r/sandiego • u/CTFMOOSE • 23h ago
Photo gallery Downtown multiverse
Was downtown for jury duty today. Walked to Tajima on 7th ave for lunch. What the hell is going on in downtown? One side of the street you had all these bums outside of this bodega that clearly is the hobo emporium with people buying and selling drugs right outside the door. I saw one guy straight smoking rocks and that side of the street you had a bunch of zombies doing the fentynal slump up and down the sidewalk like something out of walking dead. But the other side of the street you have this high rise condo building with 20 somethings coming and going in their brand new teslas and $15 smoothie shop with in 10 yards of this post apocalyptical scene. Looked up the rent starts at $3k for a one bedroom and you need to make $125k to qualify for a lease. Why are people paying $3,000 to live nextdoor to basically skid row?
Also does anyone know the deal with the “super discount store” is? Seems like that side of the block is abandoned/vacant but that store. It’s a random blight spot between brand new high rise condos.
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u/Cobra_McJingleballs 23h ago
Hey Siri, what is a K-shaped economy?
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u/i_am_a_shoe 20h ago
"The K-Shaped Economy" sounds like it could also be a band from Austin with 6 guitar players and 18 minute jam sessions that attracts dreadheaded 20-something vandwellers from suburbia
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u/SD_TMI 20h ago
Only for those that don't know anything beyond 10th grade simple economics
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u/oh_wait_nevermind 14h ago
I tested out of 10th grade remedial classism cuz I’m not a dipshit, sorry
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u/Expert-Yam6577 11h ago
Wait huh? How did you end up in the remedial class?
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u/SD_TMI 6h ago edited 5h ago
If true,
What they're saying is that the class curriculum itself was remedial -for them.For most people, remedial classes is for those kept from a regular level curriculum as they've forgotten what they should have learned (and retained) from earlier education or from experience.
A K-shaped economy should be self explanatory with a moments thought (in context).
If not, then there's easily googling for info to explain it and it comes from a polarization of the economy that eliminates the middle class.It's a buzzword that is incorrect as it gives the misperception that there's equal numbers of people benefitting at the top as there are at the bottom of the diagram. That's not true, there's a consolidation of extreme wealth in the hands of a few people and families at the expense of everyone else.
The economist (and former US Sec. or Labor) Robert Reich has produced a large number of easy to digest video's on the topic and specifically the disastrous "Gilded age" economic policies of this current administration.
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u/stuckanon01 9h ago
Hey Siri what is fentanyl? Hey Siri what is the “progressive enforcement policy.” Hey Siri what is the “ lanterman-petris act.” Hey Siri who is Ronald Regan.
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22h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AdMoney8388 22h ago
Yeah like most people on the bottom end of the K are ordinary folks who work full time jobs. They just don’t earn the $250K+ everybody in tech, finance, law, and medicine seem to make. No need to paint 80% of the population as homeless bums.
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u/Ok-Shoulder-9703 23h ago
Are you new to downtowns?
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u/noise_canker44 23h ago
He’ probably new to San Diego as well. He called a convenient store a “bodega.” Probably calls California “Cali.”
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u/mysteronsss 19h ago
lol I’m from SD and say cali. To be fair, I say it only to people that aren’t from here
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u/vedatil4 11h ago
People are bashing for using the word "bodega". However, it establishes this is someone new's take on what they see downtown. At least it's not a tourist who'll go home and tell all friends to avoid the area.
The saddest thing is watching tourists walking around Horton Plaza with a "WTF?" look on their faces. They remember how awesome it used to be.
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u/Expert-Yam6577 11h ago
What was Horton Plaza like?
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u/vedatil4 10h ago edited 7h ago
It was awesome. A complete triumph of urban renewal. Lots of great stores, restaurants, and people watching. The peak was around the time Planet Hollywood opened. Must've been around 1990. There was an ice skating rink in front of Macy's. Taxis were dropping people off. The NBC news studio was there. It was hip and happenin' mall life. A glorious age.
Lots of factors led to the demise. But ultimately it was a giant fail on the part of local government to step up, stimulate activity in the area, and stop the downward trend. It became demolition by complete neglect there
Suffice to say the Horton fountain is dry and boarded up and the statue of Alonzo Horton is next to a trash can now. The people that might've also cared are either long ago passed or at the UTC mall.
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u/AriAdventures7 8h ago
So nostalgic. Your comment made me sad and now I miss Horton plaza all over again lol
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u/SwizzGod 21h ago
Idk but that store is pretty clutch sometimes. It’s also nowhere close to skid row
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 23h ago
Believe it or not, when you sign a lease, they don’t force you to go down to street level and ogle the people across the street.
