Fed up San Francisco residents forced to self-fund heavyweight planters to block homeless encampments

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San Francisco activist says mayor’s drug and homeless plan is falling flat

San Francisco Mayor London Breed and local leaders are clashing over how to fix crime. But one resident says any change to the status quo would be welcome.

San Francisco residents in the Mission District fed up by homeless encampments raised over $25,000 dollars to install sidewalk planters to block homeless people from setting up tents there, local media outlets reported.

Locals told the San Francisco Chronicle that Harrison Street had been "taken over" by encampments for the past three years and was in "terrible shape." Neighbors described being threatened with violence as they passed by encampments. They revealed they were forced to take action because they didn't have help from the city. 

"We’re a growing group of 50+ neighbors who want to make our street more beautiful…But the city won't do it for us, so we are taking the lead and doing it ourselves," the neighbors said on their GoFundMe page. They said the 1400-lb. planters were suggested by District Supervisor Hillary Ronen's office because they were "too heavy to move and they compliment the streetscape."

The Chronicle reported that the city had "more than 7,754 homeless people, with nearly 4,400 sleeping on the streets, in a tent or in a vehicle" in 2022. One third of the U.S.'s entire homeless population and half of all unsheltered homeless people live in the state of California, a report from The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said last year.

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Homeless tents are seen in Tenderloin District during heavy rain in San Francisco on January 11, 2023. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

The homelessness crisis has left some locals "hopeless and depressed."

One resident who lives near Harrison Street told the paper she regularly reported drug use at the encampments to city services but her requests were ignored. On the way to a community meeting about the problem, she said the homeless there threw alcohol at her.

"I don’t understand," Kristina Cahojova said. "I’m hopeless, and honestly depressed. More and more tents are showing up in my neighborhood, and once they’re up, there is no way of removing them — according to the city."

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Ronen's legislative aide Santiago Lerma called the whole situation a "sad state of affairs."

Tents encampments on the streets of San Francisco, California on Saturday, April 15, 2023. Homelessness and crime continue to plague the city’s Mission District. (Flight Risk for Fox News Digital)

"I certainly understand why they’re doing it," Lerma told the Chronicle. "I think it’s a sad state of affairs for our city that citizens feel that they need to barricade the streets to prevent unhoused folks from setting up."

The neighbors said the supervisor's office got the idea for the planters from another Mission District neighborhood which had adopted a similar strategy. They hope their project can be a model for other neighborhoods dealing with encampments, the GoFundMe says.

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Fox News Digital reached out to the GoFundMe organizer for comment.

A local told ABC7 he hopes the community effort will "make the world a better place." "Everybody has to have a place to live, but personally I don't believe the street or sidewalk is a place to live," resident Ron Poznicek said.

A woman appears to be defecating in a bus shelter on the streets of San Francisco, California on Friday, April 14, 2023.  (Flight Risk for Fox News Digital)

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A homeless advocate in the city knocked neighbors for taking this approach instead of working to house the homeless.

"I think it’s a tremendous waste of energy," Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness told The Chronicle. "I’d rather see (energy) directed toward fights for housing."