Boingboing turned me on to the following story from the LA Times that can be found here http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-haight29may29,1,1016688.story?page=1&cset=true&ctrack=1&track=crosspromo&coll=la-headlines-frontpage. The title of the article is "There's not a lot of love in the Haight" and it's about the conflict between the former flower children and the current crop of homeless in their neighborhood. I've included some of my favorite quotes here:
"The former flower child was among the legions of idealistic wanderers who migrated here during the Vietnam War to "tune in, turn on and drop out."
But Evans, who has lived at the same address for 34 years, says he has never seen anything like this crowd, who use his flower bed as a bathroom and sell pot outside his window.
They're known as gutter punks, these homeless kids with dirty dreadlocks and nose rings, lime-green mohawks and orange spray-painted faces, who panhandle with cardboard signs that riff on their lifestyles. "Please Help Us Get Un-Sober," one reads. Another: "Please Give Us Weed, Beer or Money."
Sometimes aggressive, they block sidewalks as they strum guitars or bang on bongos. Gangs of them skateboard down the middle of Haight Street. Some throw used hypodermic needles into a nearby pond they call Hep-C Lake.
Evans, 64, says they should get help, clean up or go home.
"I used to be a hippie. I wore beads and grew my hair long," he said. "But my generation had something these kids do not: a standard of civilized behavior.""
"But a lot of ex-hippies-turned-homeowners are weary of the youthful intruders. They want the Haight to adopt a more mature demeanor, just as they have.
Outreach services, they say, only draw more young people to the area. Many suggest sending the homeless to centers in other areas, including the inner-city Tenderloin district.
"I'm sick of stepping over gangs of kids, only to be told 'Die, yuppie!' A lot of us were flower children, but we grew up," said Robert Shadoian, 58, a retired family therapist. "There are responsibilities in this world you have to meet. You can't be drugged out 24/7 and expect the world to take care of you."
It was easier not to ask for help here in the 1960s, when communal crash pads rented for $40 a month. Back then, a lot of the young new arrivals were middle-class. That's changed too. Today, young people who spend their days in the Haight spend their nights in Golden Gate Park."
"Recently, the stance against the homeless has hardened. Residents last year resurrected the Haight Ashbury Improvement Assn. to push the city to crack down on loitering. They have started a "court watch" program to monitor cases and push judges to sentence offenders to community service and order them into treatment.
Police have also cracked down. The department has sent teens home on its own dime and maintains two full-time outreach officers to coax youths into seeking help. But now officers ticket for "quality of life" offenses, including illegal camping and drinking in public.
At a recent public meeting, Homeless Youth Alliance director Mary Howe's plan for a center with beds and showers was greeted with anger.
"We're setting ourselves up as the last stop on the help train," fumed Carolyn McKenna, 54, a substitute teacher who moved to the area in 2003.
"Like, if we don't help these kids, they're going to be forever subjected to a life of misery and agony," she added.
McKenna said she was tired of being criticized for the "crime" of owning a home. "Haight-Ashbury is not synonymous with anarchy," she said. "It's not fair to homeowners with their entire net worth tied up here. I'd be disingenuous if I said I wasn't worried about property values.""
This story is rich, I mean I'm laughing my butt off. Imagine if you will you were a homeowner in Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s. You cared about hygine and how your hair looked. You kept your lawn and house neat and tidy. You probably wore a suit to work every day, and you definatley wore a suit to church on Sunday. In essence, you were a square.
Then you were invaded by a bunch of unwashed, stoned, free loving, poorly dressed, self rightous young people. Did they ask you how you felt about them in your neighborhood? How about your property values? Did they even try to comply with, in the words of Mr. Evans, your "standard of civilized behavior"? I doubt it...
I'm tired of these damn hippies! Really, what have they done? Civil rights? Whoops, no that was their parents. Getting out of Vietnam? Oh I'm sorry, but once again that was their parents. It didn't really involve them anyway, since the ones actually fighting the war were either doing it because they felt obligagted to support their country, or their families were too poor to support their kids going off to get stoned in California, or they were powerful enough to get you sidetracked into the National Guard (I'm sorry, I respect the NG, but who do respect more when they talk abou war, McCain or Bush? Enough said).
They baby boomers were a blight on this country. We have gone nowhere but down since they arrived, and as this article makes clear, they still expect the world to revolve around them.
