Thursday, February 22, 2018

San Francisco: "UN expert decries homeless conditions in Bay Area as ‘cruel,’ ‘unacceptable’"

You may have seen the story.
The UN's special rapporteur on Adequate Housing has been jet-setting around, Mexico City, Mumbai, S.F., documenting what she sees:
“In Mexico City, I visited a low-income settlement that had been moved by the city onto empty land near a railway line,” [Farha] said. “They had no running water. They stole electricity.” The camp was noisy and dangerous. She noted that the camp in Mexico is virtually identical to those she visited in Oakland, including the Wood Street and 23rd Avenue encampments....
The above snip is from the East Bay Express reprinted in Curbed San Francisco.

Curbed has had one of the most impressive series on the situation of any major media.
There's the January 22 piece  we used for the headline which wraps up with:
After her trip to the Bay, Farha headed out to assess conditions in LA, an errand she told the East Bay Express she dreaded after observing encampments here.
Additionally they had coverage a week later with "How SF tourism industry deals with the homeless crisis":
“I actually think it’s the worst it’s ever been”

February 12's "San Francisco backs new law to intervene with severe homeless population":
“This is a public health issue and needs to be treated as such”

February 19's "Some SF streets filthier than world’s poorest slums, says UC Berkeley professor"
So kudos to Curbed.

Someone else who's been pointing out various aspects of the culture that is San Francisco is Elaine Ou who we linked to last summer in: San Francisco's Dirty Little Secret
And again in November's "Elaine Would Prefer That Amazon Not Move to San Francisco (AMZN)".

As I noted the first time we linked to the Curbed headliner:
It's a deliberate policy decision by the municipal and county government. More on that point next month....
Still not ready to do that but I thought we should update with the nod to Curbed.