For quite a while now, Americans have been watching the slow death of many large cities. Places that were once premiere urban centers for food, music, the arts, sports, and just about any other entertainment you can think of, are now just pockets of the worst kind of urban decay. In the worst cases, strung-out addicts are roaming the streets, crime is completely out of control, and homeless people are living on almost every inch of the public sidewalk.
Many of these cities, for decades, have been run by Democrats with not just Democrat mayors, but Democrat city councils, and Democrats in almost every position of authority. One group of blue-city residents has had enough.
Welcome to San Francisco.
— 👑💥 Serenity 💥👑 (@polishprincessh) March 10, 2024
You get what you vote for.pic.twitter.com/8IvoZyD2lj
A group of citizens in San Francisco's famed Tenderloin District is suing the city of San Francisco over policies that have allowed the city, and more specifically their neighborhood, to devolve into little more than an open-air drug market and homeless encampment. The lawsuit, filed by four anonymous Tenderloin residents, and also the Phoenix and Best Western Hotels, claims that the city's super-progressive policies have allowed the conditions to not just occur, but get worse over time.
Tenderloin residents have good reason to be ticked off. Crime in their neighborhood rose a whopping 240 percent from August 2022 to August 2023. In response, an obligatory-sounding statement from Jen Kwart, spokesperson for San Francisco attorney David Chiu, said in part,
“While we understand and share the frustration of Tenderloin businesses and residents, the City is making progress in reducing crime, disrupting open-air drug markets, and addressing homelessness, all while complying with the preliminary injunction issued in the Coalition on Homelessness case."
While residents and businesses citywide have implored San Francisco police to solve more crimes, police consistently say they are "underfunded and undervalued" by the city government. How's that defund the police thing working out? The answer, not too well. Between 2020 and 2022, the Bay Area lost around 250,000 residents. Those who live and work in the Tenderloin District may have an uphill battle and will have to compete with other lawsuits, including one from the other side of the issue.
The Coalition on Homelessness is a non-profit that assists San Francisco's homeless population. Their lawsuit contends that the City violated Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment by "threatening, citing, arresting, and removing" the homeless from public areas, and Fourth Amendment rights by confiscating and destroying possessions.
In the other suit, the University of California College of the Law San Francisco stated that the City violated a 2020 settlement agreement that requires City officials to make "all reasonable efforts" to remove homeless camps in neighborhoods near schools.
This is my favorite picture representing contemporary San Francisco pic.twitter.com/ui8iVL6Dks
— Swann Marcus (@SwannMarcus89) March 12, 2024
My colleague Ward Clark has chronicled the sad implosion of the once-beautiful city where the great Tony Bennett left his heart. There are of course the famous, or infamous "poop maps," and now there is also a car break-in tracker. There were 879 car break-ins in February alone. In the Richmond District, not only are residents dealing with car break-ins, but also burglaries, robberies, and a weekend last August when 200 dirt bike riders terrorized the neighborhood, popping wheelies and creating traffic nightmares. Police were prevented from doing anything citing a rule on them from chasing anyone who has not committed a felony, or is a threat to public safety. If 200 dirt bike riders do not constitute a threat to public safety, what does?
The good folks in the Tenderloin District seem to have reached their limit; is the rest of San Francisco feeling that way too? Well, on Election Day, March 5, voters approved a change in the way police pursue criminals, allowing for chases in the case of less serious crimes. Is there any hope for the rest of California? Might be too soon to tell, but if Republican Steve Garvey can pull out a Senate win, it just might be the start of something big.
Two photos. The first one is the inside of the abandoned closed down Starbucks on the corner of Kearny and Bush Street in downtown San Francisco — the second photo is the scene directly across the street from the closed down Starbucks right now. Could there be a possible… pic.twitter.com/1k0EE4RySS
— Thomas Hawk (@thomashawk) March 13, 2024
