Swept off Mid-Market, S.F.'s homeless cluster nearby

A person is seen sleeping on the ground at Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall in San Francisco, CA, Thursday, January 9, 2014. A person is seen sleeping on the ground at Civic Center Plaza in front of City Hall in San Francisco, CA, Thursday, January 9, 2014. Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 20 Caption Close Swept off Mid-Market, S.F.'s homeless cluster nearby 1 / 20 Back to Gallery

Mayor Ed Lee's intense focus on cleaning up the notoriously blighted Mid-Market corridor as technology companies and residential buildings move in has shifted many homeless people off San Francisco's main thoroughfare. But now adjacent neighborhoods are feeling the brunt of more homeless people and unsavory street behavior.

Hayes Valley merchants and residents say they have seen more homeless people congregating in the park at Hayes and Octavia streets, sleeping in storefronts, relieving themselves on the streets and even setting up sidewalk tents big enough for a family trip to Yosemite.

But perhaps the most striking problem is taking place within view of the mayor's sweeping City Hall balcony. Civic Center Plaza, which has had an on-and-off homeless problem for years, has seen an uptick in vagrancy and flagrant lawbreaking that led one city supervisor to liken it to "the Wild West." People use crack and heroin, set up camp and have sex in broad daylight for anyone to see.

Police Chief Greg Suhr said the influx of homeless people into neighborhoods around Market Street is to be expected - if they're moved off the main drag, they have to go somewhere.

"I get my marching orders from the mayor that Mid-Market is a priority," he said, noting that Lee stresses that point every time the two men talk. Suhr said he plans to double the number of beat officers patrolling Mid-Market in the next few months at the mayor's request.

Pushed a block away

"As the Mid-Market corridor gets more and more foot traffic and more and more bicycles, it takes folks and pushes them one block in either direction," Suhr said, saying that he's now very focused on policing Civic Center Plaza as well. "When you concentrate on an area, you get displacement into adjacent areas, and the focus becomes there."

Lee has championed the improvement of the derelict Mid-Market stretch since taking office in 2011 and has used tax breaks to persuade Twitter and other companies to move in. Starting last fall, the Department of Public Works has sent cleaning teams to Market Street and the surrounding alleys at 4:30 a.m. five mornings a week, rousting the homeless and washing down the sidewalks.

Many are moving into Hayes Valley or Civic Center Plaza. On a recent sunny afternoon, a dozen homeless men and women napped amid massive piles of belongings and encircled the children's playground at the northeast corner of the plaza. The playground was empty.

Groups of young men with pit bulls and multiple shopping carts strapped together and filled with what appear to be stolen bicycle parts gather regularly. They lounge around in folding chairs at their makeshift junkyards.

People smoke crack or marijuana or shoot up heroin in broad daylight along Fulton Street between the Asian Art Museum and the Main Library or along Larkin Street heading north from the plaza.

Custodians at the library regularly clean up human excrement and drug paraphernalia just outside its doors, though regular scrubbings by the Department of Public Works are helping. Security guards at the Asian Art Museum call police to report drug dealing weekly, a spokesman said. And couples have been spotted having sex out in the open.

Rules of behavior

"It's gotten really extreme. I've seen some really over-the-top kinds of situations," said Supervisor Scott Wiener. "And this is right at the seat of power in San Francisco and among some of our greatest cultural institutions. ... We need to be clear that there are certain basic rules of behavior - that this is not the Wild West."

Civic Center Plaza has long had a homeless problem, most famously when hundreds of homeless people set up stakes there in 1989 during then-Mayor Art Agnos' administration. Dubbed "Camp Agnos," it became a national news story.

It's nothing like that these days, but the influx is still notable.

Sean Sterling, a 46-year-old homeless man, sat in Civic Center Plaza on a recent morning next to his suitcase and sleeping-bag roll. He said he's been on the streets for five years and has noticed a big turn for the worse in the plaza since the Market cleanup effort began.

"The increase is obvious," he said of the sheer number of homeless people in Civic Center. He said he sees crack dealing, methamphetamine use and thievery regularly.

Looking the other way

"The mayor could see it without any help - no binoculars. It's not covert," he sad. "It's part of the scenery here, like the carpet on the floor. You walk across it so many times, you don't even see the pattern anymore."