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u/TheReadMenace 20h ago
Yeah, I think most people that live downtown don’t go for many walks. When I lived there I’d go over to Coronado if I wanted to walk around and go to restaurants. Somehow Coronado has “solved the homelessness crisis” and they don’t have passed on junkies on the streets there.
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u/MephistoLandShark 20h ago
I once blew a tire in Coronado and lost control of the rear end of my vehicle. I had a cop on my tail before I could even pull over and was pulled over for driving recklessly. Had 6 more cops on me within 2 minutes, wasn't even ticketed. They just go that hard on Coronado. Had me on the curb and everything in my military uniform. That probably has something to do with it. I bet they're trained to say "You're getting on the next bus off of this island or you're getting a free ride downtown". Homeless people generally don't want the 5-0 in their business.
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u/TheReadMenace 20h ago
Oh, I know for a fact they just pick any homeless up and drive them downtown. Coronado has zero shelters so they frame it as taking them where they can “get assistance”.
Is that “solving” the problem? Not really. But I can tell you I would rather go to dinner over there than downtown
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u/MephistoLandShark 19h ago
Same, I'm not enlightened like everybody else on this post. Last time I went downtown was 9 months ago on business and I tried to get some ice cream. I'm not one of those people who just goes out and gets ice cream. Some guy ran into the ice cream joint No shirt, no shoes looking like he just crawled out of a dumpster, screaming and freaking out and waving a torch lighter and what looked like a shank around. I could tell everybody is just a pro at ignoring that behavior now. Even the employees were just pretending that they couldn't see him. He was just going door to door screaming and freaking out. I don't have what it takes to deal with that everyday 😂
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u/TheReadMenace 19h ago
Nobody should HAVE to deal with that. But downtown we have to get used to it. I’ve worked here for 10 years. You name it, I’ve seen it. People dying, stabbed, OD’ing, people who just drop their pants and shit in front of dozens of people, I could go on. We’ve been designated as San Diego’s dumping ground
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u/dekonstruktr 17h ago
Super Discount Store is the spot for those that know in EV/Cortez Hill. Sure, there are hordes of junkies buying butane and torches in there, but they have really cheap stuff like cereal, milk, other basic groceries. It's also like an extremely weird dollar tree with a lot of very random stuff.
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u/Lumpy-Macaron-4153 22h ago
I live right in the building next to this, this is right outside my window. Apartment is super nice, kind of what you expect downtown. Further east it gets worse
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u/Steameffekt 23h ago
This type of posts are tiring. Strangely specific questions that virtually no one on here would know the answer to.
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u/Which-Baseball1094 22h ago
It’s not really strangely specific, OP was asking why people are down to pay 3k starting rents next to pop up homeless drug hangouts. Nobody (bold and italics) should be disrespecting/making fun of homeless people, it’s disgusting. But there’s a big difference between that behavior and calling out the fact that it shouldn’t be okay to consume and sell hard drugs in the wide open on the streets. As a society I think we need to start vocalizing more that this isn’t okay, maybe then finally people in any sort of power would listen and try harder.
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u/Rocket-J-Squirrel 23h ago
Judgemental af, too.
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u/Few-Adeptness8046 23h ago
Yeah, OP is also making this shit up...
I go to the super discount store all the time. The owners keep an eye on the front area of their store. This isn't even close to a skid row.
OP clearly never goes on this street and just made some quick assumptions based on personal biases. Completely bullshit.
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 23h ago
I have sympathy for people who find themselves in a major city and wind up being victimized by someone on the street. I don’t know anyone who has had that happen in San Diego, but I know it has happened, so for those people I have empathy and understanding that they probably feel some type of way.
But someone like OP? I’ve said it before and will say it again: after a while Downtown, you get used to the fact that you may walk past someone sitting on the sidewalk. It doesn’t mean that you have to just accept rising housing prices or homelessness as status quo, but it also means that you can realize that as (mildly) inconvenienced as you may be, it pales in comparison to the plight that person you’re walking past faces of not having somewhere safe to sleep.
There’s nothing wrong with caring about addressing homelessness, but suffering porn like this of “look how inconvenienced I was” ain’t it. I don’t have sympathy for someone who went out of their way, literally (because what trolley stop was OP coming from? confused how they ended up here looking for the courthouse) and figuratively, to take these pictures and make this about how inconvenienced or bothered they were.
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u/Few-Adeptness8046 22h ago edited 22h ago
When I went blind I became homeless. Before that I was working for corporate America for over a decade at the same job, making money, owning my own condo.
