In the wake of the tragedy at Alvord Lake, ​in which 66-year-old Stephen Williams was beaten, drowned, and ultimately killed by a group of transients over a period of three days, the temperature in the Upper Haight has changed.

As evidenced by a walk down Haight, the homeless youth who regularly hung out on the neighborhood's street corners seem to have all but disappeared. Many of them aren't showing up to receive supportive services, either. Since last week, Larkin Street Youth Services has seen its number of visitors decline from around 30-40 youth a day to around 8-15, according to program manager Matt Bartek.

Many in the neighborhood remain unnerved by the fact that suspects in the murder may remain at large. While two suspects, 19-year-old Stephen Billingsly (a.k.a. "Pizza Steve") and 36-year-old Nikki Lee Williams (a.k.a. "Evil"), were arraigned last week, the SFPD considers the case a conspiracy, and an unknown number of other transients might have been involved in Williams' death, which was caused by what the medical examiner's office called "multiple traumatic injuries."

However, even the SFPD says that the suspects in Williams' murder likely weren't part of the Haight's regular homeless and traveling population. "They're believed to be transients without any substantial connection to the city," Officer Carlos Manfredi told us last week.

In fact, the Haight's regular population of street kids were directly responsible for helping the SFPD catch Pizza Steve, according to Christian Calinsky, who runs Haight youth organization Taking It to the Streets.

While the media spun the murder as "vigilante justice," the street kids actually contributed to "true community policing" in the neighborhood, Calinsky told us. (Manfredi didn't specifically cite street kids as having helped in the case, but he did tell us that the SFPD's homicide detail "received substantial assistance from the community.")

Despite having lent a hand to help catch the murderers, the neighborhood's regular street community feels increasingly vilified by locals. "We are hearing from the youth that they are feeling stigmatized and blamed for the actions of individuals that are not a part of their community," said Bartek.



Recent community outcry against the street kids has already been high. Through most of the past year, SFPD Park Station has been putting pressure on the homeless population through an increased focus on quality-of-life violations, such as failure to comply with sit/lie laws, drug dealing, unattended dogs, and the like. But since the murder, the fear in the Haight's homeless/traveler community has reached a tipping point, said Bartek.

"The young people we work with are equally as traumatized [by the murder] as the other residents in the community here in the Haight," Bartek told us. "We hope they will return to HSRC soon so that we can provide assistance ... [They] are in need of support and services now more than ever. We hope the community will come together to work proactively to ensure the safety of everyone in the neighborhood."