Residents of an affluent San Francisco area have launched a crowdfunding appeal in a bid to block a homeless shelter being built in their area.

Donors have raised more than $60,000 (£46,000) to fund a legal battle over plans for the 200-bed centre in a city gripped by a housing crisis.

Their efforts have prompted an angry response from San Francisco’s mayor, who called the campaign “incredibly frustrating and disappointing”.

The residents launched an appeal on crowdfunding website GoFundMe – more typically used to raise money for charity or disaster relief – last week.

The page says the funds will be used for “for legal and related costs” to oppose mayor London Breed’s proposals for a homeless shelter in a vacant plot of land in Embarcadero, the city’s eastern waterfront.

The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Show all 10 1 / 10 The Stats: Homelessness in the UK The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Sleeping rough up 165% from 2010 The total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2018 was 4,677, up 2,909 people or 165% from the 2010 total of 1,768 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London rough sleepers up 13% The number of people sleeping rough increased by 146 or 13% in London since 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London accounted for 27% of people sleeping rough in England London accounted for 27% of the total number of people sleeping rough in England. This is up from 24% of the England total in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 64% of rough sleeps UK nationals 64% were UK nationals, compared to 71% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 14% of rough sleepers are women 14% of the people recorded sleeping rough were women, the same as in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 6% were aged 25 years or under, compared to 8% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Thousands of families staying in temporary housing Almost 79,000 families were staying in temporary housing in the last three months of 2017 because they didn't have a permanent home, compared with 48,010 in the same period eight years before Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Reduction in families living in temporary housing before Coalition government There had been a significant reduction in families living in such conditions before the Coalition government came into power, with the number having fallen by 52 per cent between 2004 and 2010 under the Labour government AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Families staying in temporary has risen since But the figure has crept up in each of the past seven years, from 69,140 in the last quarter of 2015, to 75,740 in the same period in 2016 and 78,930 at the end of last year Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Nearly 58,000 families accepted as homeless (2018) Nearly 58,000 families have been accepted as homeless by their local council in the past year (as of March 2018), equating to an increase of 8 per cent over the last five years Getty

The coalition of residents from surrounding neighbourhoods claims the plans would make the area less safe.

They have set a crowdfunding target of $100,000 (£76,000) and have received more than 135 donations, including from hedge fund managers, company executives and academics.

More than 7,000 in the San Francisco Bay area are homeless, according to recent estimates.

The average house in South Beach, the area where the shelter is proposed to be built, costs $1.2m.

“People want us to address the challenges on our streets and help our unsheltered residents into housing, and I am committed to doing the hard work to make that happen,” Ms Breed said.

“But it’s incredibly frustrating and disappointing that as soon as we put forward a solution to build a new shelter, people begin to threaten legal action.

“I understand that people have questions about the site, and we are happy to demonstrate how these sites work and the positive impacts they have had in other neighbourhoods, but can’t afford unnecessary delays.”

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A rival crowdfunding page was set up this week to counter efforts to block the shelter and raised more than $33,000 (£25,000) in a day.

“They’re [trying to stop] a shelter in the neighbourhood, and these are the same people who complain about homelessness all the time,” the page’s founder, William Fitzgerald, told the San Francisco Chronicle.