Michelle Tandler Profile picture
Jan 22, 2023 22 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Last night I went to a bar in downtown San Francisco.

It looked like a dystopia.

I saw hundreds of people folded over (likely high on Fentanyl), or sitting on the sidewalks smoking.

Almost every person looked homeless.

I felt scared to park and walk two blocks. Image
I took a drive down Mission street and saw tent after tent, person after person sleeping on the sidewalk.

The Tenderloin & SOMA were the same.

FiDi didn't have any tents (probably because the high-end property managers send in power washers at night).

It was beyond sad.
Everywhere people were congregating, the surrounding area was littered with trash.

People were emptying bins onto the ground and rifling through them.

When I walked to my car a very large man came uncomfortably close to me, talking to himself in an angry, booming voice.
In the two block walk back to my car I walked past five homeless people.

Two were sleeping in doorways. The other three passed me on the sidewalk.

Nobody else was nearby. My heart beat a little faster. Would they approach me? Attack?

All men, bigger than I. Staring at me.
Most women my age don't drive downtown. Certainly not alone.

But I don't want to let fear rule my life. When in New York I walk alone in Harlem, Queens, Brooklyn. And I don't feel scared.

In San Francisco, I do.
The people on the streets here are not simply "poor". There are no migrants or families in the tents.

The majority are white, 20s & 30s men, addicted to drugs.

I believe that San Francisco government is luring them here and enabling them into early deaths.
Did any of the people I saw last night die?

How many of the multiple sirens I heard between 1 and 5am were for overdoses?

Did my tax dollars go to someone who spent them on Fentanyl?

If so, am I complicit in this by living here?
Recently a man in San Francisco was arrested for spraying a homeless woman with water.

She had been camping in front of his shop for weeks, screaming, defecating, scattering trash.

He lost patience and engaged in a cruel act.

nysun.com/article/hosing…
How did we get here and who is at fault?

Whose responsibility is the care of that woman? He had been allowing her to camp under his awning for weeks. But she clearly needed more.

Where was SF government? California? The Federal government?
Who owns the sidewalk? The city? The adjacent landlord? The public?

Should she be allowed to camp, and block passage into his store?

Was he defending his property? Is that allowed?

These are the questions on my mind this morning...
I personally believe that people should not be allowed to camp.

I think we should have a right to shelter law and require campers to move indoors.

Hospitals, treatment centers, shelter and jail.

Those, I think, are the options.
The status quo is unsustainable.

Businesses are shutting down and leaving.

Nobody I know wants to go downtown.

Honest people trying to make a living are going bankrupt.

The homeless, rightfully so or not, have taken over downtown SF.
That man who sprayed down the woman...

How different were his actions than those of the property managers who hire power washers to clear the tents?

The companies pay thousands nightly to have the sidewalks hosed down.

That gallery owner used a hose himself. He went to jail.
Who is allowed to hose down the streets & who is not?

If you had someone camping in front of your home or business, what would you do?

San Franciscans are reaching a breaking point. Their patience has worn thin.
Who are the criminals and who are the righteous?

Are the homeless responsible for anything? Required to put their trash in the bin?

How many hundreds of millions do we spend every year cleaning up trash and needles in the gutter?

I wonder what our street cleaners think...
I am deeply concerned about San Francisco and have been for years.

The situation here is a humanitarian crisis, and it's unclear who is responsible for addressing it.

I don't see anybody making this situation their priority.

Our government looks asleep at the wheel.
The citizens and businesses are exasperated. Many are actively seeking to leave.

As leases come up and people move out, what will become of our city?

Is this what the hard left activists wanted? To reverse gentrification..?

Well, it's working.
Mission street between 16th and 24th is filled with boarded up windows and vendors selling stolen goods out front.

It looks like a developing nation, not the United States.

This is a shameful state of affairs, and I don't see a plan in place to address it.
I fear that San Francisco is on the brink of vigilantism.

When home values fall people will follow their natural urge to protect their families and net worth.

It is time for new solutions, or perhaps federal intervention.

The anarcho-tyranny needs to come to an end.
The worst part of all of this is the unnecessary suffering in our streets.

How many thousands come here, only to sink further into their addictions, followed by an early death?

When our city provides cash, needles & a lack of rule of law - is that actually helping anyone?
The strategy is called "harm reduction" - but the term sounds Orwellian to me.

All I see is harm.

I see harm to the individuals suffering from mental illness and addiction. I see harm to the businesses and property owners. I see harm to the spirit and soul of this city.
What happens to a society that turns a blind eye to such suffering?

When we drive around the bad neighborhoods, so that we can pretend it isn't happening?

Have we hardened our hearts? What does that do to our souls?

Seeking any and all insights...

Thank you for reading.

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More from @michelletandler

Jun 4, 2023
I have long believed that the power balance in San Francisco politics would not flip Moderate until there is a significant loss in residential real estate.

This is now underway.

Residential values are down 17% from the peak, compared to 3% nationwide.

hoover.org/research/san-f…
Median sale prices in San Francisco have dropped $220,000 from a year ago.

Think about that for a moment... The average San Francisco homebuyer from last year is facing a loss of a quarter of a million dollars.

That is a life-changing loss for most.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
It will be fascinating to see how SF residents absorb the shock of the losses.

Many have been watching their home values climb for years - anticipating significant payouts someday.

The current climate could turn things around. Especially as more and more companies jump ship.
Read 9 tweets
May 30, 2023
The writers guild is striking outside ABC.

I asked the woman at the table what they were asking for and she said she didn't know. Told me to check the website.

She works for the Union.
She gave me this paper. Still unclear what they are asking for. Image
She said the writers were not being paid sufficiently because of streaming.

I asked how so. She was not able to explain it.

I asked if the writers were concerned about AI.

She said they are asking for regulations.

I thanked her and headed home to review the site.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 21, 2023
I just analyzed drug overdose deaths in San Francisco before & during the operation of our safe injection site from January to November of 2022.

In 7 out of 11 months it was open, *more* people died than during the same month the previous year. Image
For those who would like to double-check my analysis -- here is the Google Spreadsheet.

I entered the data manually from the PDFs posted on this site:

sf.gov/departments/ci…

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
These findings contradict the narrative currently in circulation by our experts in gov, medicine & media.

Dr. Ciccarone, a professor of family & community medicine at UCSF attributes the increased overdose deaths this year to the center closing.

Supervisor Preston concurs. ImageImage
Read 11 tweets
Apr 20, 2023
The San Francisco homeless population created $20 million worth of damage to hotels during pandemic.

*This is why people in SF are scared*

It isn’t about homicides. It’s about untreated mentally ill people high on meth who can be quite destructive when not supervised.
Our local papers keep pushing the “crime is down” narrative.

With all due respect, *nobody* cares if homicides are lower now than in 1990.

What they are about is how they feel walking to the local park with their toddler.
The “harm reduction” strategy is possibly one of the most destructive sets of policies in San Francisco history.

It is the work of hard-left activists who are stuck in a 1990s world of heroin and crack.

Meth and Fentanyl are different. They are highly destructive and deadly.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 11, 2023
Leftist Twitter proved yesterday that they are more outraged by my asking a philosophical question about the death penalty than the actual crimes going on in San Francisco.

*Noted*.
I saw hundreds of these yesterday.

As a reminder, I was asking a theoretical question. I studied philosophy in college.

I was asking about the morality of the death penalty. I do not advocate for it.

These people, however...


700 people died in San Francisco last year from overdose deaths.

Is anybody saying their names?

Nope.
Read 9 tweets
Apr 11, 2023
I walk around San Francisco 6 miles a day and speak with homeless people often.

Most will die from an overdose soon if we don’t make changes to our policies.

Today I was absolutely eviscerated by the hard left.

But it did not hurt.

I know what I am fighting for is saving…
This is not about politics. This is about results. Facts do not care about your feelings.

You may *feel* that it's wrong to put a drug dealer in jail. It isn't. It's saving lives.

We should treat drug dealers like people who shoot a gun into a crowded room.
The hard-left activists in San Francisco are manufacturing death.

Their "success" criteria are reversed overdoses. Letting people overdose 20, 30, 40 times - it ruins their brains.

That is why addicts are often referred to as "zombies." They are on the brink of death.
Read 8 tweets

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