More homeless people have moved into Hillcrest since police cracked down on illegal tents downtown in recent weeks, and some have been aggressive toward business owners and others, said a local business leader.

“Last week our security service had a whole host of people to deal with,” said Benjamin Nicholls, executive director of the Hillcrest Business Association said

Nicholls said a homeless man threw a rock at him last week, and another threatened an association volunteer at the Sunday Farmer’s Market.

Even some homeless people in Hillcrest have said they’ve seen more people in their neighborhood during the past few weeks, some with a different attitude.


Jeremy Johnston, who said he lives in the canyons near Hillcrest, said the influx has been noticed but that homeless people who have been in the neighborhood a while do not cause trouble and try to keep the area clean.

“This is where we live,” he said. “We’re productive members of society.”

A man with him who did not want to be identified, seconded Nicholls’ perception that some of the new people were more aggressive.

Homeless people are not new to Hillcrest, and the community has dealt with unruly behavior on the streets before. In June, Henry Mayer of Mayer Reprographics on University Avenue posted on the Hillcrest Business Association Facebook page a security video of a homeless man threatening him with a machete.


Last year, the association hired a security firm to help police the area after businesses complained about people panhandling in their restaurants, sleeping in their showrooms and defecating behind their shops.

Nicholls said the regular local homeless are less of a problem these days than the dozen or so new arrivals to Hillcrest.

“We have kind of an equilibrium with the people in the neighborhood,” he said. “We’ve called their bluff too many times. We know they’re not going to attack us.

Philip Verdier, who has been homeless for 13 years, uses a hand-washing station off University Avenue near Vermont Street in Hillcrest. The county has installed stations to help stop the spread of hepatitis A. Verdier said he usually washes in park restrooms with his own soap. (Howard Lipin)


“But these new people, they’re trying to find the lay of the land,” he said. “They find a vestibule and say, ‘This is my space now. You can’t tell me I can’t be here.’”

He suspects they may have come from downtown areas that police recently cleared of homeless encampments. One of the largest encampments was along 17th Street near Imperial Avenue, where police told homeless people last week to remove their tents and not return.

The eviction was among several steps the city has taken to curb a hepatitis A outbreak that has sickened 481 people and left 17 dead.

While people were told to not return to the unsanitary, congested campsites downtown, they were not directed to any particular place and appear to have gone to several different locations.


Balboa Park Conservancy Director Tomas Herera-Mishler said last week that he had seen many more homeless people in the park since the downtown evictions. Members of Alpha Project’s homeless outreach team said they’ve seen others from around 17th Street at Embarcadero Marina Park South behind the San Diego Convention Center.

Nicholls said windows have been broken with rocks at Servall Liquor, Lestat’s Coffee House, Tacos Liberdad, Luigi Vera, The Hive and Starbucks on 5th Avenue.

The windows were broken before the recent influx of people from downtown, but Nicholls said he believes the person who threw a rock at him was one of the new arrivals. The association already has removed decorative river rocks around the base of trees from some spots, replacing them with pebbles.

Some decorative river rocks at tree wells along University Avenue have been replaced with pebbles after several windows alongside the street were broken. The head of the Hillcrest Business Association suspects some homeless people may have caused the damage. (Howard Lipin)


“We spent about $20,000 putting them in, and they’re all over the neighborhood,” he said about the river rocks.

“I don’t know if we have the money to take them out. We’re just taking them out as people complain (of rocks being used as weapons.)”

Nicholls said he’s also considering cutting back the tall reeds in the landscaping at the base of the Pride Flag at Normal Street and University Avenue because the plants have been damaged by homeless people hanging out there.

Benjamin Nicholls, executive director of the Hillcrest Business Association, stands at the base of the Pride flagpole that was littered with bags of bottles he said were left by homeless people. (Howard Lipin)


“I don’t know if that’s what the community wants their monument to look like,” he said.

Bob McElroy, president and CEO of the Alpha Project, said he doesn’t think homeless people from downtown are more menacing than the homeless of Hillcrest, but they may be under more stress.

“It’s a powder keg right now,” he said. “Maybe some of the aggression comes from being moved from one place to another. Most of these folks want to be left alone, obviously. People are just frustrated.”

John Husler, owner of Lestat’s Coffee House in Hillcrest, University Heights and Normal Heights, also said he’s seen an increase in homeless people in Hillcrest over the past few weeks.


“It’s sort of a normal thing,” he said. “Whenever they do anything downtown, there’s more of an abundance here. And eventually we’ll see them in Normal Heights, where the other shop is.”

Husler said he’s had to ask people to move away from his Hillcrest shop over the past few days. He doesn’t see the new arrivals as aggressive, but said they do seem different than the regular homeless he sees.

“There’s definitely more agitation,” he said. “The anger seems higher. Whenever they’re pushed out of downtown, the anger seems higher.”


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gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

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