Bluoz

You've probably heard a dozen of the thousand versions. Here's the original and a rare live performance in 1968



Jesse Fuller on wiki

A new article in Time magazine describes how teen drug and alcohol rehab centers actually make the problem worse.

This is exactly how San Francisco's homeless programs are run, especially Randy Shaw's Tenderloin Housing Clinic and it's takeover of SRO's and the master lease program, literally concentrating hardcore dope fiends with those few who might want to improve their lives. This can also be applied to the entire Tenderloin area which has been repeatedly described as a 'containment zone' for this exact same thing. So basically San Francisco is paying 500 million dollars a year to essentially concentrate and increase the very problem it is paying non profits to solve, guaranteeing it will be paying for the exact same thing in perpetuity


from Time magazine

Increasingly, substance-abuse experts are finding that teen drug treatment may indeed be doing more harm than good. Many programs throw casual dabblers together with hard-core addicts and foster continuous group interaction. It tends to strengthen dysfunctional behavior by concentrating it, researchers say. "Just putting kids in group therapy actually promotes greater drug use," says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2003160-1,00.html#ixzz0uKGbgpSi

This article also made Fark.com where some people describe their own experiences with very similar programs and in some cases describe results far worse than what's in Time magazine

There was a big "industry" in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the DC Metro area for "rehabbing" teenage pot smokers. The kids would be sent to rehab facilities for getting caught smoking, and then when they got out of rehab they were told that they must attend as many AA and NA meetings as possible. When they did go to those meetings there was a whole cult that was built up of charismatic meeting-leaders who targeted the cuter teenage chick pot smokers, and would lure then into splinter AA/NA meetings, whereupon these pimps would start sharing the girls as "spoils". There was a whole community setup, of halfway houses and a network of job procurement, that the pimps would use to isolate the kids and keep them under sway. Once the girls were "used up" or got older, they were utilized for things like housework in the group houses. It was an enormous scandal in the DC area, and went on for years. I think it was called "DC Metro Club", and only stopped when the pimp/cult leaders eventually died or left town. I knew of at least half a dozen local teens who did nothing worse than smoke pot a few times, and they got sucked into this rehab-12 step cult that completely destroyed their lives a hundred times worse than being a heroin addict on the streets would have ever done.

and I knew of at least half a dozen homeless people in San Francisco that got sucked into the non profit housing in SRO's and ended up becoming permanent crack heads on the streets of San Francisco. It happens a lot more than people realize

And it goes further. Originally, some of the support staff in the original 'supportive housing' in San Francisco rallied for mixed housing and non-concentration, but Tenderloin Housing Clinic abandoned that within 2 years in 2003, and now is solely concentrating homeless people in SRO's with those of heavy drug addicts and mentally ill people.

The federally funded Corporation for Supportive Housing strongly recommends against this type of housing for homeless people, that is, if one ever wants to help them get out of the situation

http://www.bluoz.com/blog/index.php?/archives/245-unfree-market-housing.html

The largest contractor in San Francisco, Tenderloin Housing Clinic, used to have these documents on file with their management in 2001 when they first started the 'master lease program'

it was abandoned by 2003, and the rest is history. It is why San Francisco is now geared toward a permanent underclass in the middle of downtown

It is a textbook case of how to create a permanent underclass in the middle of a city

here's another example from somebody who's been in quite a few SRO's

the Peruvian Food Festival took place today at San Francisco's Civic Center and featured traditional music like this from the highlands of Peru



also playing the stage was Estampas Peruana De Vladimir Vucanovich, photos below and you can download 35 minute mp3 here

full photo set on flickr

on the Filbert Street steps, Friday, July 16, 2010

Recycled Island is a great idea for getting rid of the floating plastic dump in the Pacific. The island would be built where the trash is located and would convert the waste onsite cutting down on cleanup and building costs. It would be between Hawaii and San Francisco in the heart of the Pacific Ocean’s currents.

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a tourist relaxing between visiting all the attractions at Fisherman's Warf today
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Dirty Harry at 3rd and 20th

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456 Montgomery got a little crowded this afternoon...again.....for the umpteenth time

Maybe the city of SF ought to just leave those civilian barricades out there permanently, huh?

Ambrose Bierce alley, San Francisco today. He wrote An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge

http://www.urbanforestmap.org/map/

from Springwise

Now in beta, The Urban Forest Map is “a collaboration of government, nonprofits, businesses and you to map every tree in San Francisco,” in the project's own words. Starting with a database from public records, the project aims to communicate the value of the urban forest and engage communities in creating greener, more livable urban environments. Toward that end, citizen participants can not only search for particular types of trees in the San Francisco area, they can also add new ones that haven't yet been mapped by simply putting a dot on the map where they're located and then providing as much information about them as they can, including photos and factors such as species, size and trunk diameter. Citizens can verify the facts about the trees near them as well, updating as necessary to help track changes as the urban forest grows. The information added to the Urban Forest Map will be used by urban forest managers, landscape architects and planners to estimate future growth and planting opportunities, improve wildlife habitat, maximize ecosystem services, and grow a strong and healthy urban forest.

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is that for each and every tree, the Urban Forest Map taps a US Forest Service model to calculate the environmental benefits it's providing: how many gallons of stormwater it's helping to filter, how many pounds of air pollutants it's capturing, how many kilowatt-hours of energy it's conserving and how many tons of carbon dioxide it's removing from the atmosphere. The open-source project is available for use by any community; time to start “missing” the forest for the trees near you....? ;-)

sutro tower in the fog, taken from Mission Bay

one way to prevent rear-enders, South of Market on Howard

Possibly as soon as next week the Society of California Pioneers at Folsom and 4th will have a new exhibit featuring some of the oldest artifacts from private collections. Here's a sneak preview

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some photos from pier 30 today (full photo set)

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Ambrose Bierce alley, near New Montgomery and Mission



No word on what DPW is doing with it, but for now, there's actually a small bit of single track mountain biking in the concrete canyons of the financial district of San Francisco