City officials in West Palm Beach, Florida, are using extremely catchy children’s music to try and drive away homeless people from one of its civic buildings.

The city’s mayor, Keith James, confirmed to Fox News that the songs Baby Shark and Raining Tacos were being played at the patio of the Waterfront Lake Pavilion, where homeless people have been living.

The pavilion is a banqueting venue that hosts weddings and other events, and brings in $240,000 (£192,000) of annual revenue. James complained of finding human faeces and other “unsanitary things” around it.

“It has been effective and is a temporary measure to make the area accessible for those who have rented the facility and for future events,” said Leah Rockwell, the city’s director for parks and recreation. “We are not forcing individuals to stay on the patio of the pavilion to listen to the music. The music is heard only if you are on the patio, a very small area relative to the rest of the waterfront.”

The city has previously attempted to use classical music to deter drug dealers, but the unit powering the speakers was smashed.

One homeless man Fox News spoke to said the children’s songs hadn’t been enough to move him on. “I still lay down in there,” Illaya Champion said. “But it’s on and on, the same songs.”

Activism network National Coalition for the Homeless criticised the initiative, with its interim director Megan Hustings calling it immoral and disturbing, showing a “lack of concern for our community members who are struggling through a very rough time”.

Pinkfong’s 2016 song Baby Shark has become a sensation among young children – and their embattled parents – with over 3bn views on YouTube, making it the eighth most viewed video of all time. Beginning in August 2018, it spent 42 weeks on the UK charts, reaching a high of No 6. Raining Tacos, an upbeat tune by Parry Gripp about the meteorological phenomenon of the title, has earned 31m views on YouTube since it was published in 2012.