Michael Arr has lived in the Dalt Hotel, a single-room-occupancy residence on Turk Street, for seven years.

"I've seen 10 shootings, murders, right out my window," he said. "I've had bullets hit my air conditioner. I am frightened to come outside."

Well, that's a tough break. After all, it is the Tenderloin, right?

Except that's not the full story here. What's happening on Arr's block is a more focused, more intense problem.

According to a study by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and the Central City SRO Collaborative, that block of Turk Street is a virtual war zone. Using police statistics, census data and shoe leather reporting, researcher Jonathan Nathan came up with some stunning numbers.

Nathan found that violent crime on the first block of Turk is 35 times higher than the rest of the city and eight times higher than the rest of the Tenderloin. Although just 438 people live on the block, from Nov. 21 through May 7, there were 248 reported crimes, according to the Police Department's Internet crime map.

Lest you blow off these numbers as just another Tenderloin problem, consider this: This Turk Street block has five times more violent crime than the block of 200 Eddy Street, located just around the corner.

Difficult to find, keep tenants

All of this on a street that intersects with Market Street, the city's grand boulevard.

"This isn't just the Tenderloin," Nathan said. "There is something going on here (on Turk) that is of more concern."

That's a disgrace.

And it isn't as if these are master criminals, working on the sly.

"Every morning about 9 o'clock, you've got people setting up lawn chairs on the sidewalk across the street," said Alan Cohen, who has lived in the Dalt Hotel for a year. "At first it was like a parade I hadn't heard about. Then I saw that they sit there and drink and smoke dope. They don't even put their pipes down when the police drive by."

Police spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak, who was stationed in the Tenderloin, denied that the drug crowd was getting a pass. "People hang out," he said. "But officers are out there, jumping out of cars, confronting people."

Still, imagine landlords attempting to rent properties to small business owners with that tableau in the background. No wonder the entire south side of Turk Street is just a long, graffiti-covered wall with plywood on the storefronts.

"We have continually tried to keep these buildings rented and occupied," said William Thacher, whose family owns the vacant space that runs the length of the block. "We are very open to using these small spaces, even if we can't get high-paying tenants."

Not many are interested.

"This single block has been so devastated that no one can do business here," said Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, who helped organize the study.

Now that we understand that this is a super-localized problem, we should be able to move to a solution. But when asked what should be done, everyone says the same thing - it's complicated.

First of all, Shaw said, the city's budget problem means the number of police officers at the Tenderloin Station has dropped from 101 in July 2009 to 74 today. Andraychak agrees there were more than 100 officers in 2009, but that included new officers placed in the Tenderloin for training. Now that there hasn't been hiring, probationary officers aren't available.

Second, everyone agrees that the drug dealers arrive on the BART train every morning.

"Don't forget that the drug dealers are small businessmen," said Don Falk, executive director of the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp., which owns the Dalt Hotel. "Where there's demand, there's supply."

Falk said he thinks the city can do a better job of providing alternatives and services to the residents.

Many blame liquor store

Finally, Shaw and others complain that Tenderloin Liquors, at the end of the block, attracts a bad crowd. They insist the store is in violation of city planning codes designed to mitigate the impact of liquor stores in the area.

Store owners deny that, but until something changes, it doesn't really matter.

Nobody does anything about the first block of Turk. The feeling seems to be that it is just the Tenderloin and that's how things have always been.

That's pathetic.