On an early Monday morning, Juan C. Guerrero smoked a cigarette in front of his car on 16th Street. Guerrero, who owns a driving school, said he’s been doing business in the 16th and Mission streets area for the last 42 years.
“Soon I’ll be homeless, just like them,” said Guerrero, who was feeling glum about his business. He pointed at a man and a woman who stood in front of the Wells Fargo door, at their feet were two colorful glass bongs.
To Guerreo’s right, a man wearing all black, ate a croissant from a plastic box which was in a blue recycling bin. Guerrero explained that he is in danger of losing his home due to his struggling business.
“I guess he’s doing better than the last one,” said Guerrero about Mayor Daniel Lurie’s performance. Guerrero said the San Francisco Police mobile command unit, which has been parked at the plaza for 77 days today, has helped deter violent crime, but it hasn’t solved the real problems.
The northeast BART Plaza was fairly active today. People stood on the far end, huddling around and socializing with each other. There weren’t too many people coming up from the BART station this morning.
At the southwest BART plaza, the situation was much more calm. There were no food vendors, and a couple of people waited at the Muni bus stop. An SFPD SUV arrived with its flashing lights and parked next to the mobile command unit. An officer got out and checked the back of his patrol car; he had a white coffee cup in his hand. He shut the door and headed into mobile command.
“Guerrero said the San Francisco Police mobile command unit which has been parked at the plaza for 77 days today has helped deter violent crime, but it hasn’t solved the real problems.”
What nonsense. Deterring violent crime is why it’s there. Mission Local is unhappy because it’s not also addressing income disparity and climate change, and it hasn’t done a thing about the Athletics leaving Oakland.
Josh —
Your inability to parse the comments made by Mr. Guerrero in a man-on-the-street interview and the editorial position of this newspaper (insofar as we have one and insofar as it’s the reductive and crassly stupid one you apply) is disturbing. Are you sure you’re ready to offer media criticism?
Yours,
JE
Joe,
Ignore him.
It’s like Mohammed Ali taking boxing lessons from Sylvester Stallone.
At least he did do a sports allusion.
lol
Go Niners !!
h.
“I guess he’s doing better than the last one,” – No specifics.
People’s humanity is readily expressed through their face and eyes. Due to the voyeuristic and suspect nature of the ‘crackdown’ photos, face and eyes of those inherently portrayed as the problem are not included, clearing the way for easy derision at best, and physical harm at worst.
The presumed person here is identified as a man, but could be a woman, or sacks of potatoes for all I know. The effect of the photos — and the ‘crackdown’ series by-and-large — is further marginalization and othering of disenfranchised community members. (not including the focus articles on Gubbio, police stats, Kailash, etc..)
I don’t see there being any meaningful accountability for city officials or departments, and there is little to be gleaned from the dailies, which promote outrage. Often outrage can be a mechanism for initiating consequences and/or change, but I’m skeptical in this instance.
Anyone who’s had to contend with opiate addiction amongst friends, family or acquaintances knows that for one’s own health, the best path forward is to cut the junkie off after a point because odds are that they’re already gone. Odds are that no matter what interventions the city and nonprofit fashion up, 70% of these people will be dead within 5 years.
The bankruptcy of contemporary progressivism is that compassion for the wounded is celebrated while organizing to end the abundance of shit lives is enjoined.
After three decades of progressive “be compassionate, do nothing,” that has won the right wing so many elections, it is high time for advocates to sit down and STFU and to throw this into the laps of the conservatives. They won. We lost.
It is time to demonstrate to the electorate now that the right wing offers up absolutely nothing but fevered outrage at public squalor by granting them the benefits of winning elections.
The case can be made that the slow burn over time of “be compassionate, do nothing” is not that incomparable with assenting to the right wing crack down as it were.
Continuing to latch onto “be compassionate, do nothing” only reinforces the framing that’s decimated progressive political power over the decades. This does not mean that we have to support “be mean, do the worst,” rather put progs emotional needs to be seen washing the feet of the lepers on hold for a moment to allow the politics to hopefully reset after the right wing fails.
Well thought out and well said.
Invented numbers and “junkie” talk aren’t great points…
I said invented numbers and “junkie” talk aren’t actually great points that require rehashing on every homelessness / drug treatment story here.
You don’t have to be a mensa member to get it.
Are you seriously tone policing me?
Do you think that working people craft their language as if they were in the MPP program at Berkeley?
Let’s take Narcan away and let society and nature take it’s course. I will feel bad for first responders and the medical people but they are dealing with a disaster with no end as it is.
You work in getting you results and I’ll work on getting mine. The pic I referenced is gone. Downvoters be damned, I feel heard. Thanks Alonso!
Geez, RLE …
That may be the best comment on one of these forums I’ve ever read.
If I didn’t know you personally I’d have guessed an LLM wrote it.
My favorite explanation to date is that I’m living in a Computer Simulation Game created sometime in the Future or (and, it doesn’t matter) Past.
As a Future/Past Visitor I have chosen to play the character h. brown and everyone else (there aren’t really that many as my Universe for this character ends at line of sight) …
So, my character at 81 wants his last days to be exciting and so while he’s a Socialist on the game board, as the Player he only wants thrills and can you imagine how boring a Harris presidency would be about now as compared to Trump ?
And, answer to your question as to why the City doesn’t act sanely and every year administrations only double down on strategies proven to be losers it would be that it is not in their script (so far) to do that.
go Niners !!
h.