I had always assumed that I’d love San Francisco. San Francisco is a big city, but not as large as New York or Chicago; big enough to always have something to do, small enough that you stand a good chance of being able to do it without standing in line for five hours. San Francisco’s got nearly perfect weather. It’s got a solid mass-transit system. It’s near all of the major computer companies. It has tons of outdoor activities. It’s near ocean. In every way, it seemed as if it ought to be perfect for me.

The reality has hit me much harder than I anticipated. The city is just about the right size, it is pretty, and it does have great transit and a wonderful selection of activities. My problem with San Francisco is the weather.

Complaining about the weather in San Francisco at first seems bizarre. It barely ever rains, the sky’s gorgeous, and most noticeably, the city’s always slightly cool and never too hot or too cold. What you miss at first is that the weather has an unexpected side-effect: there are a ridiculous number of homeless people.

Superb weather every day means that beggars can easily sleep on the street; they never have to worry about being roasted alive, as in Phoenix, or frozen to death, as in New York. Suddenly, and very unfortunately, classic supply-demand economics kicks in: a high supply of beggars leads to high demand for handouts, which vastly surpasses the supply of “loose” change available, so the homeless end up having to be very aggressive in order to get enough cash.

“Being aggressive” actually can take many forms. One, of course, is literally being extremely pushy. I’m no stranger to homeless people; New York has more than its share of beggars wandering the street. New York beggars, though, basically hold still with a cup out; they rarely approach you, and when they do, they’re actually almost always relatively polite. The subway beggars, for example, usually give a speech similar to this one, which I actually heard just a few days ago:

Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, if I could have a minute of your time. I normally play the congo drum, but at the moment I have lent my drum to a musician in greater need than me. I could use your help to get by. If you could please find it in your heart to help me in this difficult time, I would greatly appreciate. May the L-rd be with you.

Following the speech, the person will walk up and down the subway car, then leave. Now, you can say that she’s full of it, and I’ll of course agree with you, but the point is that, though she may be annoying, she’s easy to ignore and relatively polite about things.

San Francisco is an entirely different matter. I have been here all of two days, and I’ve had two different guys unleash a stream of invectives when I deliberately ignored them, one of whom actually started walking after me for about fifty feet before I stared him down. Beggars here do not like to be ignored. My treatment, unfortunately, did not seem to be unusual; I’ve seen maybe five or six other people hounded in the same manner.

Even when you give a beggar a coin, they complain, sometimes forcefully, that you didn’t give them enough. I heard one exchange in particular that was at once both hilarious and unspeakably pathetic:

Man: Can’t anyone spare a nickel?

Woman: [Gives him a nickel]

Man: All you got’s a fucking nickel?

Aggressive begging goes beyond merely being forceful verbally and physically. Many beggars around here are in wheelchairs and claim to be disabled, but if you keep walking by the same spot, you will soon spot the “disabled” beggars using their feet to pedal around in their wheelchair, or even stand up and walk around for a stretch. It’s insulting and degrading for everyone involved.

I’d be somewhat more willing to put up with all of the above if the economy in San Francisco had gone to hell and these people were truly desperate. The problem is, San Francisco’s economy isn’t that bad, and very, very few beggars look like they’re even in troubled times. Many are wearing perfectly fine T-shirts and pants; quite a few have nice tennis shoes, and at least one I saw, a 200-pound man who was cussing me out for not helping him “get a bite to eat” (“I’m fucking hungry, yo” he elaborated) was wearing what had to be week-old Nikes.

When I was little in Indiana, it used to be common for beggars to sit by the freeway exits with cardboard signs begging for money for their three kids (it was always three kids; never two, never four, always three). My dad made a habit of offering these beggars jobs, which they inevitably declined. “I don’t want a job, man,” one man begging near my dad’s old office told him. I strongly believe that this sentiment encapsulates the minds of many beggars whom I have seen over the last couple of days. They could work; they find begging for money easier.

I am unsure how to solve this problem. Clearly, supporting these beggars financially is good neither for them nor for society. If everyone stopped giving, they would vanish, because they do need to eat. If we could all be disciplined to not give any more handouts, though, we’d also cut off those people who truly are too incapacitated to work and truly have run out of options. The “fake” beggars would be forced to find work; the “real” beggars would starve and die. Sadly, the mere fact that these people are also in the street begging means that we are currently being utterly unsuccessful reaching them through charities, shelters, and soup kitchens.

I wish with all my heart that I knew some magical solution to the homeless/beggar problem, but I’m human; I don’t. Greater minds than mine have fought with the problem and failed, either in effectiveness or in motivation. But I find it incredibly disheartening that the problem has deteriorated so badly in San Francisco that it becomes the most prominent feature I notice.

San Francisco has the potential to be one of my favorite cities, and maybe some day it will be, but at the moment, I’m looking forward to returning to New York.