# 1 in a series about The Program
Above picture taken on the campus of San Francisco State University at 11:00 AM on May 20, 2024.
In a few words, here’s a quick outline of one important aspect of “The Program”:
There are people who want to “sweep the streets” of the homeless/unhoused people and the drug addicts and mentally underprivileged and the freeloaders and the prostitutes and the …, and the … .
There’s a lot of merit in this idea. The existence of these people living and dying and plying their destructive trades on the streets has a profoundly negative effect on so many things.
But others cry “that’s cruelty! That’s an infringement of their rights!” And other stuff like that.
That too is an understandable point of view. And I salute them for keeping compassion front and center in their world views. That’s all together commendable.
But I contend, that however well-intentioned these people might be, it is simply not compassionate to allow people to live their lives this way.
It is, instead, simply enablement.
Actual compassion is something else. Actual compassion is actually doing things that help people get their lives together and onto a proper path. Not just wringing your hands and wishing and hoping they will decide to help themselves.
And actual compassion starts with not allowing people to live out on the mean streets of the city. Any person. For any reason. Anywhere.
Just, no.
So, OK – in the end that seems relatively obvious. But, there’s of course a question. What is to be done with all the people shivering from cold and fear and drug addiction that are sleeping on our streets every night right now.
Right now The City has no good answer to that question. A few lame, weak, insipid, and woefully inadequate answers maybe. But a good one? Uh, no.
The Program is the answer to that question. The good answer. The right answer.
We will take the people that get swept up in our street clearing and sort them. Many will have to leave the city, because I’m not going to ask the San Francisco taxpayers to pay to support a drug addict that came here from Topeka because they heard that San Francisco “was cool” about people living and using drugs on the streets.
But the folks that have a tie to San Francisco, or that meet certain other qualifying criteria (for example, mental health status) will be moved over to one single area of the city that will be designated as the home of The Program. They will be allowed to live in that area.
In that area they will be supervised and managed and supported and administered to and fed and entertained by the staff of The Program, in conjunction with the staffs of other competently-run non-profits and state agencies that are currently administering to this population.
All of the individual services will be coordinated by The Program, so as to weed out inefficiencies and enforce efficacy and wise use of taxpayer dollars.
Note that these people will not be compelled to stay in The Program if they don’t want to. They can check out any time they like.
But they will not be able to go back to The Tenderloin and live like before. That will not be permitted. So, what will their option be? Well, they will have to go somewhere else. Like, oh, say, Sacramento. Maybe in the neighborhood surrounding the state capitol, for example.
Anyway, that’s the 30,000 foot overview. More to come on this soon.