Things have really changed in downtown SF in a way that is totally different than in the past. Walking ~3 blocks in broad daylight I saw people openly injecting themselves with drugs, people having sex right on the sidewalk, numerous people passed out (or dead?) laying flat across the sidewalk with other people ignoring them and stepping around them, hundreds of piles of human feces, and a lot of mentally ill people aggressively confronting strangers. I was in the area near the recently shut down Whole foods, and couldn't find a place to use a restroom even as a paying customer- nearly all of the businesses were shut down or boarded up. I finally found a public library with restrooms, and there were guards posted inside every restroom in attempt to curb drug use.
The situation is dehumanizing and terrifying, and nothing like when I visited the same area 20 years ago.
I had the same experience. Coming from St Louis, I'm accustomed to a certain level of squalor, but downtown SF was worse than literally any neighborhood I've seen at home.
The situation is dehumanizing and terrifying, and nothing like when I visited the same area 20 years ago.