The most troubled corner in San Francisco: New images show zombified, homeless drug addicts congregating in the streets as the city tries to clean up ahead of the APEC summit

California authorities have been trying to clean up San Francisco’s “most troubled corner” since June, ahead of the 2023 APEC summit, as tourists roam the city’s open-air drug trade and black markets.

The intersection at Seventh and Market is the center of San Francisco’s drug crisis; 20% of drug crimes in 2023 took place around the sketchy street corner.

San Francisco is on track to set a record for fatal drug overdoses this year – 54 people died from unintentional overdoses in the city. September only.

City, state and federal authorities have been throwing money and resources at the liberal city’s drug epidemic since June to try to control the growing lawlessness plaguing the nation’s sixth most expensive city.

Efforts by politicians and leaders have escalated in light of the 2023 APEC Summit, which will take place in San Francisco in just a few days.

The APEC summit will be hosted by the Democrat-led city from November 11 and will welcome 21 of the most prominent leaders of the world’s economies.

Eight government agencies — including park rangers, public works employees and employees of nonprofit Urban Alchemy — have put manpower into policing San Francisco’s mess of illegal activity, according to the San Francisco standard.

Photos taken by a Standard photojournalist captured the treacherous conditions in which homeless people and drug addicts survive at the intersection of Seventh and Market streets.

Zombie-like homeless people littered the garbage-strewn streets and groups of addicts gathered at all hours of the day to use drugs and deal illegal substances in the open.

Emergency vehicles constantly patrol the area, with many claiming the area has improved during the day but degenerates into a mass of illegal activity at night.

San Francisco police have argued that the crisis in San Francisco’s “most troubled corner” did not happen overnight and cannot be resolved in a week or two, but that residents of the expensive city ​​are tired of paying exorbitant prices to live among the masses. of illegal activities.

The state of San Francisco will be an embarrassing representation of the US at this year’s APEC summit, with the consensus being that the city is being labeled a “ruined city” and “hell” by Chinese media.

The besieged California city has been labeled a “total failure” by some China-based media as it prepares to host Chinese President Xi Jinping next week.

The spotlight will be on the city as the Chinese President meets President Biden for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

As the city gears up for the event, US Chinese radio used the headline ‘Ghost Town San Francisco will have a major blood exchange as APEC delivers the city’s safest week in history.’

Other headlines include the terms “garbage city,” “ruined city” and “fallen city,” as crippling drug problems and widespread homelessness problems continue to cause problems for the city.

Another headline from Chinese site Phoenix also said the city had entered a “death cycle.”

One article also states, “San Francisco was once a jewel on the West Coast of the United States, but when the Democrats pushed forward their radical agenda.

‘Now it has become a crime mecca, the streets are in disarray and it is rapidly descending into ghost town status.’

San Francisco residents worry about their safety in the crime-ridden city and a swarm of businesses are closing their doors for good in the seemingly hopeless area.

In April, Whole Foods announced it would close all of their locations, with Anthropologie and Office Depot also making the same decisions, leading some analysts to predict the city has entered a “doom loop” of permanent decline.

Restaurants on one of San Francisco’s most storied streets are closing at an alarming rate — and owners say it’s due to rising crime in the city.

A slew of restaurateurs this week cited crime, drugs and declining tourism as the main culprits killing their businesses, all on Valencia Street.

The thoroughfare, about a mile from the city’s embattled downtown, is considered one of the most sought-after restaurants in the Bay Area.

In June of this year, a group of San Francisco residents raised $25,000 to buy garden boxes, typically used to feed livestock, to line the streets of the city’s troubled Mission District in an effort to keep the homeless from living. prevent them from setting up camps there.

The use of the planters was first reported in mid-June and those behind the installation said they are seeing mixed results in the Democratic-run city, the San Francisco Standard reports.