Some business owners in San Francisco’s Mission District are concerned that while other areas of the city are seeing improvements, streets in the Mission are getting worse.
City leaders say they are seeing some progress on cleaning up 6th Street in the SoMa District.
Police have arrested hundreds of people dealing drugs and committing other crimes.
But just a few miles away, dozens of people are making the area of 16th and Mission their home. They’re sleeping, doing drugs, and just trying to survive.
Owner Manny Yekutiel says things have changed recently.
“It’s always been a little dodgy but this is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Yekutiel said of the area just a block from his business. “All those things, drug use, drug dealing, trash on the street, poo.”
Yekutiel has owned Manny’s for more than seven years and he believes in the Mission District, so much so that for the last three years he has organized a group of people to clean up the streets every Sunday morning.
This week they picked more trash than ever before.
“Today I was picking up trash at the BART plaza and I was picking up the kind of trash that you would pick up at someone’s home food, feces, clothes,” Yekutiel said. “The intersection of 16th and Mission and the alleyways behind it have become a communal living room for a group of people that need a place to live.”
It’s not just a problem on the weekends, owner of Teeth San Francisco Robert Sill says every day he worries one morning he’ll find someone dead in front of his restaurant.
“We do have people on our stoop in the morning when I come out and they are openly using and it’s a problem for us,” Sill said. “You want to be compassionate but at the same time I have a business to run.”
Sill says he’s fortunate that his business is a little farther down the road from 16th and Mission, at about 19th and Mission, but they still feel the effects.
For both Sill and Yekutiel, they’re in it for the long haul, but that’s not the case for all Mission businesses. Some have left because they feel the streets aren’t safe for them or their customers.
“It is sad that some of my fellow small business owners around here are at the point where they feel like the need to give up,” Yekutiel said.
Mayor Daniel Lurie says he’s heard the concerns that some people believe the uptick in the Mission is due to the cleanup on 6th Street.
He doubled down that he is not satisfied moving the problem from one place to another.
“I have the same concerns,” Lurie said about the illicit activities happening in the area. “I go to 16th and Mission, I’ve been going there often with the supervisor and on my own. We’re going to be relentless. If you’re dealing drugs in San Francisco, we’re going to arrest you and we’re going to prosecute you.”
“I know our elected officials care and they’re working so hard,” Yekutiel said about the work he’s seen from Lurie’s administration. “I actually think we’re really lucky to have the elected officials that we do. We just have limited resources in this city and unfortunately, this corridor has not advocated for its needs the way other corridors have.”
Still, he knows something has to change.
“I just want us to do better,” Yekutiel said.
More from CBS News
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source link
