David Marcus: San Francisco is even worse than we knew and Newsom needs to answer for it

The Tenderloin district of San Francisco is just entirely overrun by the homeless, more accurately by people who appeared to be addicts or mentally ill.

There was no thronging mass to cover them, they were not straggling exceptions to well-run city blocks, they were the city blocks. Even the blocks, and there were many, that boasted the kind of new high end apartment buildings that are swanky back East. This is a place of total surrender, you can smell it, as well as other things, in the atmosphere. I was prepared for a rough scene, but holy hell, this beat the band. What little legal commerce there is here is mainly confined to fast food, liquor stores, little convenience spots and an abundance of marijuana shops. But it’s perfectly obvious, between shouted offers and glancing quick exchanges that illicit deals are everywhere. Even along the soul-crushing lines of tents on what should be nice sidewalks, and among the long lost folk beneath their tarps. All of the street moves slow like it has no place to be.