborhood dynamics stated above. At 7th and Folsom you are on the edge of a happy island. At 6th and Folsom you will occasionally tense up at night, and sometimes for good cause. At 5th, the pressure lets off again.
    If you do the same walk on Howard, it’s a show all the way down to Fith. Usually not too scary (ok, at night sometimes), but adequately depressing that I avoid that walk.
    Just remember – on 6th and Mission there is a crack in the surface of the earth through which the demons may escape their fiery chains.
    As for the shooers, I wish them luck. That is clearly the WORST JOB EVER.

  46. SFS, seriously, this site is hosted on WP or some other blogging network and SS has zero liability or risk associated with comments here. Further, it is very naive to think that an anonymous poster, on a highly targeted message board, would cause anyone to launch an investigation. I’m not even sure the ‘threat’ is even a valid one at that. For all I know this whole enterprise consists of the editor and the few dozen of us that post here regularly. Our semi-retired friend will be back and he and JS can have their sparring match again on some other thread.

  47. I hope you are right. I am still puzzled by the lack of warning though. LMRiM has left SS before but he did give a formal “adieu”.

  48. Please. The guy is an arch smug libertarian boorish fish out of water. But even arch smug libertarians can get bored of blogs or go on vacations. Shut up about it already. Fronzi, he will come back, you will ape his words, and he will pat you on the head when others point out the inanity of your derivative patter in a month or so. Don’t worry about it.

  49. The physical area that we most typically associate with drugs and homelessness in San Francisco is tiny when compared to cities like New York and Chicago.
    I have on very good authority that there are no homeless in Chicago whatsoever, so I can’t believe you would spread such libel. Seriously though Willow, if there is a “skid row” in Chicago, let me know because I am tired of Chicago posters claiming that homelessness is a uniquely San Francisco phenomena.
    On my bicycle ride down Market every day, I have noticed an increased police foot patrol presence, particularly in the mid-Market area. Maybe the new Police Chief is trying to clean that up. If there is one spot in town to move homeless away from, it is there, since it is so highly visible. It is really hard to move social services though, since no one really wants to accept them and they were all set up in SOMA back when the region was industrial and no one cared. And the shelters, free lunches and the like are going to attract their clients naturally.
    I agree that we need to institutionalize the most anti-social of the mentally ill. It should not be acceptable to just lie in a puddle of your own urine, especially if you can function with treatment. Right now most of these people bounce in and out of jail, which is more expensive and isn’t really what either they or society need.
    This is not a problem that San Francisco can solve all on its lonesome though, this has to come at the State or Federal level. Since most suburbs just force the problematic mentally ill out of town, they don’t really see it as a problem.

  50. What specific trades did LMRiM discuss? joe schmoe’s claims seem a little silly, but is there even a minimal basis for them? Like SFS, I’m trying to figure out what exactly the claim was here, if there was even a legitimate one.

  51. Satchel and I discussed various trades he (and I) were engaged in in September-October 2008 (I was heavily buying puts on bank stocks then) and again in March of this year when I was buying (mostly foreign) equities.
    Since I don’t frequently trade (my last stock purchase was in late March) the chatter had tapered off somewhat and I stopped paying attention … but the discussion was no more maningful than anything you’d see on Yahoo Finance.

  52. Thanks for your response, Jimmy.
    This post has a long discussion by LMRiM and joe shmoe about their respective backgrounds:
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/02/a_few_of_our_favorite_things_big_windows_views_and_a_fl.html
    It looks like joe shmoe has made these claims before:
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/06/while_fall_falls_maybe_spring_would_have_sprung_on_wall.html
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/08/1581_masonic_the_mayors_confidential_contract_price_8_u.html
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/04/715_cole_a_crispy_cole_valley_apple_with_potential_on_t.html
    But I’m unclear on why an MBS trader would think that commenting anonymously on a housing blog about the crappy state of the real estate market would help his/her book, even though joe seems to think that’s perfectly logical.
    I also see where doodle threw a warning at Satchel, and it does appear that Satchel actually had a post taken down at his request, which is a little suspicious:
    https://socketsite.com/archives/2007/12/justquotes_perhaps_not_the_other_shoe_but_at_least_a_la.html
    That said, that thread, as Jimmy said, doesn’t seem any worse than Yahoo Finance.
    I’m not clear that any of us have any reason to think that LMRiM or Satchel were giving bona fide investment advice at any point, at least not any worse than stuff I see in comments of many financial sites, so joe shmoe’s threats seem pretty bogus unless I’m missing something.

  53. Of course I know who Satchel/LMRiM is, he and I recently dined together as guests of the king of Spain. We ate botargo on buttered bread and drank great quantities of claret. And we discussed the value of the world. Finally the king had his royal guard throw us on a private jet back to cali, but in his heart he wished Franco had been alive to deal with us trouble makers. Unfortunately, Satchel/LMRiM didn’t believe in government identification so TSA rendered him off to somewhere never to be heard from again. Thanks to his libertarian ideals, the TSA decided I needed a cavity search just for being with him. Anyway, I think it was all a result of driving too fast on Lake Shore Drive, but that is another song. All is one and one is all.

