ATTACKED

Dear Chris and Derek and UCSF Mike;

I have lived in the Ocean Beach Safeway neighborhood for some 15 years and have never felt unsafe and luckily have never had an encounter - knock on wood - The transients and homeless hanging around have been what they appeared to be - transient and homeless. This includes meandering about the Ocean Beach/Outer Richmond from early morning hours to late nights as needed from Safeway to ATM to restaurants.

On reforming the welfare state - it's like the old message of give a man a fish and he eats for a day teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime and maybe sells the surplus to get some extra cash.

What really needs to be done is to cut off the whole welfare business entirely and go back to private charity for those who would seeek it out and accept the offer of some help to get back on their feet. But on-going continuing forever welfare nope that's not how it should work.

I'm willing to bet if the funds were cut entirely the people seeking assistance would either move on or find ways to get back on their feet real quickly. Even Care Not Cash should be cut and the hundreds of millions spent in housing assistance or outright free housing should be given back to the taxpayers.

There is no free lunch - sooner or later someone has to pay for it.

Ron Getty
SF Libertarian

Ron:

I've been in that neighborhood for 15 years, too. I assume the
difference in our experience is that you may average quite a bit less
than 10 hours a week walking in the neighborhood.

Chris was referring to the homeless and transients to explain Derek's
feeling of unease, not to explain the muggings.