# 6 Wrong Side of the Tracks
Be warned, this one is not as interesting as the last, and there are no photos, for the benefit of my own safety, and respect for people a lot less fortunate than me.
After a long day walking around, I chilled out for a few hours before leaving to get some toiletries and something for a sore throat. It was just after 5pm, but it was already starting to get dark when I headed out to the nearest branch of Walgreens. Annoyingly, and presumably because of the location, bordering the Tenderloin, the bulk of the stock is locked behind glass. There are buzzers located in the aisles, which when pressed will summon a shop assistant whose job is to liberate a can of Lynx for you, and pass quick judgement to determine if you can be trusted to take it to the cashier unattended.
After scoring a bag of goodies from the pharmacy I walked back up the hill to the hotel, stopping regularly to catch my breath on the steep climb. Back in my room I contemplated something that Essex boy Uber driver Rishi had said on the ride home. Apparently on more than one occasion he had dropped off groups of lads, and I think ‘lads’ is the correct term here, on the street at one side of the Tenderloin district, and been instructed to pick them up several blocks away on the other side, to allow them to do the ‘zombie run’. Presumably fresh from a bar they would leg it as fast as they could through the roughest parts of the city whilst avoiding being mugged, stabbed or shot, by the destitute individuals who call these streets their home. People who, I was sure posed a much lower threat than these zombie runners would be imagining in their adrenalin-fuelled adventure.
I decided that I would undertake my own zombie walk, not to exploit the situation for a buzz, but rather to go and see what the fuss was all about. I anticipated I would go in full-on Louis Theroux style and rely on my normally well-concealed wit and charm to get to the bottom of the investigation. The walk towards the TL from my hotel takes you through Union Square, which is home to a bunch of big stores, and a key stop for most “normal” tourists.
The more criminal of the homeless people no doubt take advantage of the proximity of these tourists, but I was going in with eyes wide open, and no camera or wallet to be seen, and wearing my quick shoes. Right next to Macy’s I crossed over the cable car tracks set into Powell Street, and soon realised I was on the wrong side of those tracks.
I had walked nearby during the daytime, where the number of homeless here was shocking, but they didn’t seem to pose a threat. In daytime, the locals who have homes and businesses in this area did not be seem remotely bothered by their less fortunate neighboughs, and that encourages a level of confidence in a newcomer to the area. However, in darkness there were fewer such people around, and the level of threat did seem palpably higher to me, but not too much so, and not as bad as I had been led to believe. I didn’t have plans to stop and start conversations, I was just passing through, but in the 20 minutes or so I was there, all of life’s problems could be witnessed. Drug deals taking place in front of passing police cars, with zero effort to conceal the transaction, people smoking heroine or meth and countless others lying prostrate in the streets and doorways. If I was in Birmingham or London and walked past a person lying face down and flat out, I know I would intervene to make sure they are OK, knowing that if they weren’t, then I could call a medic who would assist. It felt like there was no chance of that here, and no way for me to know which of the countless individuals I walked by or stepped over was dead or just passed out and waiting on the next hit. The only way I could reassure myself of their well-being was in my consideration of the fact that they were mostly sat or clustered in close groups, and I assumed that someone in their groups was keeping watch and they were looking out for each other in some form, although this may have just been wishful thinking on my part.
Whilst I felt uncomfortable and concerned, I was not overly scared. These were men and women from all sorts of backgrounds who had fallen on hard times, and found themselves on the streets. Unfortunately, it seemed the majority had turned to the readily available supply of self-medication to deal with their ails, and in their medicated states, posed little threat to me. Similarly, I had reasoned (maybe naively) that the sober people on the streets were either regular homeless folks, or the dealers, conspicuous in their behaviour and location on the street corners, neither of whom would be a threat to me as long as I allowed them to go about their business. Either way, I walked back up to my hotel, minding my step to avoid needles and a dog turd. As I walked away, I was contemplating how easy my life is in comparison whilst giving serious thought to these big problems and the solutions to them, before coming quickly to the realisation that it was actually a human turd.
There are homeless charities and support groups working in these neighbourhoods, doing an amazing job, I have no doubt. However, the problem seems so unwieldy, to the point that the police take no interest and the spectacle of fellow humans lying, possibly dead, in streets littered with spent needles and human waste becomes nothing more than an acceptable annoyance to the people who live there. In my simplistic view, why couldn’t government and / or the super rich tech companies around the corner build a massive homeless shelter and provide funding for treatment, or would this just be a ‘sticking plaster’ fix until more people came? It seemed to me like a problem that should be easily fixed, but at the same time, I know there are many more complicating factors which comprise peoples’ stories and drive them into a situation like this. I have since learned that (post 2018) companies based here that turnover more than $50m are obliged to pay 0.5% of their profits towards the costs of rehoming the low-income individuals their businesses have displaced, which is some progress, I guess.
I wasn’t going to write this blog, it’s mostly a massive downer and there are no nice pictures for me to show off, but I think it’s important for people who are visiting San Francisco to know about the reality of the situation here. If you’re a normal tourist, and you stick to the normal touristy areas you won’t be at risk at all, but you will see things that make you uncomfortable. You will walk past more beggars that you ever have, and you will feel awful about following the advice to not give them anything. Whichever way you look at it, remember these people are not just some potential annoyance on your holiday to San Francisco, they are San Francisco, and deserve more respect than to be a source of excitement for the next ‘zombie run’.
As I write this in the middle of April 2020 at the height of the Coronavirus outbreak, I have read that a good number of these homeless people are being housed in emergency shelters, including one created in the Palace of Fine Arts (see previous blog) much to the annoyance of NIMBY locals in the Marina District. I can’t help but feel they might have been safer and at lower risk of exposure to the virus when they were outside rather than in a tent full of other people, but hopefully they are getting looked after properly.
I realise I have just written a whole blog mostly about homelessness, and the previous one was about suicide. I promise the next one will be lighter, it’s all about prison.
