SoMa deli owner tweets at Mayor Lee to bring attention to homelessness
SAN FRANCISCO (KTVU) - A San Francisco deli owner is putting pressure on Mayor Ed Lee to do more when it comes to the city's homeless crisis.
The small business owner sent out a barrage of tweets featuring graphic photos of people shooting up with needles, defecating in public and passed out on sidewalks.
KTVU spoke to the deli owner in the South of Market neighborhood who says he's fed up with the problem.
Snapshots from Adam Mesnick's Twitter page paint a disturbing picture.
It shows people shooting up heroin between their toes in broad daylight; one woman is passed out on the sidewalk. Some are urinating and defecating on stairwells, many of them homeless.
"You're talking about the most expensive city in the United States and very, very little attention paid to a lot of these problems," said Mesnick, who owns of the Deli Board, a popular sandwich spot where the line for lunch is out the door.
Mesnick says he worries about the safety of his employees and his customers and he fears that drug users and other criminals are driving away business. He says local business owners have started calling it the "Mid-Market Curse."
"The mayor does need to respond, we have a $9.6 billion budget in San Francisco [and] we spend less than three percent on homelessness," said Jennifer Friedenbach, the Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness.
City statistics show there are 1,600 shelter beds, but at least 7,000 people on the streets with 35 to 37% of them suffering from substance abuse and/or mental health issues.
"We've totally slaughtered our substance abuse treatment system in San Francisco and so we cut about $40 million from direct services, substance abuse and mental health treatment, between 2007 and 2012 and we never recovered from that," said Friedenbach.
"Homeless is a huge priority for Mayor Ed Lee. Since 2011, he's moved 3,000 people off the streets and into permanent housing," said Deirdre Hussey, Director of Communications for Mayor Ed Lee.
The Mayor's Office says Lee has placed a measure on the November ballot that would create a permanent sourcing fund for homeless.
"If this passes, in the first year alone, it will dedicate $50 million for services and housing for homeless people," said Hussey.
"We need to be bigger and bolder about how we address homelessness in the city," said Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the SoMa District.
"We are in the process of expanding and opening a medical respite shelter in the South of Market which is set to open in January," said Kim.
The shelter would create an extra 30 beds. Not enough to solve the problem, but it's a start and Kim says she is working with District Attorney George Gascon to create a new jail that would better serve homeless people who commit crimes, especially those who suffer from mental health issues.
For Mesnick, the clock is ticking. "It's just absolutely sad. I'm not trying to be a victim, nor do I really need anything other than acknowledgment and that someone is trying to make a change."
I'm looking for someone to step up in the city and accept the fact that there's a major challenge and people like me are greatly affected by it."