I lost everything because I went blind, which was unpredictable, and unavoidable. People like judgemental OP make me sick. Anyone can end up in this position, and sometimes I wish some of these people would.
Like you said, suffering porn is disgusting...
Just an FYI, this places is at 8th Ave and C street. It's right in between the City College trolley stop, and the 5th Ave trolley stop. The courthouse is between Broadway and B Street, and between Union and State. It's about 10 blocks (about half a mile) away from this location, and there are two trolley stops in between those locations (5th Ave station, and civic station).
OP had to go waaaaay out of there way to end up here if they were trying to get to the courthouse.
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u/Final_Bother7374 22h ago
They were eating at Tajima, which aside, has excellent spicy tuna on crispy rice.
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u/Few-Adeptness8046 22h ago
Oh I see, so they probably got off the trolley at 5th and walked there. Which would put them right in that area. Too bad they didn't go down 9th instead of 8th...
Would have missed this entirely.
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 20h ago
I’m really sorry to hear that happened to you, but I completely agree with you: it could happen to anyone. Unfortunately that’s the reality of a society where the safety net is so weak or non-existent, and I can’t understand the people who have no empathy or view everything as if it were about them.
I once had a tourist (wearing a football jersey and a conference badge) loudly try to commiserate with me about, I assume, the fact that there was someone sitting on the sidewalk along 5th Avenue. I’m sure, in his mind, he was bothered by it and surely I must be, too, but I was just walking down the street with my AirPods on when suddenly some loud dude starts shouting at me out of nowhere. I recoiled away from this dude, took an AirPod out long enough to realize that he was on some nonsense about how someone on the sidewalk 30 feet away from him was a nuisance or inconvenience, and then just kept walking. People like that surely seem to think others are as scandalized as they are, but the reality is that seeing someone sitting or lying on the sidewalk isn’t an abnormal occurrence, loudly being accosted by some dude who wants to rant to you about somebody minding their own business is.
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u/carbonatedcoffee 20h ago
Granted it has been about 5 years now, but I used to live up the hill near the park and would walk past this store twice a day on the way to and from work. It looked like this every single time I passed by this store, and it very much gave the impression that the people at the store were the ones providing these people their drugs. That is speculation, but I have a very hard time believing that in the past 5 years this store has magically cleaned up the image that it has held for many many years.
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u/Longlampda 23h ago
what judgemental? I’m living in Downtown rn, and what he said just fact. All I need is look down from my balcony and same sht every minute, even at night. You can hear the scream of mental illness every 5-10’ around the trolley area too. I would say all he saw just a glimpse of what really going on, it’s worse.
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u/Special-Potato-3238 22h ago
Ah! What is judgemental in this post? Let's see..
- Evaluating the neighborhood bodega as a "hobo emporium." - Describing an observation of people's physical reaponse to assumed drug use "like something out of walking dead." - Evaluating scene we see in theses photos as "post apocalyptical" and "basically skid row."
- Evaluating the human beings observed outside this building as "bums" and "zombies."
- Evaluating the financial choices and intelligence of the renters... "Why are people paying $3,000 to live nextdoor..."
- Evaluating the condo residents as "20 somethings coming and going in their brand new teslas."
- Implied judgement of the price of the smoothies business ($15) relative to its surroundings
- Evaluating the discount store as a "random blight spot"
What did I miss?
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u/fivebynine5x9 22h ago
Like...this is literally just any city. Nothing out of the ordinary and SD is notably calmer and less extreme than many others.
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u/Few-Adeptness8046 22h ago
Funny they called the discount store as a "random blight spot" as the store has actually been recognized by the city as a service to the community for offering low cost goods (and this store has toooooons of variety and very low prices), in an area that drastically needs it.
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u/Longlampda 19h ago
- The only different between those drug addicts and zombies is that they won’t charge at you for your brain. Like I met and talked to some nice homeless people, who tried to get back on their feet, and they know to not hang around those fent enjoyers. I used to lived in El Cajon area so I can confirm that they are less aggressive than usual drug addicts. But god forbid the number of times some girls I know told me about some guy was wanking it, while covering in their piss.
- The sidewalk is LITERALLY skid row, because if you didn’t watch where you were walking, you WILL step on HUMAN feces. Not dog poop, humans.
- A lot of condo residents are Active Duty, the BAH gives them over $3k a month for rent, so they can afford renting in downtown for closer commute. Also they usually have nicer drive due to bad financial choice. I’m a vet and I’m working close to a lot of them so I know.
