Less than an hour ago walking back from the bus stop along Geary Street by Union Square I looked down to see a panhandler seated on the sidewalk opening up his zipper and exposing himself to the crowds of people walking by. Most people probably didn't notice. Bree didn't even notice. In fact she commented to me shortly thereafter about how he had his shirt up and he was clawing at his belly. Only a few minutes before while we were seated on the bus, the keenly dressed man in the gray suit, red silk shirt and fedora sitting across from us had looked up and me and out of the blue started exclaiming that "I'm one nigga you don't want to fuck with." and "Mutha Fucka I'm gonna shock your world" among other randomly aggressive and threatening things. Bree and I stayed silent and tried not to make any eye contact for the rest of the ride while the man across from us withdrew into just muttering quietly to himself.
If there has been an aspect of San Francisco that I haven't liked, it has been the pervasiveness of street people, many of whom have displayed pretty obvious signs of mental illness. I've heard in the past that San Francisco has a serious problem with homelessness, but I have still been taken aback by the extent of it which we have witnessed in our few days here. One reason for our heavy exposure to this aspect of San Francisco is undoubtedly our hotel's proximity to the infamous Tenderloin District which has the reputation for being one of the seediest areas in this otherwise upscale and heavily-gentrified city.
As a general rule I don't mind a little seediness. In fact, I've been known to seek it out from time to time, but San Francisco's Tenderloin really took me off guard. Massage parlors, check cashing places, single room occupancy hotels and liquor stores fill up every block block in the area. To save a few bucks I parked our rental car in a garage in the heart of the Tenderloin. I dropped Rachel and Bree off at the hotel before going to park the car one night when we got back from a long day out on the road. The three block walk back from the dingy little garage was like navigating a scene from Night of the Living Dead. I must have looked a little out of place in my khaki pants, Eddie Bauer shirt and fleece vest pushing an empty stroller through this minefield of shell-shocked junkies, panhandlers, drug dealers, prostitutes and all other assorted ne'er-do-wells to get back to the hotel. I was sorry Bree had taken the camera with her in the diaper bag. It was actually an enjoyable walk for me as I weaved through all the weirdness to the liquor store across the street from my hotel where I bought some wine and Jack Daniels to even things out a bit.
Over the few days Bree and I spent in the city we couldn't help but discuss the issue of all of hte derilects walking around. As a mental health worker herself, she pointed out that we were
witnessing, first hand, an excellent argument for bringing back state run insane asylums. During the 1960's and 1970s, for various reasons, there was a widespread deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill. Where before the incorrigible loonies were kept safely locked away and out of sight, those same psycos are now out busily frightening people at bus stops.
If this country wants to get serious about combating the "problem of homelessness" we should consider taking a stop back and consider starting to put more people in facilities again where
they can receive regular treatment for their illnesses. Ultimately this will benefit the insane by ensuring that they always have a roof over their heads, food to eat, and medications to treat whatever condition they may be suffering from. It would also limit their access to the hard drugs many of these people are self-medicating with on the streets. Furthermore, our cities would benefit a reduction in those people walking around begging for change, sleeping on sidewalks and crapping in doorways.
Rachel got to see her first rail-thin junkie smoking crack from a glass pipe on this trip. Perhaps I'm being an over-protective father but I was hoping to put that sight off for my daughter for at least a few more years. That said, we all had a wonderful time during our visit to San Fransisco. My next post will deal with the far more numerous positive aspects of our five days there. It really is a wonderful city and most of the people whom we met were friendly, interesting and helpful.
The mannequin in the window behind Rachel is actually Mr Magoo dressed in drag. This is just one more glaring symbol of the sordid depths this city will stoop to.
If there has been an aspect of San Francisco that I haven't liked, it has been the pervasiveness of street people, many of whom have displayed pretty obvious signs of mental illness. I've heard in the past that San Francisco has a serious problem with homelessness, but I have still been taken aback by the extent of it which we have witnessed in our few days here. One reason for our heavy exposure to this aspect of San Francisco is undoubtedly our hotel's proximity to the infamous Tenderloin District which has the reputation for being one of the seediest areas in this otherwise upscale and heavily-gentrified city.
