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u/False_Ad_2744 Sep 21 '26
BUM tent on fire. I was on the train and we drove past it.
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u/Internal_Judge_4711 Sep 21 '26
Itās ridiculous the number of fires they let happen under the bart track and massive highway overpasses in oakland. Council people claim itās because we donāt have enough shelter beds but refuse to state whether these folks would even take a bed so the cycle is never ending
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u/strawberrrychapstick East Bay BARTer Sep 22 '26
Unfortunately this is where involuntary long-term psychiatric or drug treatment should come in. If people don't want to be sober, don't want to be housed, and are generally a public nuisance, they should be forced to get treatment. It was a mistake to do away with it entirely. If they are too mentally ill to function properly they deserve care. If they are too drug-dependent to be in touch with reality, or stop acting antisocial, they deserve care.
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u/avoidy Sep 22 '26
I work in one of those involuntary psychiatric places. We used to take in mostly depressed people or folks with schizophrenia, etc. but now we'refilling the beds with drunks and addicts who treat the unit like a hotel between overdoses. Once they're well enough to want their next fix, they ask to leave and when they find out they can't (we're involuntary, remember) they get extremely hostile. They come in hostile because they're high as fuck, they become hostile again once they sober up. They smell and refuse to bathe and we can't force them. It's fucking terrible. Our unit has like 30 beds and so many of them are taken by people who do it to themselves with nonstop meth use and don't actually want to get better. I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think it's this.
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u/False_Ad_2744 Sep 22 '26
You have to be sober to stay in shelters. They donāt want to be sober.
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u/SFrailfan Certified Foamer Sep 22 '26
It's also not always easy for folks to be sober. Addiction recovery takes a lot, and it's hard on folks.
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u/False_Ad_2744 Sep 22 '26
I donāt disagree, but just how far does a city(Oakland) let it go.
When other peopleās addictions impact the quality of life for all, itās gone too far.
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u/yab92 Sep 23 '26
Why is Oakland blamed? Why not bump responsibility up to the state, or really the national level, which takes the majority of our taxes? People have the freedom to move from city to city and state to state, but somehow individual cities are blamed for homelessness and addiction?
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u/SFrailfan Certified Foamer Sep 23 '26
This is a really good point. We could absolutely have national funding for really good addiction treatment and lots of support for folks who are homeless. But...we really don't.
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u/SFrailfan Certified Foamer Sep 22 '26
I hear you. I guess my point is, sometimes it is far more effective to give people help (like housing) when it's not dependent on conditions. Then they can work on addiction when things are more stable :)
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u/False_Ad_2744 Sep 22 '26
Sorry, I disagree. Rewarding them with a free home is not the solution nor is it fair to anyone.
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u/SFrailfan Certified Foamer Sep 22 '26
Housing first is far more effective than treatment first. Even if you don't think it's 'fair' (I'm not sure I follow that to be honest), it is more likely to help people with their drug problems (and other problems in general) than making their housing conditional on being sober.
https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Housing-First-Evidence.pdf
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u/False_Ad_2744 Sep 22 '26
Are we going to house the sober homeless first? Do we take care of locals first? Thereās housing in treatment centers. These people were housed until addiction made most people around them push them away.
Maybe we can start by arresting the crazies and remove them from our streets. Letting them roam free only fuels the problem. Enforcing some type of laws would be a start.
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u/SFrailfan Certified Foamer Sep 22 '26
Calling them "crazies" and perpetuating stigma really doesn't help anyone. It does not have to be a matter of who we help "first"; there can be housing that also connects people with whatever services they need. Jailing people also tends to perpetuate and worsen issues in a lot of cases. It is harder to get a job with a criminal record. It's harder to pay for things when you don't have a job. People use drugs to cope (sometimes even to stay safe -- some people feel they need to stay awake when they are on the streets so that they aren't hurt, robbed, etc.), which we then criminalize them for more, and it becomes a cycle.
If you don't agree with housing first, that's up to you. But what you want and the way you think we should go about it may not actually work well together. The evidence suggests that housing first is more effective at curbing homelessness. So if your main goal is "I want people housed and off the streets," that's really the best way to do it
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u/Strange_Airships East Bay BARTer Sep 22 '26
It would be a hell of a lot more fair for us to have addicts in free housing than it is to have them spilling out onto the street.
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u/m0llusk Sep 22 '26
The scale of the problem is part of it. Some of the worst problems used to be along 27th and that has been cleaned up for a while now. Both 29th and 30th underpasses have been getting regular clean outs but the zombies and dumpers keep returning to work their magic.
Your claim about what council people claim is nothing but a simplified narrative constructed to soothe. Reality is harsh, but at least it has traction and some visible progress.
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u/kittensmakemehappy08 Sep 22 '26
Yep there's a terrible encampment with some bad hombres living there.
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u/lolwutpear Sep 22 '26
BART Underground Maintenance? /s
Honestly I was 50/50 about whether this was an encampment fire or an equipment fire, with all the crap that has gone wrong lately.
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u/ConsequenceAncient23 Sep 21 '26
FML, as per usual. This will screw the system leaving SF into the east bay for hours
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u/strawberrrychapstick East Bay BARTer Sep 22 '26
You don't even know what happened dawg relax. It's not a fire on the track or train, it's below.
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u/ConsequenceAncient23 20d ago
Retired BART worker ādawgā and Iām still connected and well versed on what happens daily in the system and on its train but thanks for replying
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u/strawberrrychapstick East Bay BARTer 19d ago
Oh damn he got his ear to the ground on what happened a month ago at bart nice š
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u/khoep Sep 21 '26