You know housing is out of control.

Big problem in restaurants too. I've read about ridiculous commutes (2 hours) to be able to afford housing.

there but for the grace of gods and good choices go I.
Makes me so angry what this country spends it's money on. Don ivan should donate the millions he saves the nation by doing stay-cations two weekends a month. MAybe the WH M.D. can prescribe him something juicy and the guy will get some Dr ordered rest for a few days to recuperate from the illness that seems to be over coming him.

And Jeff Bezos makes hundreds of millions an hour.

Income inequality: the 800 pound gorilla in the room nobody wants to talk about. Enjoy your sidewalks covered in poop, rich conservatives! It's only going to get worse!

They pay A LOT more attention to the need for--and benefits to society of--mixed-income housing in all areas. I remember a tour guide pointing out Russel Crowe's house, then, about 50 feet away, a low-income housing unit.

...to come in and use their restrooms. That included homeless people and drifters who obviously weren't customers.

Nowadays it's completely OK to kick the homeless and other non-customers out of your place of business. Nobody pretends to be polite any more, just get 'em outta here. The city needs to reach out to social support groups such as soup kitchens and missions. These groups are probably overwhelmed and need all the help they can get. Support your local charities!

because they think they attract addicts.

There's a whole cottage industry designing public benches that can't be slept on...

This is the logical outcome of thirty years of designing cities to try to drive homeless people away without providing any reasonably alternative place for them to go.

I don't agree. While this particular problem seems to vary in intensity, lately it's been much improved. I live downtown, where the neighborhoods of Civic Center, the TL, and Little Saigon all come together. This is considered a "bad" neighborhood, but I have lived here for a long time. I'm an older white guy, but I've never felt uneasy. The urine/feces situation is being addressed by the use of restroom/shower facilities being staged around the neighborhood. These are high tech units, on wheels, with attendents. It works. The city is also spending money for a "poop patrol", I am satisfied that the problem is being addressed adequately.

And having an attendant is very wise. If homeless people can meet their needs (getting rid of their body waste, bathing, washing cloths), life becomes better for them and society.

I've noticed the attendants tends to be the muscular, no-nonsense types.

She now drives 2 hours home from work every day. We couldn't afford a house near where she works. Hell we cant afford a house in the next town over across the state line

And even then it was a stretch. I don’t know how people survive anymore in the Bay Area. My friend who lives in Marin gets her rent raised every year by $500 and she’s struggling mightily.

For years I worked downtown and it has progressively gotten worst with homeless and human waste. Haven’t worked down there in 5 years, recently went downtown and I was horrified by the smells of human waste. They are constantly cleaning and the city can’t keep up. They just should put those porta potties on every two blocks in those high homeless areas to help the situation. I see horrified tourists complaining about the city and it makes me ashamed being a life long native born San Franciscan. Was in Rome in March and talked to some other tourists who made the comment to me about the homeless and the smells.

This post recalled articles in the last year or so like http://observers.france24.com/en/20170901-plastic-bags-ban-could-spell-end-%E2%80%9Cflying-toilets%E2%80%9D-kenya-slums .

into SF this, and other problems, will just continue. I don’t blame businesses for turning them away; we wanted to use one of the restrooms near Embarcadero but both were occupied by the homeless doing god knows what in there. The line stretched for 30 minutes until one finally came out.

SF is so beautiful and has so much to offer, it’s a shame it’s being left to rot away like this.

I have been in big cities, where if you walk in alleys, you better keep an eye on the ground, even if your nose is picking everything up.

One of the truly unfortunate state of affairs is that cities that are economically successful become more and more difficult for people that don't earn above a certain amount of money, couple that with landlords (usually rich people or REITS) that have "planned" rent increases, even when they don't need to raise rents to cover costs. Some here love to rail about income inequality, but the situation goes far, far deeper than such a relatively simplistic charge. Growth happens because an area draws in talented people, more talent follows, soon rents and basic everyday expenses are out of control. Once things get out of control, a solution is more elusive and tremendously expensive, beyond the capacity of cities to cope. Currently, those companies chose to locate facilities in places that are desperate to have them and that throw out all types of "inducement" to get them to locate expansion facilities.

