> To those whose lives have been irreparably harmed by the violent mentally ill people inhabiting SF's streets and parks while the police stand idle and billions of their tax dollars are spent annually failing to solve the problem-- it might hit a bit differently
The logic is that if your life is harmed by a violent mentally ill homeless person, then all homeless mentally ill people are more prone to causing such behavior. It’s flawed and I was purposefully making a provocative statement. A statement I might add that has actually been made in the past with much of the same emotional reasoning - I was hoping the jarring racism would resonante and share much of the same callous tone being displayed.
> This isn't a remark on wealthy people being more or less capable of physical violence, but rather that untreated serious mental illness is usually incompatible with maintaining a high maintenance lifestyle
I remember when Bob Lee was murdered in SF and everyone came out of the woodwork claiming it’s the supposedly violent mentally ill homeless people who clearly must have been responsible (it wasn’t). It’s important to separate the baseless narrative from the actual facts on the ground. Mentally ill and homeless make people feel uneasy and unsafe but the actual data suggests in reality they’re not so much different.
We can go back through the threads if you like, but it certainly wasn't everyone. My bet was on it being related to the yet unresolved theft of a ~billion dollars from FTX using phenomenal amounts of mobilcoin.
Instead it was a less interesting story: A drug user under the influence killed another drug user they knew well over an interpersonal dispute.
People doing dumb shit attacking other people they know who are also engaged in dumb shit is enormously different from being attacked by a stranger out of nowhere while minding your own business. People rightfully feel less safe regarding risk that they don't have much control over vs risk they have more control over.
And we should treat it differently. No amount of policing can ever make you safe-- ultimately we all have to keep ourselves safe. FAFO is a law of the universe that we can't legislate out of existence, but we can adopt policies that increase or decrease the risk of random violence.
[1]
Seems like violence is at an all time low, meaning the city is actually safer than ever. In fact, in 2024 violent crimes fell another 14% [2]. So if the goal truly is safety, we should keep doing whatever it is we’re doing because we’re on a fantastic roll of making the city safer.
[1] https://missionlocal.org/2023/04/bob-lee-killing-arrest-made...
[2] https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/san-francisco-2024...
Homicide rates are more reliable, since it's not something that can easily go unreported. But there is a lot of room for violent crime that is short of homicide.
> The 2024 downward trend was evident early in the year and was clearer by July, when police statistics showed a 39% drop in homicides from the first half of 2023, alongside significant declines in some violent and property crimes.
Wouldn’t it make sense that if homicides are down then so is violent crime? It would be strange if they didn’t track together for the most part.
It’s interesting the kind of alternative explanations that you start bringing out when the narrative you have doesn’t agree with the data.
Oh and look:
> Between 2022 and 2024, chronic homelessness increased by 11% with 2,989 people experiencing chronic homelessness in 2024. Thirty-five percent of the total homeless population is chronically homeless, a rate similar to 2022.
Weird how the homeless population stayed the same yet violent crime decreased. It’s almost like they’re not the ones that are behind the violence statistics.
https://www.sf.gov/reports--september-2024--2024-point-time-...