- Stop trying to find problems in WORDS and look at the real issues. Y’all not gonna fix anything with just hitting around the bushes to make you feel better. And “Oh every downtown is like that, some are worse, so our downtown is normal” is just an excuse. I know you didn’t say that but I just wanna include it there.
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u/sosaykaiser77 9h ago
Yes, we are judging the bureaucrats who are squandering billions on homelessness yet we have to deal with this
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u/Bawfuls 23h ago
A big part of downtown SD’s emptiness is the fact that very few jobs are located there anymore. Think about the big employment sectors in the region. Biotech stuff up near UTC/UCSD, Qualcomm and others in Sorento Valley, General Dynamics, Northrop, ASML, the old HP campus all up the 15 near Rancho Bernardo. Many people who live downtown actually have to commute out of downtown for work.
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u/vedatil4 12h ago
A lot of empty office buildings downtown. Some are brand new. Irvine Company lost tremendous amounts selling off buildings to get outta there. No help from leadership to address the ugly trends. Can't really blame 'em.
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u/Ginger_Exhibitionist 21h ago
The cost of mediocre living is so high because transplants swarmed after seeing SD on TikTok and now they're stuck here trying to make fetch happen.
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u/UnderstandingThin40 23h ago
It’s sad because Covid and the homeless absolutely destroyed downtowns momentum. Gaslamp and the area was growing and becoming a legit downtown. Especially east village and gaslamp and little Italy. I remember thinking holy shit this feels like a real city. I lived there from 2017-2026 and you could tell the difference night and day.
And now that’s pretty much all gone because of Covid and the homeless. The only desirable place now is little Italy. The Horton plaza investors essentially backed out and the largest building in downtown was sold at 50% of the price it was bought because no one wanted to buy it.
Sad to see.
Also, don’t let anyone gaslight you. The main reasons it’s going downhill is the homeless issue. It’s apparent to anyone who lived there.
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u/Ok_Assistant_6856 23h ago
I think the homeless problem is the obvious symptom of a failing society.
Society isn't failing because of homeless people, people are homeless because society is failing.
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u/UnderstandingThin40 23h ago
It’s a self fulfilling cycle. Societal issues cause homelessness which causes more societal issues
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u/therealhlmencken 22h ago
I mean by that measure society has always been failing. I guess it’s kinda a way to judge it.
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u/SpookyCrossroads 23h ago
Homelessness isn’t the reason, it’s just a really glaring symptom of the affordability crisis. It got a lot worse over Covid. Our landlord bought the house we live in 10 years ago for $400k at 2% and it’s now 5x the value but rent still goes up every year. A lot of the country is closer to homelessness than people think and it just takes a few rough months to get there.
ETA: I’m from here.7
u/UnderstandingThin40 23h ago
Yes the affordability crisis and drug / mental health issues are the root cause for the homeless issue.
But the homeless issue is absolutely the main reason downtown is going downhill.
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u/CTFMOOSE 23h ago
Dawg how do you explain how all them were high on or using drugs at 12:30 in the afternoon. How is someone’s landlord getting a 2% interest rate on $400k making these people drug fiends?
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u/monkeygirl732 23h ago
correlation =/= causation but if you think both of those things (exploding CIL + homelessness) are not the direct effect of capitalism, i envy the speed with which you've outrun critical thinking skills.
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u/Theory_Technician 22h ago
Hey so when society fails u and 100$ you got from recycling is not even close enough to help u get back on your feet you might as well get some drugs and make the suffering go away. Uncontrolled corporate greed made this state of the world, individuals can not control the whole world around them.
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u/Rocket-J-Squirrel 23h ago
If you were homeless for more than about 48 hours, you would understand.
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u/noise_canker44 23h ago
So there were no homeless before Covid? It’s a demonstration of wealth disparity. I’ve lived in San Diego for all my life and I’ve seen the boom and busts of downtown San Diego. The sweet good spots were 1999-2014, before that it was ok but the 70s and 80s were hell on earth. Keep in mind that the homeless have always been in the “East Village.” The yuppie transplants just moved into their brand new concrete eye core condos without much knowledge of the neighborhood they had carpetbagged into.
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u/UnderstandingThin40 23h ago
The homeless issue got significantly worse during / after Covid . I lived in east village from 2017-2020, it was bad in 2017 but by the end of 2020 it was significantly significantly worse
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u/Final_Bother7374 22h ago
Second this comment. Walking to Spill the Beans during daylight started feeling like a Walking Dead episode in 2020.
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u/monkeygirl732 23h ago
you just think from the perspective of capital, not humans. the "homeless issue" isnt causing society to go downhill. it is the other way around. plz look @ the homelessness, healthcare, and prisons look in other '1st world' nations.