  54. Joe Schmoe, are your threats & off topic attempts at humor in some strange way trying to compensate for never addressing the information that LMRiM presented on certain properties presented here? He listed DOMs, back taxes and previous sales and you fire back with possible subpoenas, SEC investigations, and even warn the editor as to future costs associated with your threats, and ask to make sure IP addresses are saved. “(Socketsite, don’t remove Satchel’s trading posts or if you do preserve them in an archive with ip addresses to avoid charges of obstruction of justice).”
    Schmoe, your comments are flames and bullying, yet you may claim success in silencing someone many enjoyed reading, unlike yourself who can claim almost complete disapproval.
    The Bulls have always attacked LMRiM/Satchel in a personal way while he responded with what I only observed was polite comments using statistics and dates to expand his arguments.
    I am sorry the editor has allowed your comments to be published.

  55. Here is the threat by Joe Schmoe that may have been the final straw…….
    “I’ll put it this way, if I see any new postings by Satchel about his trades, I’ll file a complaint and it won’t shut down socketsite, just wind Satchel in a load of trouble (assuming socketsite has revenue to for counsel and the rigors of electronic discovery). It is just the sort of thing the obsessive people do here about inaccurate listings and manipulated mls photos, but here there is in fact federal law on my side. Of course, the feds might choose to seize the servers hosting socketsite, but that’s not my problem. So it is up to Satchel/LMRiM, his conduct will determine the future.”
    Posted by: joe shmoe at August 22, 2009 10:10 PM

  56. “Typically, the commitment had to be sponsored by a family member and/or ordered by the court. A result of this policy was that the mentally ill patient who refused treatment typically did not receive any at all.”
    So true anonanon, this would explain how we, rather than asylum colleagues, got stuck listening to the incoherent rantings directly above this post. I mean, if one were walking down this stretch of 6th Street (how’s this for bringing the thread back on topic?) and were to hear said rantings emanating from the mouth of your random unhinged raving transplant lunatic, would it be any surprise at all?

  57. By “incoherent rantings directly above this post”, I of course refer to the 8:53 post by joe schmuckey and not the two posts in between.

  58. Well, Juan Carlos put it so well before he kicked us out: “Spain is only big enough for one king of Spain.” Anybody got any haiku? It is getting hot in here again.
    I think the sixth street sweepers will be good for the neighborhood, but bad for the mentally ill and those suffering in extreme, homeless poverty. It should not be a crime to be too poor to have a roof over your head.

  59. Joe – no, but it should be a crime to shit, piss, shoot drugs, sleep on the sidewalk and aggressively ask strangers for money.
    No one is being victimized because they’re poor. They’re being persecuted because they’re BREAKING THE LAW.
    Why is this concept so difficult for so many San Franciscans to understand?

  60. If you can’t afford a roof and you can’t afford to go to a restaurant, where are you going to go numbers one and two during the day while the shelter is closed? Yes, they may be breaking the law, but they may have no choice. Fishchum, I assume you meant to say “prosecuted” instead of “persecuted”. Now the druggies and aggressive panhandlers should be arrested and prosecuted, but let’s not criminalize extreme poverty at the same time.

  61. I am hoping we someday get an explanation for why Joe Schmoe’s threats and personal attacks against LMRiM were tolerated. On further reflection, I should say that I appreciate the editor’s need to provide an open forum, and value all the work that has been put into this very popular site.

  62. The truth is that anyone with a severe disabling mental illness already qualifies for SSI to the tune of about $900/mo. If you can’t live in San Francisco on $900/mo then maybe you should move somewhere where you can.
    The SSI bureaucracy can be a bit of a hassle to navigate, but I have helped two family members navigate it now, it is not completely impenetrable.
    There is a shortage of public bathrooms, but I have seen the homeless queue up for them at the St. Mary’s Square one, so they do exist.

  63. @Jim, I agree the best thing for people who can’t afford to live here or don’t have the tenacity to navigate ssi would be to move somewhere else. I was heartened when I talked with a homeless advocate who told me he felt the best result for any of the people he helped was a bus ticket home– I hope he is typical of SF homeless advocates, because in other cities I have gotten the sense that homeless advocates would like to see more homeless so their advocacy groups could grow.

