The San Francisco Chronicle has never met a homeless encampment it didn’t love. In the case of the former Wood Street sprawl, the paper for years ran articles portraying it sympathetically, with articles praising its clinic, shared kitchens and community values, like it was some kind of Mayberry on the edge of town.
Of course, that picture was totally at odds with the reality: a mile or more of the most deplorable, dilapidated slum in America, an eyesore, a danger, and the Mark of Cain for a city that, under progressive leadership, was (and still is) circling the drain.
Now that Wood Street has been dismantled, the Chronicle just ran a misty-eyed remembrance, highlighting the special people who dwelt there, praising “the spirit” of Wood Street, and repeating former residents’ gripes about how mean Oakland is because the city doesn’t provide them with enough amenities. The op-ed piece also advances residents’ claim that they’re entitled to live in Oakland’s “many empty public schools”—buildings which, of course, would have to be improved at enormous public expense before hundreds or thousands of homeless people could move in.
The leftwing media, including the Chronicle, consistently portrayed Wood Street as a choirboy’s collection of misunderstood artists and poets who were victims of racism, rather than the addicts, dropouts and crooks they were. The paper would send their young, liberal reporters down there, and the professional con men who ran Wood Street charmed the pants off them, resulting in the Chronicle abandoning any pretense of objectivity and instead frankly publishing a false narrative on the front and editorial pages. Fortunately, the public didn’t fall for it. Despite the best efforts of the City Council to keep Wood Street open, popular opinion turned against it, and so did the courts. Wood Street, thankfully, is now a mere memory.
But not for the Chronicle.
This development comes at a time when two other things are happening that are directly related. Yesterday, Mark Benioff, the head of Salesforce, warned San Francisco that this year’s Dreamforce conference at Moscone Center—the city’s largest conference—will be the last, if there are continued issues with homelessness, crazy people, crime and open-air drug use. Coming in the midst of “doom loop” predictions, the end of Dreamforce could well be the straw that finally breaks San Francisco’s back.
At the same time, Governor Gavin Newson came out slamming a federal court decision banning San Francisco from clearing homeless encampments. That ruling was based on the years-old court case of Martin v. Boise, a dubious ruling that has never been challenged, but has provided city governments with excuses for doing nothing when it comes to banning encampments. In both San Francisco and Oakland, political leaders have complained their hands are tied because of Martin v. Boise.
It’s not hard to read the tea leaves here. Rampant homelessness, with its addicted zombies, crime and filth, is forcing business after business out of San Francisco and Oakland, threatening both cities’ tax bases, lowering property values, and chasing normal people away. Meanwhile, unresponsive governments do nothing except hide behind the fig leaf of Martin v. Boise, while judges (of whom we, the people, know virtually nothing) hand down prohibitions that prevent cities from doing anything constructive or useful.
Here’s how the Chronicle’s Wood Street paean concludes: “…As I [the reporter] stood in the middle of [the Wood Street] crowded block party earlier this month, tapping my feet to the live music and taking in a community that — despite all odds, they’d managed to salvage — it was hard not to believe Wood Street residents could rebuild some version of what they had before.”
Good lord, let’s hope not.
Steve Heimoff