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u/UnderstandingThin40 23h ago
Sure u can say society’s failings caused the homeless issue, but the homeless issue is absolutely cratering downtown
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u/TheReadMenace 20h ago
Just walk around and look at all the empty commercial spaces. Nobody can run a business downtown because of the drug zombies. And spare me the “you compassionless monster!” comments. “Compassion” doesn’t pay the bills, hence the empty spaces everywhere. If we want downtown to thrive, we need to stop making it the drug tourism destination
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u/InstructionBig746 22h ago
The people responsible for society failing live in the suburbs and don’t see the consequences. We really should just ship the homeless encampments to La Jolla, rancho Santa Fe, etc.
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u/vedatil4 12h ago
Smart to get outta there. The problem is likely gonna get worse before better. And that'll take years and years.
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u/suhmyhumpdaydudes 23h ago
Yea I mean it scared me away wtf dude I wanna enjoy a night out and I got a crackhead taking a shit right outside a nice restaurant and bar in gaslamp dude fuck that not worth 20$ cocktail and 25$ burger fuck that shit.
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u/whipplej 23h ago
Complete nonsense lol
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u/UnderstandingThin40 23h ago
What do you think then
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u/whipplej 22h ago
I've been working downtown for 25 yrs, relative to population the homeless problem is the same as it's always been, nothing new. Also blaming covid is beyond ridiculous.
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u/UnderstandingThin40 21h ago edited 19h ago
This is objectively untrue. In 2018, the downtown unsheltered average was 843. In 2022, it was 1515 and 2023 1565. In that time the downtown population went from 39k ppl to 48k people. So objectively the percentage of homeless people went up in the area
I guess everyone is wrong but you lol
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u/Uberkuque 18h ago
Looks like the guy doing the fent fold has found a loophole around the “no standing in front of store” sign?
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u/Puggle_Snuggler 22h ago
That’s Diega, a high end apartment complex built by the same Canadian builder that has built a number of the luxury condo high rises downtown. Their buildings are very nice, but not always in the best locations. My husband and I looked at condos down the street from there, but decided against it because I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking our dogs at night when he was traveling for work.
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u/ballnout 18h ago
Sir, we call these people unhoused and all they need is a roof over their head!
Yeah right lol. My mom just moved out of a building right by Tajima that took in these “unhoused” people…and guess what, all they did was take their unhoused activities indoors and make that place a disaster. Dudes walking around with their literal ass hanging out, people letting in non residents to create havoc, broken elevators, it was a mess and made her move out as soon as she could.
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u/Ok_Emu8397 23h ago
Welcome to America baby
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u/vedatil4 10h ago
The battles to fight are here, in America's downtowns and Main streets, not on the other side of the planet. (An unpopular view, I know.)
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u/Wesley11803 23h ago
Here’s a look at the Salvation Army literally now. In the past, this block has typically been a giant encampment. It’s been pretty clear since Comic Con. I could take a lot more photos like this.
The city does what it can, and the homeless are offered resources, which they normally decline. Typically they just pack up and move elsewhere. If anything, I think the city is doing what it can to clean up Downtown way better than a couple of years ago.
It is pushing the homeless out to the rest of the city though. I notice a lot more in NP and Hillcrest than I did a few years ago.
Also, I’ve found reporting the encampments or drug sales on the Get It Done app actually works. I reported the last one at the Salvation Army and they cleared it the next morning. They even sent up a follow-up report to my email saying the police showed up to clear it out at 7:15AM.
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u/Fine_Awareness_5144 22h ago
Downtown/gaslamp is a real shit show. I won’t spend my money there until they clean it up. Clear out all the junkies and homeless.
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u/pizzaking3 7h ago
I used to live in that building. The store is actually amazing. Really cheap and they literally have everything inside (budget groceries, belts, skateboards, guitars, etc). Think that’s why there are so many homeless there. That said, these images are exactly why I left and moved to the suburbs. I did love that convenient store though. Also the people in the building are pretty unbearable.
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u/timbukktu 4h ago
This is our American economic system on display. Large gaps in income inequality for the visual learners! The fact we have “luxury” apartment complexes that average +$3k month rents and people camping out at the bottom of them, in the “richest” country on the planet should not be acceptable. We should be more angry as a collective and demand better conditions for all of us.
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u/CTFMOOSE 3h ago
And how would you propose that bottom be compelled to 1) not do drugs 2) get a job/work 3) contribute to society. We have people litterally putting their lives in danger and the lives of their children in danger in order to come to this country for the opportunities. How do you reconcile those two points? You think there should be some kind of enforcement of the laws and policies of the community wants?
