Dear Parents Across America: Keep Your Children Away From San Francisco
Dear Parents Across America: Keep Your Children Away From San Francisco
Regretfully, people die on San Francisco’s streets and in temporary housing from fentanyl and other highly-addictive, dangerous drugs daily
By Richie Greenberg, July 22, 2023 2:55 am
Dear Parents Across America: Keep your child away from San Francisco.
Parents, does your child seek refuge from criticism over their drug use, suffer from a mental disability or do they simply want to live “off the grid,” free from constraints of societal norms? They should not come to San Francisco.
Be warned: San Francisco officials have given taxpayers’ hard-earned money to unaccountable nonprofits serving the homelessness and drug addiction sectors to administer programs on their behalf, ultimately ineffective.
Our mayor London Breed, along with our Board of Supervisors (our city council), who allocate spending, disregard accountability; City Hall refuses to acknowledge their unconscionable waste of monies. Your child will not be provided meaningful care by the city, nor a safe, secure environment for them to rehabilitate, get clean, navigate to a job or into housing. Recently published statistics painted a very grim picture for those individuals who come to (or are lured to) San Francisco seeking an escape from a troubled home environment. This is my plea to parents across America: Stop your child from coming to San Francisco.
News reporters, concerned citizen journalists and civic organizations conduct interviews seeking comment directly from the homeless and drug addicted on the streets, on a perpetual basis. The affected individuals indicate many were forced out of their homes by their family. Most tell us they understood San Francisco is the preferred place to go due to our city’s acceptance of homelessness, lax law enforcement, monthly financial stipends and ease of obtaining cheap drugs. California also has a law (Prop. 47) which makes theft of merchandise below $950 a misdemeanor, essentially saying shops can be looted and theft won’t be prosecuted. So, I ask you: How long before your child lives in a tent- perhaps an encampment- in filth, garbage and hazardous waste, sexually assaulted or trafficked, to partake in their preferred drugs, and steal from our local businesses, their lives then subsidized by local San Francisco taxpayers?
Regretfully, people die on San Francisco’s streets and in temporary housing from fentanyl and other highly-addictive, dangerous drugs daily. Overall, more people have died from fentanyl overdose than by Covid. There is virtually no meaningful treatment for street drugs here. None.
San Francisco’s best success is to return your child home. Surveys and data have consistently found the best plan is to actually provide a ticket for individuals to leave the city and live with loved ones through the Homeward Bound program. Statistically, this means all other treatment and solutions for distressed, addicted and homeless individuals in San Francisco have been unsuccessful. Under a plan formulated by former mayor (now governor) Gavin Newsom, Homeward Bound pays the travel expenses for individuals’ transportation home. Starting March 2023, current mayor London Breed is expanding access to this program.
Who pays for this? Taxpayers do. I do. My hard-earned money is going to the city through property taxes, business taxes, sales tax, hotel occupancy taxes, parking meters, gasoline taxes, bridge tolls and more. We residents are weary, we are overtaxed and the high cost of operating homelessness, addiction, drug overdose and emergency care programs combine into a very significant chunk of our city’s budget, while other agencies, departments, programs and resident/business and students’ needs are scrambling for funding.
For the 2023-2024 fiscal year, there is a projected $760 million shortfall; for 2024-2025 it will be significantly higher.
Last May 2023, an official meeting of San Francisco’s Mayor and Board of Supervisors (city council) was convened outdoors yet terminated early amid a rowdy throng. Ultimately, a brick was thrown by a deranged individual from the crowd towards the mayor. The brick-thrower was a 26-year-old transgender woman whose mother had sent to San Francisco from Texas just months prior. The mother soon after made a statement to the media about the violent incident, admitting she knew her daughter has bipolar disorder – stating she hoped “San Francisco would take good care of her.” The daughter is now currently in jail and is charged with attempted murder. This is precisely why our streets have become dangerous. This is why San Francisco cannot continue as a city to send “difficult” children to; we are not a rehabilitation center; we do not take care of your child.
Our city is in deep trouble on many fronts and your child moving here to become dependent on local taxpayers funding is unfair, reckless and truly irresponsible and can be deadly. Please talk to your child, to your extended family, to health professionals and find an alternative to San Francisco. Please.
Richie Greenberg is a long-time San Francisco resident, political commentator and former candidate for mayor. He was founder of and media spokesman for the recall of DA Chesa Boudin. He currently is spearheading the effort opposing the SF Reparations Plan.