He said the plaza is a popular hangout because it's close to food giveaways and known drug-dealing spots. And these days, he said, city officials look the other way more than they do along Market Street itself.

"They want to eliminate our presence in the commercial corridors," he said. "They don't so much want to get rid of you, but they want to move you around."

Suhr said he has stationed a permanent police officer at the library and another at the plaza itself. He said he's also working with the library to shift away from the institution's longtime "live and let live" policy to one in which behavioral codes are enforced.

But there are priorities among police officers. Smoking a joint may get a shrug or a request to see a medical marijuana card. But the department has "zero tolerance" for narcotics dealing and makes a point of targeting the dealers themselves rather than the users, the chief said.

Lee, who recently graded himself a C on dealing with homelessness, said he is especially concerned about the behavior around the Main Library and will be focused on it. He said it's critical to concentrate social services on people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and who are mentally ill.

Focus on library

On Thursday, Lee sent a letter to the Library Commission encouraging it to create a "family and education zone" around the Main Library. The mayor wants the commission to "institute new penalties for rules violations" that would include removing people from the zone who expose themselves, assault library staff or patrons, are carrying weapons, are drunk or high, or are making noise or vandalizing library property.

"I'm sure there definitely needs to be improvement," the mayor said earlier. "We do have some ideas."

He wasn't specific, but did say he wants to explore whether the city should adopt Laura's Law, the state law that allows counties to compel treatment of the seriously mentally ill. San Francisco officials have so far opted not to participate.

Bevan Dufty, Lee's point person on homelessness, said he's aware that more homeless people are congregating in Civic Center Plaza and that he is especially concerned about increased narcotics use.

"There are playgrounds that children play in - that is not something that should be happening there," Dufty said. "We definitely want to house more people. That's got to be the big focus, because otherwise they're just moving around."

Hayes Valley

Many are also moving into Hayes Valley, according to several residents and business owners there. Several large tents have been erected on Birch Street and in front of a parking garage around the corner, said Hannah Fletcher, a 26-year-old design operations coordinator at Facebook who moved into an apartment there a year ago. She said she's also seen several people sleeping in cars on her alley, which is one block long.

"It seems like our street is targeted for that sort of thing because it's off the beaten path and not a lot of people drive down it," she said. "It's kind of just life in the city."

William Bulkley, president of the board of the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association and a 12-year resident of the area, said more homeless people are camping in the neighborhood's alleys, urinating and defecating on the sidewalks, and sleeping on top of and crushing plants in Patricia's Green, the park at Hayes and Octavia.

He said he is sympathetic to homeless people having to sleep and relieve themselves somewhere, but wants to make sure the city is aware of the influx so it can direct social services there.

"It's our goal to look compassionately at the situation," he said. "What we need is more coordination with homeless outreach."

Jennifer Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said it's ironic that Lee's efforts on Mid-Market are moving homeless people into more established neighborhoods, where there are more business owners and residents around to notice.

She has heard the complaints in Civic Center and Hayes Valley, as well as the inner Mission and Duboce Triangle.

"Displacement happens, and you get more complaints," she said. "It doesn't make sense for their own political goals, but I can never figure out what City Hall is doing anyway."

No sitting, no lying

The city's passage of a ban on sitting or lying on sidewalks in 2010 has also meant parks and plazas are one of the only areas where homeless people can rest, she pointed out. She added that the tension will only grow stronger as the economic boom exacerbates the city's already growing income disparity.

"It's this really very double-edged sword for people who are destitute because there's fewer opportunities for them to get off the streets, more and more competition for what housing is available, and less tolerance for their very presence in public spaces," she said.

Look out the window

Any improvements can't come soon enough for Sonia Villalta, 54, who has lived at Gough and McAllister streets for 40 years and regularly walks her sheepdog, Max, in Civic Center Plaza.

She said she's rarely seen as many homeless people in the area as she does these days and is especially disturbed to see a lot of homeless women, which she hasn't seen before. She said she's seen several instances of couples having sex in the plaza.

"They're not very discreet," said the interior decorator.

She said it's especially disheartening that the scene is playing out right outside the mayor's office at City Hall.

"I don't think he's paying attention," she said. "I don't think he looks out his window enough."