The summer of love ended 40 years ago
Betsy's Page
Apparently, for some Haight Asbury is the eternal magnet for strung out youths seeking to get high without having to work for a living. They're still hanging out in the area, panhandling for money to buy drugs and sleeping it off in Golden Gate Park.
<<< 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. >>>
Charming.
One difference today is that the property owners in the Haight, former hippies themselves, have just about had it with today's generaltion of gutter punks.
<<< 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."
....Barbara Libasci's home sits near a rock 'n' roll landmark: the house at 710 Ashbury St. where Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead once lived.
She has a front-row seat at a daily alternative music event she'd rather not attend. She often finds homeless kids sleeping on the lawn of the former Dead house. They climb the picket fence to peer inside the front windows and pick flowers from the garden.
"They camp right in the driveway," said the retired nurse, who lives in the former Haight-Ashbury headquarters of the Hells Angels. "I have to tell them to move so the owners don't back out over them. They're degrading the property."
Even some of those who try to help are getting fed up.
John Grima, a program director at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, founded in the 1960s, says his agency provides "nonjudgmental" services for homeless youths. "Still, there's this assumption of a free ride," he said.
Grima said a teen asked him for change on Haight Street. Grima offered him slices of pepperoni pizza. The young man refused, saying he was vegetarian.
"I said, 'OK, then don't eat it,' then I got mad," Grima said. "I said, 'Wait a minute, I don't owe you anything. I'm happy to help you, but I don't owe you a thing.' "
....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." >>>
Eventually, perhaps the residents will learn that it is not benevolence to facilitate these kids tuning in, turning on, and dropping out. True benevolence would be to get them into rehab programs even if that involves arresting them. Perhaps Rudy Giuliani could come out and give them a few pointers about taking back the streets.
I had to laugh to see actor Peter Coyote quoted at the end of the article.
<<< One ex-hippie who returns frequently for its bohemian vibe said he makes a point to hand out cash to panhandlers.
"This used to be a place where kids could come to reinvent themselves, 'Like a rolling stone, like a complete unknown, no direction home,' " said actor Peter Coyote, a Marin County resident who once handed out free food to hippies through a group known as the Diggers.
"Now the Haight is a grittier, less forgiving reality. But these are still our kids. You don't help them by deporting them. You do it right in your own neighborhood. If any place can do this, it's Haight-Ashbury." >>>
Coyote must be the 'go to' guy for news on Haight-Asbury. He's in show, The Century, that ABC and the History Channel did in 2000 talking about how great it was back in 1967 when a guy could meet a girl, go and make love all afternoon, and if they never learned each others' names, hey, that was cool. And he was in the recent documentary the History Channel did about hippies talking again about the wonders of love and drugs back in the Haight. And here he is again reliving the area's glory years. I've seen war veterans talk less about their experiences in World War II than this guy talks about hanging out, doing drugs, and making love with unknown women. (Link via Instapundit)
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