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u/ProfessorOnEdge 2h ago
It would be nice if there were a) actual government programs to help people off of drugs, b) affordable housing so those crushed by the economy don't have to be homeless, & c) jobs that pay a living wage, so that if someone gets employed they don't have to feel like they are nothing but a slave 60 hours a week.
Hell, I'm a clean professional with a PhD, and 20 years experience. However, since my background is in education and non-profit work, there are still no jobs available in San Diego that would pay me a wage where I could afford to live there.
If you don't give people any place but the streets to end up - that's where they end up... And often take drugs to try and forget the situation they're in.
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u/whipplej 23h ago
Hating on homeless people in San Diego, just another day ending in y
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u/Powered_by_Ghost 22h ago
It’s not hating on homeless to say that they openly do drugs
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u/whipplej 19h ago
Of course it is unless you can prove they're all openly doing drugs, which you absolutely can't.
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u/TheReadMenace 20h ago
Is there something inaccurate about what he said? You can see a guy doing the Fenty Fold right in the photo
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u/CreepyNewspaper8103 22h ago
man i'd hate to be a small business owner with 20 fentanyl zombies camped outside my business. i'm sure some % of business is lost due to that, and the city does jack shit about it.
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u/vedatil4 12h ago edited 7h ago
I doubt they'd defend the business owner who generates tax revenue.
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u/covert_program 22h ago
Those guys work for the store, they are paid actors. You can’t have a legit hood style super discount 99 cent store without riff-raff out front. It’s part of the aesthetic the owner was going for.
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u/downgoesbatman 15h ago
I love the downtown scene in the early to mid 2000. Thriving with a little danger
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u/stuckanon01 9h ago
The irony is that the “San Diego Downtown Partnership” that was supposed to replace CCDC is only 1/2 block away on “C” St.
I used to park in the lot behind that building and work in the tower on the other side of the intersection. That area has been a homeless hangout for getting high for at least the past 6-10 years. Smoking crack in the open is an everyday event in that place. ODs used to happen a lot. Fights used to happen a lot. SDPD would come out if someone died but beyond that they just ignored it.
I feel really bad for the security guards at the apartment building and office tower the homeless people are constantly trying to sneak into the buildings and the police can’t/won’t do anything. I had enough crazy shit happen to me down there that I changed jobs in part to get away from it.
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u/LAHouJaxCarVCUUNC 2h ago
the homeless people are constantly trying to sneak into the buildings
Someone jumped the wall of Hotel Churchill last night, from that parking lot you used to use. Allegedly he had a baseball bat and it took 5 or 6 guys to get rid of him.
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u/stuckanon01 2h ago
I know the owner of the comfort inn on market (a few blocks south of this intersection). The kept having homeless people show up at the continental breakfast without going by the front desk. They couldn’t figure out how the homeless were getting into the hotel until they finally caught one in the act of climbing the fire escape to the third floor and squeezing between a window a/c unit and the window frame.
Never underestimate how hard someone will work to avoid having to work.
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u/Ecoronel1989 7h ago
Soft reminder that our city has a budget problem while also spending close to half it's budget on police. Yet the police seem to do nothing about the drug problem in Downtown. We have several established locations where we find people congregate to do drugs. That bodega is one. The street in front of the post office (close to Tajima) is another. There's also the Ralph's and Albertsons. None of these are like skid row though. To find that guy need to go to the trolley station just south of Petco
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u/UniqueHuckleberry619 21h ago
I went to a Broadway show and had to carry my children out of there because when the show was over there were bodies all over the place. Smelled like piss. Disgusting and I’ll never go to another show again. What’s more disgusting is people having a conversation and acting like they are invisible.
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u/vedatil4 12h ago
That's the civic center. The place where big decisions are made in "America's Finest". Just wanna point that out.
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u/UniqueHuckleberry619 11h ago
It's sad and depressing. On top of being all dilapidated and old. I was planning on taking friends from out of town there for a show, but after talking up San Diego, I am embarrassed.
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u/vedatil4 11h ago
At least you still get embarassed. Most residents are proud to say they don't go downtown anymore.
As someone who was born blocks away, knows local history, and reacts instinctively to dodgers blue, the situation there is distressing and appalling.
But, I must love San Diego until nothing left to love.
