The Doom Loop Lives On in San Francisco As The Hilton Slides Into Foreclosure
The doom loop continues as the Hilton Union Square and Park 55 go into foreclosure. These are two of the biggest hotels in San Francisco. This should be setting off alarm bells, but the news is going largely unnoticed. In a too little too late maneuver, London Breed is set to start jailing the drug-addicted and their drug dealers. What I am learning living in San Francisco is that the homeless are a product that many are profiting from. I don’t think I’ve seen a problem get more resources and help than this one and yet not improve. The city is budgeting $1.5 billion over the next three years in addition to the money already expected to be spent. That comes out to about $70,000 per shelter bed per year. That’s compared to $16,657 per student spent in our public schools.
San Francisco is slightly smaller than Jacksonville, Florida. Yet San Francisco’s homelessness budget — $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2021–22 — is nearly 80 percent of Jacksonville’s entire city budget. But despite this enormous spending, homelessness and the attendant problems of drug abuse, crime, public health issues, and an overall deterioration in the quality of life, spiral further downwards each year. — The Hover Institution
Take a look at this article on safe consumption sites and then click on the comments. There are some scathing comments making it safe to assume that the sentiments have changed here in San Francisco. When I first moved here I could not believe the state of some of the people on the streets and could not understand why they were not being helped. Later as I continued to observe the conditions in San Francisco I began to see that this is a very tolerant city. As the months went by I could see that these people are being helped constantly in so many ways, but with addiction, things can not change. Like any co-dependent relationship, you can’t keep enabling the addict. How do you help someone overcome addiction? You can’t unless they are willing to go into treatment and many of the street people here are not willing to do that.
San Francisco has spent billions of dollars on the homeless and nothing has worked or helped. Our compassion has not helped anyone and now our stores and hotels are emptying out. We have essentially given over this city to this small group of people. I can’t imagine what will happen when Nordstrom closes its doors and the Hilton hotels close. The doom loop is real and it’s happening now. Are we turning into the new Cleveland or the new Detroit? Maybe, but the difference is we have jobs here, but no one to fill them because we’ve allowed our city and public transportation to be overtaken by a small group of people and their backers who run the open-air drug markets. When I walk down the street I see empty stores all around me and in August Nordstrom will depart what then? Even Martha Stewart who is demanding people return to work in a recent People Magazine article can’t convince the remote workers to return. Why would they?
In contrast, I spent yesterday in Golden Gate Park. What an incredibly beautiful and special place. I was working at the Bouquets to Art event at the de Young Museum. There are many beautiful neighborhoods in San Francisco that are less impacted, but even that is changing.
These are complicated issues, but the tide is turning as progressive politics has proven it does not work.
San Franciscans tricked themselves into believing that progressive politics required blocking new construction and shunning the immigrants who came to town to code. We tricked ourselves into thinking psychosis and addiction on the sidewalk were just part of the city’s diversity, even as the homelessness and the housing prices drove out the city’s actual diversity. Now residents are coming to their senses. The recalls mean there’s a limit to how far we will let the decay of this great city go. And thank God. — Nellie Bowles
My lease is up in July and I am still deciding where I want to live. Luckily, I have many good options, but it’s still highly unusual that I don’t know exactly where I am moving because I have always been such an intricate planner. I not only have a quarterly plan I have an annual plan and often a five year plan.
With Ocean SF going to Amazon this summer I will be free to stop doing pop-ups, sales, the website store, and filling orders and managing inventory. Now my best sellers will ship from the factory to Amazon Fulfillment. With this free time, I would like to return to consulting in the technology industry. I will either be in leadership development or back to my roots in marketing and corporate communications.
Where I live is the big question. Do I stay or do I go?