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When someone aggressively begs me, I start a long story about how I'm unemployed and was gonna ask them for change, and I start going into all my problems. You'd be surprised how quickly aggressive panhandlers want to get away from someone who begs from them.
I totally ignore them...like I didn't hear what they said. This pretty much works for me every time, unless they approach me face to face and I accidentally look them in the eye. I have also quickly put my phone to my ear to look like I'm having a conversation.
NYC used to have lots of homeless, but there are a multitude of shelters, and city agencies in place to help them. In the same way that there is a multitude of organizations geared to help the mentally ill, however, because of their illness, this group of people are more difficult to place in shelters, or to seek help.
Add to this, the mentally-impaired chemical abuser, wich is another group that is extremely difficult to reach.
Unfortunately, drugs have created lots of problems for American cities, and towns, and they have become visible, everywhere. No city or town today is spared.
NYC is just full of random crazy people, never mind the homeless. Ride the subways or walk around 8th Ave between 34th and Time Square, you'll see plenty.
NYC is just full of random crazy people, never mind the homeless. Ride the subways or walk around 8th Ave between 34th and Time Square, you'll see plenty.
In another posting, I talk about the terrible experience I had with homeless and mentally ill men approaching me constantly when I was walking around downtown Atlanta. It made me think about the other large cities I had visited and my impression of their downtown areas.
I would have to vote for Atlanta as having the worst downtown among the large American Cities. It looks quite impressive from the highway with all the large buildings but on the street level there seemed to be countless hipsters, gangsters and homeless.
Which large American City has the largest number of mentally ill, and other crazy or dangerous people downtown?
I don't know how you quantify this, but the angry, aggressive, irrational and apparently homeless people in San Francisco abound in numbers and intrusiveness. They can be very frightening and can turn violent. There are several possible reasons for the problem: (1) The temperate climate which makes outdoor living tenable, (2) the knee-jerk liberal government which seems to think that treating mentally ill people is oppressive and that allowing the problem to progress unabated makes some kind of political statement, (3) the ill-thought-out deinstitutionalization program from the 1960's with the failure to implement the promised community-based alternatives, (4) a completely useless police department that refuses to do anything about anything, (5) a severely misguided laissez-faire mentality that seems to think mental illness is an alternative lifestyle; not necessarily in that order.
Of course we have them in Chicago too, but (1) they have to go indoors in the winter which increases the likelihood they will receive treatment, (2) we have an administration that thinks keeping the city livable for everyone else is important.
Most people in San Francisco's Tenderloin area look like they either belong in prison or in a straight jacket.
Yeah I'd be willing to bet that neighborhood has more ugly people per capita than any other in the nation. So many zombies and drug abuse-transformed facial features.
the largest population of urban mentally ill is easily salt lake city, and they all hang out here:
Oh wow, did i say that out loud?
lolololol :d
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