How can the problem be solved? Successful businesses that are making lots of money because of where they are, have to jointly pool some money to help cities build low cost housing and facilities for the homeless. States need to punish cities or even towns that bus their homeless or chronic drug addicts to places like SF, Seattle, ect, where it is believed they may get help.

The problem is not unique to SF, it happens more completely there because of the weather, but Seattle, Portland, New York City, Washington DC, Philly, Boston have the same issue to a lesser degree. Even formerly down on their heels cities like Pittsburg and the more recent Detroit began to see the issue as their economies become more diverse and prosperous.

... there's also money flowing in internationally to buy up places, leaving them paid for, but no one actually living there. Those sorts of "investments" bid up housing costs for people who actually plan on residing there.

No one in the media ever talks about the underlying causes of gentrification.

The media talks a lot about the lack of affordable housing. But more than that, the root cause of gentrification is the high demand for a more urban lifestyle but lack of supply. Younger Americans who desire to live an urban lifestyle have very few options, since 90% or more of the US is suburban in nature. There are very few cities built in the traditional urban style like you see in Europe and Asia. There isn't much to do in the suburbs and life there can be mind-numbingly dull. So young people will flock to the few big cities causing housing prices to skyrocket. Which in turn displaces the long time residents, creates more homelessness, etc.

Implies cities, or large stretches of cities that were down on their luck. Rents fall because of crime and lack of things like supermarkets and shopping.

Then, entrepreneurs or universities see the low rents for buildings that are in good shape, but largely abandoned. The most clever entrepreneurs build fast growing companies and that attracts more idea people to the area. Or the facility the university locate in the area grows in size and prestige, attracting spinoff businesses (biotech in many big cities, particularly SF and Boston-Cambridge). Cities don't plan for growth, so rundown housing stock or empty land is not bought up by cities, but is bought up by developers. As the economic prospects of the city or the area of a city grow, rents go out of control as more people flock there. Study the 40-60 year history of any "economically hot" location and what you will see is that at some time, the hot areas were rundown and dangerous and had low rents and plenty of vacant buildings, pick the city, you will see the same pattern.

but guess what happens after you have developed a previously abandoned area and created this very nice and desirable urban neighborhood? you just created a huge demand from rich white people who want to flock into the new hip and trendy urban hotspot. but the demand is often much greater than the supply.

a million people with the means may now want to live in that once depressed and abandoned downtown neighborhood, but there is only enough capacity for fifty thousand residents. so what is the solution? developers will then buy up the surrounding blocks that are currently occupied by long-time residents, landlords will jack up the rents to force out the long-time lower-income residents - in order to fill the demand of those who can pay much higher rents.

Then, not only can cities control what type of development happens there, they can also maintain a good supply of affordable housing for low income residents.

You touched on why cities should buy up as much depressed area land as possible.
Then, not only can cities control what type of development happens there, they can also maintain a good supply of affordable housing for low income residents.

The government located an airfield and advanced research there, the first operational amplifiers were mass produced there, the microprocessor was coinvented by an engineer that led, first a significant company, then what has become one of the largest companies in the world. San Jose was mostly orchard land in the fifties, the orchards are long gone, as are those in places like South San Jose and Morgan Hill. The chance for cities to get ahead on low cost housing went out the window over sixty years ago (with the exceptions of spots in San Jose and South Palo Alto that were somewhat run down even into the early 2000s). Buying up housing now and reverting it to low cost housing would be prohibitively expensive and isn't something cities that are highly developed consider (where would the money come from?)

of times a week. A great retirement activity. Up until late last year I knew of many rest rooms in stores, hotels, and restaurants that were easily accessible.

These days most of them require a key code in order to use them.

Since I'm, white, late middle aged and dress in "business casual" I don't have much of a problem getting those codes from employees at these places. Imagine a homeless person with limited ability to wash doing the same. Add that to the limited amount of city provided facilities and you've got quiet a mess.

I've decided that SF is telling me it doesn't need me or my disposable income and now get my exercise and eat in local restaurants near my nice Oakland neighborhood.

BTW Harvey Milk made his political bones with his "Pooper Scooper" law requiring dog owners to clean up after their dogs. Perhaps one of the current supervisors can make their bones and tribute Harvey...

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