WATCH: I Went To San Francisco. What Happened To One Of America’s Most
Beautiful Cities?
A few months ago, Colton Haas and I traveled to the once beautiful
city of San Francisco, hoping to have a question answered: What happened to San
Francisco?
While San Francisco has always battled homelessness and currently has about 7,000
homeless people, the drug issue is exacerbating the problem.
The city currently hands
out more
than 400,000 syringes each month but only 246,000 are returned, leaving 154,000
syringes left on the streets.
We spent our first day walking around the Tenderloin District,
only to see our fellow Americans defecating on the sidewalk, shooting up in
broad daylight, and overall living in third-world conditions. In one children’s
playground we visited, there were wrappers that once held drugs and caps of
syringes.
We also spoke with several homeless people many of whom told us
they were addicted to drugs and desperately want help.
One young man told us
that he came to San Francisco at age 18 hoping to have fun, became addicted to
drugs, and is now starting to look back at the five years he believes he has
wasted living on the streets and doing heroin.
Although not shown in
the video, one of the most frightening moments for me was when a homeless man
saw our camera and hollered at me to "film this!" When I turned
around, there was a syringe sticking out of his wrist and blood dripping down
his arm.
The next day, we
traveled to the tourist districts and still saw signs of the homelessness
crisis and opioid epidemic. While interviewing parents chaperoning a field trip
for elementary schoolers, there was a man lying in the grass with his pants
pulled down completely visible to the young kids only 100 feet away.
The most shocking part
about our entire time in San Francisco was not the drug problem we knew that was
an issue it was the open use of drugs. As Colton told me, "I’ve never seen
anyone shoot up, and now I’ve seen at least 10 people do so." In broad
daylight, in a playground, on a street corner, in a tourist district, it
doesn’t matter.
Watch Video:
Comments
Drug addiction brings
homelessness, crime and blight.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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