A San Francisco tech executive has branded downtown “dystopian” after walking past “hundreds” of homeless people.
Michelle Tandler, 37, shared a picture from her Saturday night outing to a bar in the Democrat-run city.
She posted the image of a harrowing scene in which a group of homeless men were surrounded by rubbish and graffiti.
It comes as cities like San Francisco, Portland and Philadelphia are being outed over their homelessness and drug crises.
The image of downtown San Francisco shared by Michelle Tandler on Sunday morning. She said she felt unsafe because of the scene of homeless drug addicts around her
Successful San Francisco tech entrepreneur Michelle Tandler has become a voice of reason when it comes to thoughtfully assessing the reality of her city’s decline
“Last night I was at a bar in downtown San Francisco. It looked like a dystopia,” Tandler wrote.
“I saw hundreds of people hunched over (probably high on fentanyl) or sitting on the sidewalks smoking.
“Almost every person looked homeless. I was scared to park and walk two blocks,” she wrote before almost falling into a lane two dozen tweet thread about the ruinous state of San Francisco.
Tandler claims San Francisco is at a tipping point when it comes to the persistent and rampant problem of homelessness, street drug use, and lax law enforcement policies promoted by progressive politicians and city officials.
“Companies are closing and leaving,” she wrote. “The homeless, rightly or not, have taken over downtown SF.”
“The status quo is untenable,” she declared. Collier Gwin – the man filmed spraying down a homeless woman who refused to move from his gallery front – was arrested last week.
The city’s district attorney said he would be charged in the Jan. 9 incident outside the Foster Gwin Gallery.
The incident prompted an initial public outcry, but some SF residents – including Tandler – took a more nuanced view of the unfortunate interaction.
“Recently in San Francisco, a man was arrested for spraying water on a homeless woman,” she wrote.
“She camped outside his shop for weeks, yelling, dumping, scattering rubbish. He lost patience and committed a cruel act.’
Tandler went on to question who should have taken responsibility for the woman, who was a problem for the man and his customer-centric business.
“He had allowed her to camp under his awning for weeks. But she clearly needed more,” Tandler wrote. “Where was the SF government? California? The federal government?’
“Who owns the sidewalk? … Should she be allowed to camp and block access to his shop?
“Did he defend his property? Is this allowed?’ she continued.
Tandler added that she, along with many others, is looking for a humanitarian option but doesn’t believe the city’s homeless population should be given a free pass to camp on the streets and effectively take over parts of the city.
A business owner who went viral after he was filmed hoseing down a homeless woman outside his San Francisco store has been arrested for assault, hours after the city’s attorney general announced he was being charged in the widespread incident would be charged
Pictured: Collier Gwin who runs the Foster Gwin Gallery in the Financial District. He was arrested at his gallery last week after city prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him
Rows of homeless tents can be seen near San Francisco City Hall in front of apartment buildings and small commercial buildings earlier this year
Homeless tents in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where a rampant homeless population has taken over many blocks
Homeless men can be seen on a sidewalk near San Francisco City Hall, where lawmakers are dreaming up increasingly lax policies that fail to protect some of the city’s vulnerable population
Tandler wrote that she saw people double slouched on Saturday night and possibly experience fentanyl highs and overdoses
She wrote that she believes the city is on the precipice of “vigilance.”
“As home values plummet, people will follow their natural urge to protect their families and wealth…this anarcho-tyranny must end,” she wrote.
She also took action against the city’s so-called “harm reduction policy,” which allows the homeless and others to have public access to needles and to shoot at injection sites.
“I only see damage,” she said wrote.
The number of homeless people in San Francisco was counted at nearly 8,000 in February last year, the second-highest number since 2005, according to the official government census, which takes place every three years.
It has almost certainly exploded since last count.
Business owners in some San Francisco neighborhoods have threatened to stop paying taxes unless politicians start clearing the streets of trash and preventing people from openly using drugs.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed is beginning to take some of the blame for the homeless crisis engulfing her city
In a letter to city officials last summer, the Castro Merchants Association said some of the homeless people on the streets outside their stores had been harassing customers and needed help.
“They need housing and/or services, and they need it immediately,” the Merchants Association said.
“Our community is struggling to recover from lost business, burglaries and endless vandalism/graffiti (often perpetrated by homeless people) and we implore you to take action.”
Major crimes in San Francisco are up 7.4 percent last year from the same period in 2021, assault up 11.1 percent and robbery up 5.2 percent.
A recent poll found that a majority of San Franciscos believe their city is in decline, and a third plan to leave the city within three years.
Some residents blame Mayor London Breed, whose previous popularity for navigating the city through the pandemic appears to have waned amid rising crime, the fentanyl epidemic and other woes.