The government is paying this San Francisco homeless man to live on the streets and he gets $620 per month in cash, along with hundreds of food stamps. He also sells Narcan for a profit while enjoying Amazon Prime and Netflix via his phone.
“This right now is literally by choice,” said James with face tattoos who has been living in San Francisco since June. “If we’re going to be realistic they pay you to be homeless here.” The author of ‘San Fransisco’ discussed how the city’s progressive leaders are making life more difficult for those struggling financially and he shared his own experiences as well- one being that there aren’t enough shelters or nutritious food outlets available during cold winter months when temperatures drop below freezing levels.
When James received his first phone call from the government, he said it only took one simple form and prompt response to get hundreds in cash rewards as well as food stamps worth approximately $100. The “free money” is what keeps him homeless.
‘F*****g phone call bro… Two hundred food stamps and $620 cash a month. Forget about it. Why wouldn’t I do it? You know, it’s f*****g free money dude,’ he explained. ‘Why would I want to pay rent? I’m not doing s**t. I’ve got a f*****g cell phone that I have Amazon Prime and Netflix on.’
The city’s homeless and drug problems have worsened as the national opioid crisis escalated over time. The San Francisco mayor, London Breed (a Democrat), has declared a state of emergency in order to crack down on open-air drug use throughout her jurisdiction while also working with federal partners such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Similarly, the Biden administration seeks to limit infections and fatalities among drug users and has created a $30 million grant program to reduce substance abuse in underserved communities.
The drug crisis in San Francisco has become “incredibly disgusting,” with dealers providing impure substances to users who then overdose because they take drugs alone. The cops are at fault for failing/not doing anything about this issue and instead of helping out other countries by giving them money that comes from fentanyl sales–a synthetic opioid much more potent than heroin or morphine producing deadly effects within minutes of administration (only if appropriate doses aren’t given).
‘I’ve talked to the cops here. “I’m literally 10 feet away from the drug dealers talking to you guys, why don’t you go arrest them right now?”’ he said. ‘And they’re like, “arrest them for what?… San Francisco is a sanctuary city. We arrest the Hondurans and we put them in jail, they’re out two days later.”’ ‘If they’re letting the Hondurans deal on the corner every day, somebody getting paid with fentanyl,’ James added.
The new ‘linkage center’ opened in San Francisco last month to connect homeless street addicts with drug rehab facilities. The site is now plagued by distressing images of an open-air illicit drug consumption area that has become heavily graffitied and crowded, as users shoot up amongst the multitude of other people living on society’s margins who are seeking some form or another for their pain. San Francisco has made progress in revitalizing its downtown area. The new center, which opened on January 18th is part of Breed’s Tenderloin Emergency Intervention plan introduced last year- it aims to clean up this crime-prone neighborhood and get aggressive with law enforcement when necessary “to save our city.” James shared firsthand how the drug crisis in San Francisco is worsening amid the fentanyl-fueled opioid epidemic.
I can take you to a dead body right now,’ he told Shellenberger. ‘People are stupid out here. They f*****g use alone. They’ll f*****g get a big bag of fentanyl and they’ll get a different batch and they’re by themselves and …. Nobody’s going to f*****g find you for days.’ He added: ‘I saved six people’s lives last week. We hadn’t even met before.’
When the addict explained that he sold Narcan to people who were overdosing and after saving their lives, cleaned out vials for $65 each. He also recalled how two teens recently approached him on street in search of oxycodone but couldn’t find it anywhere else than inside themselves or somebody else body (especially if they’re addicted).
Because he ‘needed the money,’ he instead sold the teens fentanyl and taught them how to administer Narcan – an emergency treatment that is injected into an overdose victim – ‘in case they died.’ James said the teens had $40 to spend on drugs, which he used to purchase fentanyl for them.
‘These two kids came up and they’re like: “Hey do you guys know where to get any oxycontin?”’ James told Shellenberger. ‘And I’m like, “look dude, I’m telling you right now, you’re not going to get oxycontin out here on the street.”’ ‘I said: “Ok, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to take your money” and I went and I got them fentanyl,’ he said. ‘I f*****g brought it back and I set it down in front of them and I said “This is a gram of fentanyl. It is enough to kill six people who have never used it.”‘
James said he showed the teens how much fentanyl he takes to get high and then provided a Narcan tutorial, citing how he knew they were going to continue to use drugs regardless of whether or not he helped them get high. James also explained how the police are no longer acting as authority figures but have instead become more like neighbors.
