zlacker

>>NaOH+(OP)
The title let me down; I was hoping this would be an article about a trebuchet. [edit: I see the post title has changed, the original one was something like "park ranger uses extraordinary methods to remove homeless from SF parks"]

I lived next to the park for several years and grew to loathe the dynamic where the lives of people sleeping rough in Golden Gate Park or Civic Center merit months of one-on-on outreach, while the lives of all of those who can't walk through the park in safety, can't send their kids there to play, and can't sit on the grass for fear of stepping on a used needle or a pile of human excrement, don't seem to matter.

I would like to see the city adopt a compassionate approach that doesn't at the same time enable years of lawbreaking by people who make nominally public spaces off-limits to the law-abiding. I'd like to see a San Francisco where there can be at least one clean, safe, working public toilet.

>>idlewo+L9
You should tell your elected officials that you support more initiatives to help the unhoused then.

I've ben homeless. It's not fun. Nobody does it because they want to. Ending up on the street trying to make the most basic of normality work is really hard work. I didn't end up on meth or anything (I stuck to alcohol), but I understand why some people facing this do. When your life is utter shite, drugs help.

Without any kind of social safety net the people who fall out of the bottom of society have nowhere to go except this. Build a decent safety net and they won't be living in the park and the park becomes the better place you'd like it to be.

So, on behalf of the unhoused: sorry your kids can't play in the park but we're facing bigger problems. Helping us with our problems will help you with yours.

>>marcus+ac
I left San Francisco 20 years ago, but, speaking to the situation in Chicagoland: our municipality funds long-term housing, support, and bridge services for local unhoused, and my understand is that the biggest problem we have with problematic unhoused people --- the people shooting up out in the open, or using vestibules as toilets, or accosting passers-by --- is getting them to take up those services.

It is the case that we have difficulty placing public toilets because of the risks their abuse will pose to unsuspecting users. I don't think it does anybody any good to pretend that these aren't real problems, or that we can moralize past them.

I think, at least in most major metros, we're past the point of it being a live issue whether to fund services to transition homeless people off the streets. Residents will fund those services simply because the alternatives are so disruptive. With that in mind, I feel like any response to this problem that centers on "well we should fund more services" is basically stalling.