Business owners in San Francisco are fed up with the increasing crime and homelessness in the city and one group of merchants is attempting to take matters into their own hands.
The Castro Merchants Association, which represents about 125 businesses in the area, sent a letter to city officials, on Aug. 8, saying they will not pay taxes unless the city does something to address the burglaries, vandalism, people with mental and behavioral health problems and the homeless people camping on sidewalks in front of businesses and residences.
In the letter they outlined three demands, according to SFGATE:
Provide 35 shelter beds to those who need them, devise a plan for offering help to those who have refused help and keep monthly records of how many people have been offered services and shelter.
Dave Karraker, co-president of the Castro Merchants Association, said that businesses in the association will potentially stop paying taxes if the three demands are not met.
“Whatever they’re doing isn’t working. It isn’t leading to a noticeable difference in the conditions in the Castro as it relates to the drug addicted and the mentally ill,” said Karraker, who also co-owns MX3 Fitness, a gym with two locations in the area.
“We’re just seeing constant vandalism, constant drug use in public, people passed out on the sidewalk, people having psychotic breakdowns, and it’s just not something a small-business owner should have to deal with,” Karraker said.
Ken Khoury, owner of the Castro Coffee Company, said of the increase in crime and homelessness:
“We became a second Tenderloin”, referring to the Tenderloin neighborhood. “Us merchants… we are struggling”, Khoury said.
Khoury has owned the Castro Coffee Company for over 30 years.
Terrence Alan, co-president of the merchants’ association, says many shops have been targeted by vandals and his businesses’ windows have been smashed 11 times. He says there are also several dozen people in the area who have been unhoused for years, some a decade or more.
“Every day we wake up and have to help people on the street. We have to clean up feces on the street. We have to clear our people from doorways, so we can open our businesses. It’s not fair,” said Alan.
“At this point it’s a failure of the system to help them,” said Alan.
The Castro Merchant’s Association has tracked crime since the beginning of 2020. There have been 95 incidents including burglaries and vandalism. The cost, so far, is more than $170,000 in repairs.
The city responded Tuesday that they cannot reserve shelter beds for just one neighborhood, but they are working to expand to more than 9,000 housing units.
“The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will be opening 1,000 shelter beds over the next three months that will give people in the Castro and other neighborhoods a place to stay inside,” the city’s statement said.
