It’s chilly and wet, an unpleasant morning in the Castro. John Constantine wakes up in front of a doorway on Market Street at Church and realizes he only has a few minutes to gather his belongings before the police come around.

As someone who frequently sleeps in doorways in the Castro, he knows the drill. Constantine, 39, who has lived on and off the streets for more than 20 years, said he used to sleep in a tent in Mission Dolores Park. But after being shooed away a number of times, he now just lays his head wherever he can find some cover.

“I’ve slept here, and in (doorways) down there and there,” he said, pointing down Church Street. After piling his clothes and food into a cart, he shuffles away. “Now I’ll probably go find a sign to panhandle and get some breakfast.”

While city statistics show a dramatic reduction in large tent encampments around San Francisco and a significant increase in shelter beds in the past six months, people like Constantine still find themselves scattering into neighborhoods like the Castro looking for refuge. And the citywide improvements have done little to ease the problem for residents and merchants, who say they remain frustrated with homeless people sleeping outside their stores and homes.

Tents coming down Citywide statistics show a decrease in tent camps July 2018: 568 tents/structures January 2019: 341 tents/structures Decrease: 40 percent Sites with six-plus tents/structures July 2018: 17 sites January 2019: Six sites Decrease: 65 percent New shelter beds since July 2018 338 Source: Healthy Streets Operations Center Hearing on homelessness Supervisor Rafael Mandelman will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday in Room 263 of San Francisco City Hall. For more information, go to: https://sfbos.org/meetings/48

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District Eight Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro, said he gets dozens of texts, emails and calls every day from residents complaining about tents, feces and needles in their neighborhoods. But he doesn’t always know what to tell them.

“People have a lot of questions, like ‘why don’t they just get rid of that (the tents)?’ and ‘what is the city doing?’” Mandelman said as he walked past a tent on a recent morning. “I have constituents who are upset about the sweeps, but I also have others who don’t understand why we are tolerating such a mess in public.”

To respond to the complaints, Mandelman will hold a hearing Thursday at City Hall to tell the public how the city is addressing the problem of tents and homeless people spreading into neighborhoods that historically have been more isolated from the problem. He’ll also try to figure out what else needs to be done.

Tent camps and the homeless have long been part of life in San Francisco and one that a string of mayors have struggled with. Mayor London Breed has worked quietly to eliminate tent encampments in her first year in office.

Since Breed took office, the Healthy Streets Operations Center — a collection of city agencies addressing homelessness — reported a 40 percent decrease in tent structures, from 568 to 341, between July 2018 and January 2019, according to its latest quarterly count. In the same time period, tent camps — defined as six or more tents in one area — decreased by 65 percent, from 17 to six. Meanwhile, the city has opened 338 more shelter beds among multiple Navigation Centers since July.

Police officers will issue a citation or confiscate a tent only when HSOC confirms there is a shelter space available for a homeless person, said HSOC spokesman Andy Lynch. If there is no shelter available, he said officers won’t issue a citation, confiscate the tent or make them move, unless they’re blocking the sidewalk. Sixty-five percent of residents in camps that HSOC has removed were placed in a shelter or Navigation Center.

There are clear improvements in areas of the city, like along Division Street and the Inner Mission, where not long ago there were dozens of tents, Lynch said. And since Breed took office, there have also been anecdotal improvements with less open drug use and fewer people sleeping on the sidewalks, especially around the Civic Center.

“There’s certainly more work to do, and HSOC is in the process of adapting to a different environment, in which we don’t have these large encampments,” said Jeff Kositsky, director of the Department of Homeless and Supportive Housing. “When I started my job in June of 2016, there were well over 1,000 tents in the city, and now there are less than 400.”

Still, as more attention has been paid to areas where the homeless have traditionally gathered — the Tenderloin, the Civic Center and the part of SoMa now home to the new high-rises of the Transbay district — residential neighborhoods like the Castro are feeling overwhelmed by the city’s homeless crisis.

On Wednesday, Derron Jones, a street cleaner with the Castro Community Benefit District, swept up sopping wet socks, sweaters, sleeping bags, cardboard and banana peels from Market Street. Then he wiped feces — or something that looks like it — from a storefront, and walked past others where homeless people had spent the night, swaddled in sleeping bags and blankets.

“And this is clean,” he said, as he grabs his broom.

Elsewhere in the city, the problems are similar.

District Five Supervisor Vallie Brown, who represents the Haight, Hayes Valley and the Inner Sunset, has heard the same complaints as Mandelman.

“I have people complaining constantly that they’re getting inundated with homeless people that they haven’t dealt with before,” Brown said. “Maybe it’s getting better in certain parts of the city, but for us, we are seeing a lot of them being pushed into the neighborhoods.”

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission, said her district used to be overrun by tent camps, especially after parts of downtown were swept in preparation for Super Bowl events in 2016. Despite a dramatic improvement after a Navigation Center opened in the Mission, the issue lingers — stubbornly.

“It’s a constant struggle,” she said. “But of course that’s going to happen. It’s logic. If we don’t have enough spaces for people to be, and if they’re moving people from one space without giving them somewhere inside to go, they’re going to move to another outdoor space.”

San Francisco progressive groups and homelessness advocates have expressed concerns about tents being confiscated when a person refuses a shelter space — particularly during inclement weather. That could arise as an issue during Mandelman’s hearing.

Sasha Perigo, a member of the San Francisco Democratic Socialists of America’s homelessness working group, said she was concerned the hearing could inspire more police-driven responses to addressing tents in residential areas.

“Sleeping on the streets is much more terrifying than seeing a homeless person,” Perigo said. “That’s my frustration with the framing of this hearing.”

Back in the Castro Ashley McCumber lives on Collingwood Avenue, a quiet, pleasant street, where he said homeless people often pitch tents and spend the night. While the city may have fewer tent camps and more shelter beds, he doesn’t feel like those changes have helped his neighborhood.

“I don’t want to see people living in poverty and be criminalized,” McCumber said. “But at the same time, we have a desire to have a neighborhood that isn’t fraught with problems.”

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani