There has been an ongoing battle of patients with no ties to San Franscisco being given bus tickets and told to go, and sin no more.
However, this behavior has been going on along the west coast since the 1800s. San Franscisco would put their crazies on the train for Seattle, then Seattle would send them to Portland. Or maybe it was the other way around. IIRC, it went back and forth until the mental health reforms of the 1950s.
It just shows that some things never change.
And eventually everyone ends up in Arcata.
San Francisco, with its mild climate, extensive social services net and extremely generous welfare programs, has been a magnet/dumping ground for homeless, mentally ill and the like for decades. I did not visit it once in the last ten years I lived in the area without literally tripping over swarms of people who in other areas and times would have been meaningfully helped, hospitalized, incarcerated or otherwise dealt with… not left to the streets and just enough general welfare to keep from starving. I’m not surprised when it’s used as other cities’ dumping ground, too. It’s just “good enough” not to leave again even if you have family or roots elsewhere.
Yeah, maaaan. But when you get there, all your problems are cured. Because you can find a NATURAL herb that has ZERO side effects and CURES schizophrenia, cancer, alcoholism, and cancer. But the GOVERNMENT doesn’t WANT you to have it. Side effects include RANDOM CAPITALIZATION.
Amateur Barbarian, I like SF’s weather, but I’m not sure I’d call it “mild.” But yeah, this is less of a scandal when you consider that the SF government enables it.
This is a minor local story here. I know some people who work for the affected mental/substance hospitals.
Gee, here in the Midwest, we just put psych patients in jailand leave them there until they stab themselves in the eyes.
You westerners are weird.
Should I ever go kooko for cocoa puffs, I’m heading straight for the tenderloin.
Unfortunately, there’s a long history of psych wards sending patients on a one-way trip to Somewhere Far Away, and not caring what becomes of them after that. I’m sure that more than a few California institutions send patients to Las Vegas.
Is it really that tender, though?
I have two friends who live in San Francisco. I’ve never been there, but based on their descriptions, the tenderloin is the place to be if you’ve lost touch with everyone else’s reality.
The Tenderloin has an excellent law school, Hastings College of the Law, aka UC Tenderloin.
SF gets even by sending Vegas it’s failed and retired politicians.
We are all in some way or another going to Arcata some day.
That’s why Arcata is so colorful, especially on “Draw on the sidewalk with chalk Day”, or whatever they call it.
Where did Willie Brown end up? Sonuvabitch almost ran me over once. I was in hysterics when he drove the same Ferrari into a 3-foot-deep flood a few weeks later. Talk about car-ma.
Willie we keep. Believe it or not, he writes a weekly column for the Chronicle pretty much the same as his deceased buddy Herb Caen’s old column. Willie is a damn good writer. Not as good as Herb was, but since Willie spent 30 years feeding Herb juicy stuff to write about, he has all those sources himself. It is in the Sunday edition. I’ve only bumped into Hizzoner on foot. He’s short and friendly.
Ah. I was lucky to read 'Erb for his last 20 years. Finally gave up on the Chron when they went through a phase of BHLism even I found nauseating. (They actually ran some headlines like SHAME OF THE CITY, thinking it was 1946 again.)
I got even with Willie a few years later. I was in the audience of his short-lived talk show and got a brief moment of grip-and-grin afterwards. I dropped a zinger on him that got two seconds of open-mouthed startle followed by a chuckle. Yeah, nice guy, I suppose. Lousy driver.
Actually, this article says that Nevada is investigating a case where a patient who was sent from Napa Valley to Las Vegas.
S.F. sues to recoup costs for patients ‘dumped’ by Nevada hospital
I’ve been to SF on several occasions. I’m not sure how 10 (or 100, or 1000, or 10000) more crazies would change anything.
I kid the left coasters.