I used to live in the Tenderloin in late 90's early 00's. Nice affordable studio on Turk. There was always a diverse party going on during the day on the streets. Definitely had an old fashion skid-row vibe. Market street wasn't too bad then. Ah the memories.
include as much real world problems in your fiction as you want. if you start pushing a political view point (communism is bad; capitalism is bad) without including the nuances of what you'd experience in a real world, then you get less good fiction. this is true of pushing political pov's, or other things when your fiction is out of balance. Author pushing a pov will usually degrade the quality of the work. just like contriving a plot to make it exciting debases your fiction. Generally speaking. in the end it's the delight in the spine the defines the quality of art.