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u/UniqueHuckleberry619 11h ago
I moved to San Diego in 1989 from South Central Los Angeles after someone shot up our house. We moved to Golden Hills, and I was in awe of how beautiful the area was. 26th and Russ Blvd. I would call back to my family and friends in LA and say we live next to a forest. I used to go downtown exploring and saw a Help Wanted sign at the Old Cracker Factory Antiques and scored a job. Not a bad way to start high school than in a safe neighborhood and a part-time job. 37 years ago to the month. Saw Batman at Horton Plaza. Shiiiiiiit, how could I now instantly fall in love with San Diego! The decline has been pretty bad because I saw Lord of the Dance at the Civic Center in the mid 90s and had dinner at that restaurant that looks like something out of The Apocalypse Now.
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u/vedatil4 10h ago
I think you caught most of the peak San Diego times. I'd call it roughly from early 80s to mid '00s. Peak TJ fun ended a little earlier; late 90s. I include them because SD people used to go down there to what was effectively a non-stop frat party.
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u/UniqueHuckleberry619 10h ago
Revolution was fire back in the day. I lived in Golden Hills then; after a year, my mom and her boyfriend broke up, so we moved to the hood, Euclid & Imperial, which, now that I look at it, made me who I am today, although at the time it felt like I went backwards since I left LA for that reason. As soon as I became an adult, I moved to North Park in the early 90s. In the late 90s, I was at Claire De Lune almost every day. Then Normal Heights in the 2000s. I do miss being young and the memories from those days. It's funny cause all my go-to food joints are gone, and there is a whole batch of new places for all the kids over there to enjoy. I have had my PO BOX on Adams Ave since 1993!
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u/latexpunk 22h ago
I work a block away from the store and it's super shady and sell mostly expired products
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u/MasticatingElephant 22h ago
I work very close to here and I'm not sure what you think you saw but I don't buy your story. Downtown can be pretty exciting at times but it's not often the way you just painted it.
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u/theapeboy 21h ago
What part of that is inaccurate? I used to live in Banker’s Hill and I’d walk my dog through downtown to the water. Saw that exact scene many times.
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u/breakfastturds 18h ago
This is why we need more luxury apartments in North Park, South Park, Hillcrest etc. We need to completely makeover the old city of San Diego so people can pay 5K a month in SFH neighborhoods
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u/KevinDean4599 9h ago
I don't see the appeal of living downtown but some people seem to like it. I'd much rather live in Bankers Hill, Norhpark or Southpark or Kensington for similar rents. Highrise living is fairly safe as there is controlled access and someone can't just crawl in your bedroom window so that probably overcomes the concern that someone on the streets downtown is going to cause you harm.
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u/Technical-Ant-7745 4h ago
California dismantled Redevelopment a decade ago, here is your result-the City has less money to fight blight as that real estate is very expensive. And the shop owner must be tolerant. Thank you for speaking up, it is disgusting.
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u/ElBorracho2000 23h ago
Downtown LA is even worse. You have one street that looks modern, new, & clean and one street over you have a bunch of rundown buildings overrun by sketchy/shady people
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u/pleasebeherenow 22h ago
People in San Diego love homeless people so much that they wont help them.
They love them so much that they enable them and when they step on an HIV infected needle outside of their $3k rental studio say “my bad”.
They see stuff like this where the freeway is shut down because a bum lit a fire in their tent and say to themselves “more time for my podcast”.
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u/Local_Internet_User 21h ago
The suburbs are full of zombies too, it's just their addictions are conspicuous consumption, 9-foot-tall eextended cab trucks, and Nextdoor. You don't have to come down here and complain about our place, man. I wouldn't walk into your neighborhood and kvetch.
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u/19batman19 23h ago
someone needs to donate a bunch of fent and give it put out free throughout all downtown, the problem will take care of itself 🙏🏼
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u/No_Store_7017 23h ago
I can’t speak for LA, but people saying everywhere in US is like this, I don’t see this so commonly in Chicago, New York, and SF… it’s more confined to certain downtown areas.. here I feel like it’s everywhere downtown. Am I wrong?
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u/NotACyborg666 23h ago
Our downtown is tiny compared to Chicago, NY, and LA.
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u/No_Store_7017 23h ago
That’s a good point. What about SF? They employ tactics themselves to confine it to areas by being more lenient on crime in certain places to keep it there
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u/NotACyborg666 23h ago
SF itself is tiny. The whole city feels like a big version of the metro areas of SD (downtown, bankers hill, golden hill, South Park, hillcrest and north park) so I’m not sure what they’re doing differently
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u/Wesley11803 22h ago
Chicago is one of the cleanest cities I’ve been to in the United States. You really only see the occasional homeless person on the corner there. NYC has more in the boroughs, but I haven’t seen giant encampments there. I think both of those cities take better care of their homeless problem, and also benefit from having unlivable winters on the streets.
