A very similar situation is happening in Vancouver. In the older part of town, just past Gastown, Vancouver's original neighbourhood, lies the Downtown East Side. The DTES is 'Canada's poorest postal code', and is home to a large population of Vancouver's homeless. In true Canadian fashion, it's generally a safe and vibrant area, both despite and because of the homeless population living there (compared to the suburbs, where bored teenagers assault the elderly for something to do).

Recently, a few businesses have been cropping up; one of them, Save on Meats, opened a butcher shop and a diner; more accurately, re-opened, as Save on Meats was a cornerstone of the neighbourhood for decades before the previous owners closed it. The current owner bought the building, renovated it (or, more accurately, refurbished and restored it), began hiring the homeless and poor of the neighbourhood, and began a series of social programs aimed at benefitting the area. Their sandwich counter, a street-facing breakfast sandwich dispensary, introduced 'sandwich tokens', which can be bought from them in quantity and traded in by anyone for a warm meal. It's a convenient way to give someone something that you know will be traded in for food, without having to go out of your way to purchase it. Everyone loves it, and even the police who patrol the DTES will give out tokens to people in the neighbourhood.

Another restaurant opened lately, called Pidgin, across from a location called Pigeon Park, a common area of congregation for the DTES's residents, homeless or otherwise. On occasions, it's blocked off and turned into a giant street market, where individuals sell whatever items they've managed to scrounge up, trade, for, buy, or sell. Pidgin is a nice restaurant, it's the upper end of midrange, a place you could certainly go to in jeans and a button-down, but you might fit in better in a suit and tie.

Then came the protesters. The protesters came, spurred on by a feeling that Pidgin was making fun of the homeless people across the street, like a slap in the face. Ignoring the fact that Pidgin also hires people from the neighbourhood, the protesters congregated outside of the restaurant every day, shouting and harassing the restaurant, the staff, and the patrons. All this despite the fact that the people who actually live in the area disagree with them; both the homeless and jobless poor and the more well-to-do people who live, work, and own businesses in the area.

The other facet that the protesters seem to ignore is that part of the problem with the homeless population in Vancouver is a problem of perception; many people, especially those from the suburbs, see the DTES as full of dirty violent criminals, where you'll get knifed for your sneakers before you know it, Canada's Detroit. The reality is that these are just normal people in awful circumstances, making the best of what they have. The more people who see that, and who see how wrong their horrible misconceptions about the poor are, the easier it will be to gain support from the voting populace to improve conditions there, and the less uphill the fight will be to convince others that these people aren't lost causes cluttering up the streets of Vancouver's history.

The protesters never cared though. Even after being told by police to stop harassing people, even after being told off by people who've run businesses in the DTES for years, and working against the needs and wishes of the community in the DTES, they kept protesting.

And what population of them even live in the area? What population knows anything about the homeless that they're white-knighting? None of them. They're largely comprised of people from the suburbs, people who commute from all over the region to tell everyone how these people feel without ever asking them. Some leaders of the protest were even forced to give up their allegiances with organizations who actually aim to help the homeless populations, because their missions were so at odds and they were giving these charitable organizations such a bad name.

So the idea that trust-fund hipsters and well-meaning interlopers will thrust themselves violently and unnecessarily into a 'class warfare' which didn't exist (or wasn't as heated or unpleasant) before their interference isn't a strictly Oakland issue either. This behaviour, which focusses on driving people apart and creating open conflict where none existed, contrasts directly with what is necessary, which is for people to understand one another and interact.

It's pretty sad.