Residents of a San Francisco condo building where units sell for $1million say they’re living in fear after an adjoining alleyway became the city’s biggest homeless encampment.
The massive tent city - occupied by a feces-hurling man and an assortment of other untoward characters - is paces away from The Artani, an eight-story Van Ness Avenue complex where residents say they’re being spooked by a growing number of vagrant neighbors.
Condo resident Amber Lusko said the encampment, exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, has drawn rats, thieves, and mentally unstable adults who are turning their neighborhood into a state of bedlam.
‘It’s pretty consistently nerve-wracking,’ Lutsko told KPIX 5. ‘This just seems to be a safe space for chop shops, drug trafficking.’
Complaints are being lodged as new data indicates that San Francisco’s district attorney Chesa Boudin has charged people with theft in less than 50 percent of cases throughout his tenure.
Footage by KPIX 5 shows an alleyway near the condo complex lined with tents
Trash is seen strewn throughout the street, and tents dot the landscape
The city reportedly conducted a sweep of the area, but the tents reemerged the next day
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Some Artani units have sold for more than $1million, KPIX 5 reported. Current listings for one-bedroom units run for 670,000.
The building sits near Willow Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, home to San Francisco’s most heavily-concentrated homeless encampment, the outlet reported.
Another resident named Shannon said police have done little to help curb the violence and seedy behavior.
‘I’ve seen people physically fighting, and I myself was leaving once and a man approached my car and yelling obscenities and threatening me, which was really scary,’ she told the station.
‘There was a guy who passed out in front of our door with a needle hanging out of his arm all day long. And our children had to walk past that.’
Those living at Artani told the station about vagrants who throw feces, prop up the building’s garage with empty bottles, steal packages, and more.
The city reportedly conducted a sweep of Willow Street in early October, but the tents returned the next day.
In a statement issued to KPIX 5, the city’s department of emergency management said it was working to improve the situation by providing resources and services to those without homes.
It said it conducted ‘encampment resolutions,’ on 24 days this year that helped house 161 people in safe sleep sites, hospitals, residential treatment programs, and shelters.
An aerial view of a homeless encampment near San Francisco city hall shows the magnitude of the city's homelessness crisis
A homeless woman is pictured on the streets of the Tenderloin district, San Francisco's most
