Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Can't we do better than this?

On a walk with a parent in 1940, a curious small child looked at this scene and asked: "What's that?"
"Oh, that's some Boy Scouts with a thing they call a pup tent."

On a walk with a parent in 1990, a curious child looked at this scene and asked: "What's that?"
"That's a back packing tent. When you get bigger, we'll do that one day."

On a walk with a parent in 2020, a curious child looked at this scene and asked: "What's that?"
"Oh, that's a tent. That's where some people who don't have houses sleep. Unless they aren't lucky enough to have a tent. Then they sleep in the doorways."

I'm out most mornings at dawn, running in the Mission District streets. It's not like what I hear the Tenderloin looks like -- so many tents that the sidewalks are impassable to walkers. But many blocks, including the one I live on, host at least one tent. The one pictured is half a block from the police department; don't know if that makes for a danger to its occupants or provides a kind of security. All along Valencia Street, people huddle under blankets in doorways.

Can't we do better than this?
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousWednesday, June 17, 2020 6:25:00 PM

    WE NEED TO DO BETTER! It is shameful to have this in our country.

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  2. unkmonk1Monday, June 22, 2020 9:03:00 AM

    Apparently not; you've been in charge/in power since at least the early 1970s and this is the result. Either people are being given tickets in other parts of the country to go to San Francisco and embarrass you or your city is like your church: fine with hanging around the educated upper middle class while wringing its hands at the poor around it.

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