  64. Joe Shmoe, thanks for doing your part to drive away one of the most interesting guests who posted on this site. LMRiM seemed to really get under your skin when he posted information that was public regarding properties with delinquent taxes, upside down over-borrowing, expensive remodel costs or recent short sales of other properties nearby. I may not agree with some of Satchel’s (LMRiM’s) political views, but his opinions helped save me from investing in “income” units with my brother which has turned out to be a conduit of his savings to “money heaven”.
    I am surprised at the suburban gated community attitude taken by some regarding the homeless. Sending them somewhere else is a solution to the problem? I don’t think one should criminalize homelessness, but we should prohibit bad behavior on a public street. Has anyone else noticed the growing encampment of people living in their cars in the parking area east of the Marina Green and Saint Francis Yacht Club? These problems now have reached the “best” parts of the city, and some of these people looked to me to be rather ordinary people down on their luck.

  65. I was not suggesting sending our San Francisco homeless somewhere else, but for many homeless not from here and living a marginal existence, finding them a way to return to family and a network of support is a good outcome. For families and people that are down on their luck, we have to find a way to safely house them until we get them back on their feet. For those who have gotten where they are by bad choices, we have to figure out how to get them to start making good choices and get their lives together. (There’s a string of platitudes for you– very patronizing to point out that I’m being platitudinous). No easy solutions here, but somebody is reading a lot into a discussion of the sixth street corridor and that population.
    It would be a terrible thing if people who are down on their luck end up getting arrested just for sleeping in their cars with no weapons or drugs.
    That said, there does seem to be a new regime with the new police chief. There are frequently police cruisers and police men at the entrance to GGP– the end of Haight and along Stanyan seem a lot safer, I have not gone in the park lately, but curious to see the changes. We’ll see how quality of life crackdowns and community policing work, but I am hopeful they will help keep our streets and parks from being drug stores and even make the streets safer for the non-criminal homeless.
    @mac, nobody seems to like it when I’m being ornery– which one do you prefer? Oh right, you want everybody who disagrees with you to go away. You want Satchel here to tell everybody they’re wrong. People want to believe that everybody who is not a bear has ulterior motives. We’re all real estate men and women secretly manipulating people. Much of the argument on this blog is based around the idea that things are priced wrong by the market, often “proved” by looking at historical pricing… but if markets price wrong, can we really learn anything from historical pricing?
    The only times Satchel gets under my skin is when he seems to be acting as a financial planner because with his background he should know better.
    (@satchelmissing, while I am glad Satchel’s stuff helped you, it would have been better if you went to a certified financial planner who carried liability insurance to decide whether or not to invest with your brother. There are professionals available to help with these decisions, nobody should rely on socketsite or a realtor to make that decision– and if you have a good realtor they will tell you they are not financial planners, can’t predict the future, and can’t give you that kind of advice. A certified financial planner can sit down and run the numbers with you. And if he’s wrong, you can sue him. If Satchel’s wrong, you got nothing unless you go to the trouble to track him down).
    When I respond to an off topic attempt to bait me with what I thought was some defusing, light admission that I’m every bit the arrogant —- that Satchel and others are, I get met with contempt and accusations of going off topic (because I dared to disagree with nnona about the boundary of a neighborhood sometime I have an enemy for life). When I post on topic, I’m patronizing. Don’t rock the boat baby, tell ’em what they wanna hear or they’re gonna jeer.
    It doesn’t seem like everybody hates me, just a select few. I’m not lightin’ out for the territories just yet, but I am going on vacation and will be away from the internet while enjoying some tropical breezes. If ss works from my iPhone (if my iPhone works from the beach) I might check in once in a while.
    Peace out,
    a little king of Spain, there are so many of us here.

  66. So can anyone give me any insight into why the homeless will shit on the sides of buildings?
    Is it really that more convenient than curbing themselves or is it just a giant F*** Y** from the have nots to the haves.

  67. diemos,
    You are asking for a rational explanation for the behavior of someone who is mentally ill.
    You’re crazier than they are.

  68. What tipster said. The untreated homeless schizophrenics really should be in an institution, but in the infinite wisdom of the 33rd Governor of California, we decided to “house” them on the street, where they can negatively impact the quality of life for everyone.
    That’s why you’re seeing human feces on the side of buildings.

  69. I’m disappointed that not a single member of the It’s not a crime to be poor! brigade was willing to take a swing at this.
    I’m sure it will shortly be revealed that building poopage actually has ayurvedic colon cleansing properties and will shortly be the next sf trend sweeping the nation.
    But seriously, anyone want to recommend a good service for exterior building cleaning. I assume that city will only do the sidewalk and will leave my new “stucco” to age and ferment gracefully.

  70. I recommend a garden hose with a jet stream nozzle directed at an oblique angle for a few seconds. If the “product” has dried you may need to wait for it to rehydrate and repeat. An oblique angle is important to avoid the ricochet. But beware of shooting into a 3-way (X-Y-Z) corner where it is hard to avoid the ricochet.

  71. Dammit, I’m a renter! I’m not supposed to have to deal with this … crap.
    How can I in good conscience deprive my landlord of that warm glow of “pride of ownership” that comes from hosing homeless shit of the side of his building?

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