A FEW WEEKS back, A.C. Thompson paid a visit to a public housing complex in southeast San Francisco (see "A Place Called Despair, 10/19/05). Here's what he saw near one block of units in Hunters Point A West:

"A stream of shit, piss, tampons, and toilet paper spewed from a dark hole in the sidewalk, poured down the hill, and formed a sort of shit lagoon next to the street. Weeds, about six inches tall, were growing in the little lagoon."

In another area, a resident named Joanne Abernathy pointed to her ceiling, where water from the upstairs toilet had been leaking every day for a year. She called the Housing Authority, which runs the place, for help – over and over again. Nothing happened. As Thompson noted, "the ceiling eventually gave way, and a two-foot chunk of soaked drywall fell on Abernathy's mom, who is blind."

This week Thompson describes the life of a young college student named Chloe Young who called the cops not long ago, after her apartment in the Housing Authority's Potrero Hill development was broken into and her CDs stolen. She called three more times, over the course of an hour. The police never came. Frightened, she went to spend the night with her dad. When she returned, she found that the burglars had come back – and stolen everything she owned, down to her toothpaste.

The list of horrors goes on and on. As Thompson reports on page 20, residents of the city's housing project routinely deal with violence, often murder – and when they ask for help (for example, relocation so they won't be the next victim), the city does nothing. It's as if nobody in city government cares if these people live or die.

San Francisco is a rich city, and the residents of its public housing projects live in third world conditions, or worse. The Housing Authority has all kinds of excuses, but none of them are acceptable: This is criminal neglect.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has made some nice symbolic moves, such as visiting the projects to play basketball. But when it comes right down to it, the Mayor's Office is allowing this disgrace to continue. The supervisors need to investigate the situation, now. So should the district attorney – we could certainly argue that a landlord who forces tenants to live in subhuman conditions is guilty of a crime.

And Newsom should tell his Housing Authority commissioners that they must bring their housing up to code and provide basic safety – today – or he should fire all of them and find some commissioners who care.