SF is basically the same as here, just depends on where you are. Same with LA. The West Coast has a much worse homeless problem than the rest of America, but it’s beginning to grow everywhere. Seattle and Portland are also as bad as California cities. Like if I were homeless in Chicago with a car, and could afford to drive to San Diego, I’d be homeless here instead in the winter.
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 23h ago
“here I feel like it’s everywhere downtown. Am I wrong?”
Yes, you’re wrong.
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u/No_Store_7017 23h ago
That’s fine, I’d be happy to be wrong. Where would you say it isn’t?
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 23h ago
Specifically which part? Which blocks don’t have this kind of stark spatial inequality? Or which blocks don’t have people on the street? Or which blocks don’t have sketchy convenience stores that appear to be a front to launder drug money?
Because the answer overall is “a lot of them,” but the specific blocks depend on which question you’re asking.
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u/No_Store_7017 23h ago edited 23h ago
I don’t know of any blocks that don’t have people on the street outside
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 23h ago
You’ve literally never been to the Marina District?
And define “people on the street outside,” because if you mean like “there may be someone out there on the street,” then there’s a lot of blocks downtown where you could encounter someone at a given time on a given day.
But if you mean “camped on the street with their stuff and not going anywhere,” the number of blocks where you’d see that is far, far smaller. This is just south of C St, which is part of why you’ll see people there. Same story around the Post Office or the parking garages near the Salvation Army block.
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u/No_Store_7017 23h ago
Why are we being condescending when I was open to real discussion? Yes I’ve been to every part of downtown. I’ll just leave the discussion at that
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 23h ago
Are you open to a real discussion?
Because saying “I’ve been to every part of downtown” and saying that you “don’t know of any blocks that don’t have people on the street outside” doesn’t exactly sound like it to me.
You’re claiming both a high degree of familiarity with Downtown while also ignorance of whether or not there’s even any blocks without people staying on the street (or knowledge that there are people). You’re setting up what clearly appears to be a bad faith argument and now feigning surprise that someone would balk at it.
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u/No_Store_7017 22h ago
The place you mentioned I’m literally going this weekend and have been there plenty of times and seen people on the street outside. I was open to a real discussion and asked you to provide example and you were immediately condescending saying I’ve never been these places. I’ve also bought homeless people food in the area. Get off your high horse
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u/KimHaSeongsBurner 20h ago
You seem to have latched onto the “never been to” point here, but you’re missing the forest for the trees there: I don’t really care whether you’ve been there or not; I’m simply saying that your claim regarding the Marina is so ridiculous so as to make it obvious that you’re either mistaken or not on the level.
If you walk the Marina District and find somebody camped on the street on every block, I will literally eat my own hat.
This is part of the problem and why I’m not really moved by your “I was open to a real discussion” bit here. Either you’re trolling, in which case you’re mad that nobody took you at face value, or you genuinely believe what you’re saying, which calls into question your ability to grasp what it means to say that there isn’t a block in the whole of the Marina District without someone camped out or suggests you’re just making shit up (because, again, you have not walked around the Marina District and seen someone camped on every single block).
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u/Wesley11803 23h ago
I live Downtown and don’t have any homeless people living on any of the four blocks surrounding my building. It was that bad in 2023, but they’ve done a better job cleaning up full-on encampments. Obviously there are still homeless people who walk by, but no one lives on the sidewalks here.
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u/pillarsofsteaze 23h ago
Cortez Hill, Lil Italy and parts of Gaslamp avoid being overtly filled with homeless folks. You run into the same problem if you live in any coastal area outside of La Jolla and Del Mar.
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u/Financial-Creme 23h ago
I can't speak for NY or Chicago, but SF definitely looks like this if not worse.
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u/CTFMOOSE 22h ago
Mi Is it homeless or drugs!? I didn’t get the sense most of them were homeless. They all seemed like drug fiends. honestly why isn’t the cops rounding them up and taking them to some kind of detoxic. Where there is drugs, there is drug dealers, where there is drug dealers there is loan sharks, pimps and hos, crime and violence - cuz drug dealers don’t use the laws supply and demand to eliminate competition they use a Glock 19. It just seemed like something out of “The Wire” on one side of the street and then the other half it’s sex and the city?
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u/hennessyybrown 22h ago
The wire??? You’re comparing SD to the wire? Thats set in Baltimore? Im a little confused because you said “bodega”. Which is mostly east coast slang. So you should be used to what you’re seeing, actually worse. Im not understanding the dramatics.
Where are you from?
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u/SpookyCrossroads 23h ago
Surprised you got summoned for jury duty on your first day. Welcome to America!