Life in "Progress" City - San Francisco edition

Apparently, even "progressives" have a limit when it comes to compassion for the poor and downtrodden..............

San Francisco prides itself on helping the homeless, and it even created a special committee for grievances from those kicked out of shelters.

But this month, it began a new experiment that treats the homeless more harshly than the city's other policies. After lengthy training, police began enforcing an ordinance that bans sitting or lying on sidewalks during daytime hours.

The measure, which was approved by 54 percent of city voters in November, has drawn criticism from homeless groups and the down-and-out themselves.

The new approach comes at a time when the city is working to bolster tourism and local businesses in a tough economy.

Many residents have welcomed the ordinance, which was spearheaded by a neighborhood group from 1960s counterculture haven Haight-Ashbury.

Now out here in "Redville" we have no homeless. How is it that we seem not to have such a population. I'm guessing that if our community announced such things as sponsoring a methadone clinic, opened some community homeless shelters, opened a food bank, provided clean needles to users, and allowed people to shit and piss in public parks we would develop a nice homeless population within days.

So who's more compassionate?

It's been 15 years since I last visited San Francisco, and the thing that will always stand out to me were the throngs of people living in Golden Gate park while a bunch of old Italians were playing Bocci, the bum who opened a garbage can and started eating a half eaten burrito, watching a couple cops arrest some dude who was shitting himself on the corner of Haight and Asbury and the smell of urine everywhere.

It was like going to a zoo. Now that's "progressive"!

More......