As a general rule I don't mind a little seediness. In fact, I've been known to seek it out from time to time, but San Francisco's Tenderloin really took me off guard. Massage parlors, check cashing places, single room occupancy hotels and liquor stores fill up every block block in the area. To save a few bucks I parked our rental car in a garage in the heart of the Tenderloin. I dropped Rachel and Bree off at the hotel before going to park the car one night when we got back from a long day out on the road. The three block walk back from the dingy little garage was like navigating a scene from Night of the Living Dead. I must have looked a little out of place in my khaki pants, Eddie Bauer shirt and fleece vest pushing an empty stroller through this minefield of shell-shocked junkies, panhandlers, drug dealers, prostitutes and all other assorted ne'er-do-wells to get back to the hotel. I was sorry Bree had taken the camera with her in the diaper bag. It was actually an enjoyable walk for me as I weaved through all the weirdness to the liquor store across the street from my hotel where I bought some wine and Jack Daniels to even things out a bit.Over the few days Bree and I spent in the city we couldn't help but discuss the issue of all of hte derilects walking around. As a mental health worker herself, she pointed out that we were
witnessing, first hand, an excellent argument for bringing back state run insane asylums. During the 1960's and 1970s, for various reasons, there was a widespread deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill. Where before the incorrigible loonies were kept safely locked away and out of sight, those same psycos are now out busily frightening people at bus stops.If this country wants to get serious about combating the "problem of homelessness" we should consider taking a stop back and consider starting to put more people in facilities again where
they can receive regular treatment for their illnesses. Ultimately this will benefit the insane by ensuring that they always have a roof over their heads, food to eat, and medications to treat whatever condition they may be suffering from. It would also limit their access to the hard drugs many of these people are self-medicating with on the streets. Furthermore, our cities would benefit a reduction in those people walking around begging for change, sleeping on sidewalks and crapping in doorways.Rachel got to see her first rail-thin junkie smoking crack from a glass pipe on this trip. Perhaps I'm being an over-protective father but I was hoping to put that sight off for my daughter for at least a few more years. That said, we all had a wonderful time during our visit to San Fransisco. My next post will deal with the far more numerous positive aspects of our five days there. It really is a wonderful city and most of the people whom we met were friendly, interesting and helpful.
The mannequin in the window behind Rachel is actually Mr Magoo dressed in drag. This is just one more glaring symbol of the sordid depths this city will stoop to. 
4 comments:
All you need is a motorcycle and we'll have to start calling you Ted Simon.
"During the 1960's and 1970s, for various reasons, there was a widespread deinstitutionalization of the chronically mentally ill."
Treble, you need to up that by a decade. A large reason for deinstitutionalization, as you call it, is spelled R-E-A-G-A-N.
Actually, I think my statements were fairly accurate. According to an article entitled The Effects of Psychiatric Deinstitutionalization on Community Policing by Keven Gilmartin, Ph.D. "The traditional manner in which American psychiatry treated chronically mentally ill individuals underwent drastic philosophical changes in the 1960s and '70s. During this period, the belief that mentally ill individuals should be released from the nation's state hospitals and returned to local communities-labeled "deinstitutionalization"-became the goal of institutional psychiatry. Deinstitutionalization programs reduced the psychiatric inpatient populations nationally by 65 percent between 1968 and 1978, with the number falling from 399,000 in 1969 to 132,000 by 1980."
Additionally, according to PBS.org, "Deinstitutionalization was based on the principle that severe mental illness should be treated in the least restrictive setting. As further defined by President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health, this ideology rested on "the objective of maintaining the greatest degree of freedom, self-determination, autonomy, dignity, and integrity of body, mind, and spirit for the individual while he or she participates in treatment or receives services." Hospital census statistics clearly demonstrate the drop that took place over this period. In 1960 there were over 500,000 psychiatric inpatients in US hospitals. By 1980 that number had dropped to slightly over 100,000.
If Ronald Reagan were truly responsible for this public health debacle, as some politically motivated readers might suggest, it is true that he should be roundly criticized for it. However, I'm afraid that the facts don't really bear out.
I'm going to defer to you on deinstitutionalization, actually -- you're correct. There was a push in the period you mentioned to move away from state-run prison-like asylums into smaller, community-specific mental health centers. It's this second move, as represented by Sen. Kennedy's Community Mental Health Systems Act that was specifically repealed by Reagan (who would have been governor of California in the period you mention, and had a significant negative impact on the very people you discus in your post). But certainly this was a push from both the idealogical left (say, the ACLU pushing for patients' rights) and the idealogical right (the conservatives who didn't want to have to pay for this stuff).
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