Anecdotal but I know 4 Boomers who retired during covid. I also know a lot of younger folks who opted in to the gig economy instead of working at a store/restaurant, including 3 of my nieces and a nephew.
DoorDash went from 850ish million to 2.6Billion dollars in 2020 with over a million dashers and they account for about 45% of food delivery in the US.
I hopped into a Jeep Cherokee that I thought was mine and drove it down the road for a minute before realizing I was not in my vehicle. Keys are funny like that.
I'm 99% anxiety free after I learned to manage my allergies and diet!
I make light of the situation now but at one point in my life I was confused and freaked out because of the symptoms you mentioned and everyone including the doctors thought it was stress. After thousands of dollars in medical all I really needed was Benedryl, a better diet and a new primary care physician.
I grew up with my sisters in poverty. I didn't eat at a restaurant until I was 14 and paid for it myself. I started baking crackers, biscuits and pancakes that my younger sisters and I would eat for dinner with government peanut butter or cheese when I was 11. Having no utilities was a regular occurrence. Christmas was socks, underwear and a winter coat. Shoes were a touchy subject and I would have to have pretty big holes before they would get replaced. School hot lunch and food drives were awkward.
I decided what I wanted out of life in my mid-twenties and pursued it and now in my 40's I am doing better than I could have ever imagined. Everyone I know who was poor and wanted to better themselves was able to get out of poverty. All 4 of my sisters are middle class or better. Thats 5/5 that succeeded. All my friends across the states I had lived are homeowners and seem happy. All the people I met who bitched and didn't do anything to better themselves are still poor or dead.
I didn't get lucky and neither did my sisters and friends. We each made personal decisions and planned our way out of poverty. It didn't happen over night. A lot of set backs happen and everything is hard. Transportation and unforeseen expenses are the largest hurdles and access to credit is also difficult because of the length of time it takes to repair.
SF does have a huge homeless population. Yes it go's to homeless shelters and other charities/programs. We sometimes forget that not all homeless are chronic homeless which is what most people associate as homeless.
Someone may be having hard times making rent and go to a church or other organization for financial help and other services. Battered women, at risk children also exist and may require a shelter with more security or women only shelters - which are funded too. There are many other services that exist that use that funding.
I didn't see waste. Actually, I would go so far as say most charities that receive federal and state funding rely on reporting to receive those grants and funding and things are very transparent. HMIS is the tech side of things that build the systems to track and report on everything.
You are still surrounded by people with the same ideologies, it's just harder to hear us because of the noise. The people who are pro-censorship and regulation have never been a friend to the internet or its philosophies.
DoorDash went from 850ish million to 2.6Billion dollars in 2020 with over a million dashers and they account for about 45% of food delivery in the US.