‘We used to battle with the cops, now it’s like the cops are – it’s like they’re your neighbor, you know?’ he said. ‘The cops told us this morning like: “Oh, it’d be easier if you guys packed up in the morning. We wouldn’t have to come out here.”’ ‘And I’m like “What are you talking about?” He’s like “Pack up your s**t in the morning” and I’m like “why?” He’s like “oh, OK,” and went on.’
San Francisco is grappling with lawlessness that has seen the city overrun with a crime over the past two years. Across the entire city last November, there were 3,375 reports of larceny-theft, the majority being car break-ins, with San Francisco Police Department’s Central District seeing the most car smash-and-grabs, at a total of 876. Police data as of February 6 shows theft in the city has increased 12.8 percent.
Throughout January, there was a 50 percent increase in homicides with three reported between January 1 and January 23, compared to only two during the same time frame last year, but overall crime has decreased by 6.2 percent, according to crime statistics released by the San Francisco Police Department as of February 6. Assault in the city has decreased by 8.8 percent over last year at this time. Robbery cases decreased 20.7 percent and rape cases decreased 23.8 percent.
A high percentage of an estimated 8,000 homeless people in San Francisco – many of whom pitch tents in the Tenderloin – are struggling with chronic addiction or severe mental illness, often both. Some people rant in the streets, nude and in need of medical help. Last year, 712 people died of drug overdoses, compared with 257 people who died of COVID-19. Homelessness in the Bay Area has become such a problem people are being urged to give their spare rooms over to the homeless.
Some charities have urged local families – who are sick of seeing the homeless crisis on their doorsteps – to do something about it personally by taking unhoused people into their own homes and spare rooms – and some schemes have little to no compensation. Since 2017, nonprofit Safe Time has made more than 60 placements. There are an estimated 30,000 homeless in the five-county Bay Area – which are comprised of the East Bay, North Bay, South Bay, Peninsula, and the city of San Francisco regions.
The mayor of Richmond, located in the East Bay county of Contra Costa about 20 miles from downtown San Francisco, has set up a program to match homeless people with local landlords who have empty apartments. Funded by private donations, it will pay the landlords a year’s rent upfront to encourage them to forgo the usual credit, employment, and background checks for tenants.
In another move to combat to help those living on the streets, San Francisco opened a center for homeless addicts last month. The supervised drug consumption area is an outdoor fenced section of the linkage center – just blocks away from the city’s courthouse, San Francisco City Hall, and the Civic Center.
Meanwhile, President Biden’s Health and Human Services department (HHS) is finalizing funding to dole out crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its ‘Harm Reduction Plan.’ The $30 million grant program, which accepted applications until Monday and will begin doling out money in May, intends to provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to make drug use safer, to advance ‘racial equity.’ Fox News host Tucker Carlson slammed the administration over the program, claiming the government would be giving out ‘free crack pipes to black people.’ Although the administration has clarified that they’re distributing safe smoking kits, not crack pipes, Carlson doubled down on his claims Tuesday night.
‘The Biden administration is promoting drug addiction,’ he said. ‘They’ve been caught doing it and now they’re denying it.’
A spokesperson for Health and Human Services told the Washington Free Beacon that included in these kits could be piped for users to smoke substances like crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, or ‘any illicit substance.’ HHS said that the kits will serve to limit the risk of infection – typically users smoke out of glass pipes which can lead to cuts and sores that become infected with diseases like Hepatitis-C. The kits include a rubber mouthpiece to prevent cuts and burns, brass screens to filter contaminants, and disinfectant wipes. Applicants for the program get priority if they serve ‘underserved communities,’ such as African Americans or Native Americans, or LGBTQ people. The grant program lasts three years and includes 25 awards of up to $400,000.
The Fox News host said that progressive groups, many of them funded by George Soros’s institutions, were encouraging Biden’s plan, and joked that the president’s 52-year-old son – who had a highly-publicized crack addiction – exemplified the ‘crack gap’. Carlson also took aim at San Francisco’s open heroin market on Tuesday, bashing the Democratic city for facilitating an area where addicts could openly buy and use drugs in a safe location. There were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, according to the CDC, a 28.5 percent increase from just the year prior. Three-quarters of those deaths involved opioids, many of them being synthetic opioids, such as methamphetamine or fentanyl.