When they’re not injecting, swallowing or sniffing drugs, many of San Francisco’s “homeless” spend a lot of their time ripping off retail stores.

Walgreens drug stores have proven a particular target for Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums (DDMBs)—the four groups that make up 90% of the “homeless” population.

As a result, Walgreens has closed at least 11 stores in San Francisco. 

“The clerks say there is nothing they can do. They say Walgreens’ policy is to not get involved. They don’t want anyone getting injured or getting sued, so the guys just keep coming in and taking whatever they want,” a regular customer, Sebastian Luke, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Retail theft across our San Francisco stores has continued to increase in the past few months to five times our chain average,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso told the Chronicle in October, 2021. 

“During this time to help combat this issue, we increased our investments in security measures in stores across the city to 46 times our chain average in an effort to provide a safe environment.” 

“Why are the shelves empty?” a customer asked a clerk at a Walgreens store.

“Go ask the people in the alleys, they have it all,” replied the clerk.

One store in the San Francisco area reportedly lost $1,000 a day to theft. 

CVS Pharmacy has instructed its employees to not intervene because the thieves so often attack them.

Many shoplifters then sell their stolen goods on the street—often near the store where they stole them.

Under California law, theft under $950 is considered a misdemeanor, but many prosecutors prefer to free those charged rather than holding them in jail.

The maximum sentence they could get: Six months. 

Low-income and disabled seniors who depend on these disappearing drug stores for prescriptions are especially at risk. 

Some stores in the city are refusing to let themselves be ripped off.

Target’s largest store, at Geary and Masonic, is guarded by armed security from IPS. Its officers wear dark green uniforms resembling those of sheriff’s deputies and carry .40 caliber automatics.

They are unfailingly courteous—but don’t hesitate to restrain anyone who poses a threat to customers or is apparently stealing merchandise.

Of course, corporations aren’t in business to lose money. So costs for such security are passed on to customers.

Many Druggies, Drunks, Mentals and Bums refuse to enter the city’s available shelters. Some claim these places are dangerous—understandably so, since they’re peopled with drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill and outright bums. 

But another reason why many of these shelters go unused is: They don’t allow their “guests” to drink up or drug up.

The latest wrinkle in San Francisco’s “be kind to Untermenschen“ campaign is the creation of “Navigation Centers.” These are essentially holding pens for DDMBs until they can be “navigated” to permanent housing. 

But housing is in short supply in San Francisco, and there is no telling how long many of these drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally disabled and bums will stay in them. Or what harm they will wreak on the neighborhoods warehousing them.

Since 2015, eight Navigation Centers have been opened throughout San Francisco; six are in operation.

Among the “amenities” they provide:

• Meals
• Privacy
• Space for pets
• Space separate from sleeping areas
• Laundry
• Access to benefits
• Wi-Fi

Hundreds—if not thousands—of their occupants are meth or heroin addicts. Such people will commit virtually any crime to support their habit. And their crimes of choice are burglary and robbery. 

Thus, pouring large numbers of them into San Francisco neighborhoods via “Navigation Centers” guarantees that countless decent citizens will become targets for desperate criminals.

“Navigation Centers” boast that they ban drug-abuse or drug-dealing on their own premises. But they allow DDMBs to come and go at will. Which means they are free to engage in drug-abuse and/or drug-dealing in the neighborhoods where these centers exist. 

Huge areas of the city are covered in feces, urine, trash and used hypodermic needles. Hospitals overflow with patients that have fallen ill due to the contamination.

The city budgeted $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2021-22 on DDMBs. Dividing that amount by about 7,754 DDMBs provides the figure of about $128,925 per DDMB per year.  

An Untermenschen encampment

And what is the legacy of allowing San Francisco to become a Roach Motel for undesirables? 

• The city’s sidewalks reek of human feces and urine.
• Pedestrians must tread carefully to avoid used hypodermic needles and empty cans or bottles of alcoholic beverages.
• Sleeping bags and tents litter sidewalks, making it hard to pass by—especially for the elderly or those using canes or wheelchairs.
• Elevators in the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system are often unusable because “homeless” people urinate and/or defecate in them.
• Restaurants have been forced to close because they’ve become havens for DDMBs. A Burger King at Civic Center Plaza recently suffered this fate. So did a McDonald’s in the Haight Ashbury district. 
• Tourists—and residents—are daily forced to sit next to filth-encrusted men and women who reek of urine and/or feces in restaurants and movie theaters, as well as on buses.

It is a recipe for guaranteed disaster.