2023-06-06 06:00:21
United Nations Square, San Francisco. Rescuer Dereaus Stewart is on duty. In his bag, a nasal spray of Narcan, the drug that erases the effects of opioids on the body. “I resuscitated another individual this morninghe explains. A young white man, 24 years old. When he woke up, he was furious. But then he thanked me. »
Camouflage jacket, balaclava, dark glasses, the man wears the uniform of the Urban Alchemy association, founded in 2018 to bring back “peace and respect in chaotic urban areas”. Since 2020, the NGO has been under contract with the municipality of San Francisco. Its employees are former prisoners, trained in ” de-escalation ” crises, and paid 21 dollars (19.6 euros) an hour, or 5.50 dollars more than the local minimum wage.
From 5 o’clock in the morning, they work to clean the streets, to dissuade drug addicts from lying there and to comfort the shopkeepers who can no longer stand having to step over bodies to open their shop. Dereaus Stewart is proud of his track record: in three years, he brought thirty-three people back to life. “Without us, San Francisco would be a trash can”he proclaims.
Two deaths a day
A garbage can, the “city by the bay” to the dizzying streets that plunge into the blue of the ocean? The capital of start-ups with thirty-seven billionaires? Part of the population is not far from thinking it, furious at the decrepitude in which the city center has fallen.
San Francisco has not recovered from the health crisis. Empty offices, fleeing businesses, declining tourism, drugs, insecurity: the center is drawn into a vicious circle that the authorities can no longer control. This « doom loop » (” vicious circle “), according to the fashionable expression, however, only concerns the city centre. The rest of the city is doing well. The price of real estate has not dropped one iota.
The spiral of decline began with the confinement, in March 2020. The city was mainly based on the technological sector. She emptied herself of her « techies » that nothing held back in the offices. The homeless remained, more visible than ever. Three years have passed, but the city center has never regained the liveliness of before. Only 43% of employees return to work every day. Thus, 30% of office space is empty, the highest rate for a large city in the United States.
THE homeless are not more numerous than before. The latest count, dated February 23, 2022, shows 7,754 people “experienced in a situation of homelessness” (official terminology): 4,397 sleep rough; 3,357 in a shelter. Their number was in fact beginning to decline: − 3.5% between 2019 and 2022.
You have 76.01% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#San #Francisco #tech #capital #age #fentanyl