Would you people stop being such jerks about the homeless? Homeless folks are rarely any threat to your personal safety, in fact, they are living in constant state of fear for themselves. Try leaving all of your worldly possessions somewhere safely while you spend a couple hours being treated like crap by folks who don't look you in the eye and ignore your pleas for spare change. Try finding a place indoors to relieve yourself or clean water to wash your hands.
Yeah, buddy, Caltrans will take care of your problem. They'll take away whatever clothes they have plus whatever bedding they've managed to find to keep warm that night, they'll throw everything they own into a dump truck so you can feel "safer".
I guess it doesn't occur to you that there is effectively more than 20% unemployment around here, that the government has slashed services for the poor, and that private charities are desperate for donations.
Like me, many of us who have roofs are a couple paychecks from losing them these days. You have a nice thick safety net and an education but can't for a moment imagine the situation your "neighbors" are facing every moment of every day.
Accosted! Wow, how retched.
Hey, try this for a change: Look them in the eye. Talk to them if you can bear it, or at least acknowledge their existence. They all have a story of how they used to be someone quite like you but for the Grace of God.

The comment ,"broken bottles, urine, garbage, and needles." needs a little clarification.
Glass.You get 5 cents a pound for mixed glass. Imagine that! You can have your morning cup of coffee after you've hauled 35 lbs of glass for more than three miles in a pilfered cart once you've spent a couple hours or more grubbing through your neighbors garbage for them. Wow. Sometimes you can even smell that coffee over the reek you've put on while obtaining it.
Urine. Well, what are you gonna do? After that hard earned coffee from the cafe that won't let you use the restroom, peeing in your pants will improve the reek you've created by getting the money to buy it in the first place.
Needles? You really need a job to keep a good drug habit going, but after everyone in the world gives up on you and you're abandoned like a piece of trash, what you'll really need is a good cup of coffee.....

Erich:
Thanks for the education on the plight of the homeless. Channeling Johnny Carson, "I did NOT know that!"

Never mind, Cal Trans. Let the encampment continue to grow. Nothing to see here. It's okay with Erich..."the broken bottles, urine, garbage, and needles", in addition to being "accosted for change" as one exits the freeway. I'm sure those who pay property taxes for their homes and living within spitting distance only a hop, skip, and a jump away are on Erich's side as well.

We should have a fundraiser and purchase tents with the proceeds. We could hand those out, instead, and make the encampment more hospitable. Perhaps Erich would like to make available the use of his home for potty breaks. Surely, he'll want to help out as he is definitely NOT a jerk about the homeless.

Since I am the original poster, I wanted to respond to Erich. I'm sorry you feel you need to resort to name calling to make your point. I do, in fact, have concerns for the homeless and for about a dozen years, volunteered at a soup kitchen to feed and provide some basic services to homeless in San Francisco (no, it was not in Oakland, but at least I did something). I also volunteered with a needle exchange. I'm sure this doesn't impress you, but since you know nothing about me, other than your assumptions and castigations, I thought I'd share.
As far as this encampment goes, I do not like the ones under the freeway overhangs as they make me and my family feel unsafe. I don't like it when the guy skips down to my car and rattles the window singing a song. When I'm in my car with my infant, and someone approaches (it's always the same guy) I don't like it. Maybe you do, maybe it's okay with you, but I don't and it should be okay for me to set boundaries.
Julius, who lives in the lot, does not make me nervous. When the fires start going under the freeway overhang, I am concerned. When I can hear people drinking and tossing bottles (the precious bottles that can be turned in for money), I am concerned.
Yes, I understand we have a problem with lack of shelter, but I don't think I'm a jerk for not liking the growing shelters that are across the street from my house.
If you'd like to respond, try less sarcasm and name-calling and create a dialogue.

Okay, sorry about the word "jerks". It's just that everyone wants these folks to go somewhere else and the fact is, there is nowhere else to go. These people are not here because the "pickings" are good, they are there for a variety of reasons, but few involve choices. Many wind up there because the state has no resources to treat them for such illnesses as drug addiction and alcoholism, a main cause of homelessness. It's nearly impossible for somebody who lives on the street to get clean and sober much less take other medications that might help them. Studies prove that. When I lived on the streets thirty years ago, I was an untreated bipolar alcoholic whose family loved me but could do nothing to help me. Reagan dismantled the system of hospital care for the mentally ill around then, and people like me were left in a free fall. They are still today and as a consequence, they wind up living on the streets.
I have taken positive steps in my neighborhood by getting to know the numerous people collecting recyclables by name. I save bottles to give them, and I've found that there's been a lot less trouble and trash around here because of it. Four years ago, I found a man named Lorenzo peeing in our yard, I guess I could have kicked his @#$%, but I befriended him. He'd been living under the 45th St. underpass for several years. He was a 60 year old alcoholic crack addict in a near feral state. He visited my apartment every day and for a long, long time, I was the only other person in the world who believed that he could get out of his own hell. I helped him get some used gardening tools and hired him to work around the place, and he had a knack for it, and he started going door to door. He finally realized that he needed help and through various community organizations he got a room in a hotel, and then finally his own apartment, where he experienced, with great joy, his very own private bathroom for the first time in eighteen years. Mind you, he still has problems, and sometimes he's the biggest pain in the @#$%, but he's getting better every month now. I really did nothing more than believe in him, and give him a few minutes each day to know it.
As for the guys giving you trouble, someone in the neighborhood needs to talk to them and tell them about your concerns. The police and Caltrans aren't going to solve the underlying problem, but a concerted effort from several neighbors to remind people living in the "camp" that they need to clean up their act is in order. Next time I'm over there, I'll do my best to let them know of your concerns and how it won't benefit them to keep it up.
Perhaps Caltrans will have to clear them out, but as they come back, you'll find that acknowledging their existence and informing them of your concerns will be the best way to keep this all from getting out of hand in the first place.

Erich:
Thank you for the improvement in tone and the suggestions for helping to improve our shared environs.

I'm looking at the map here. Are the residents at Carberry and 56th the folks most affected by this? I know where they have a spot behind the Auction house, but can't really see the lot you're talking about. I'll go by today and check it out.

Also at the dead end of the 600 block of 53rd St.

Erich,

Thanks so much for the suggestions and additional postings. I agree that meeting and hearing someone's story can change everything.
This corner of Idora Park sees burned and dumped cars, garbage dumps, cars speeding to the highway, people occasionally having lunch, dinner, drinks, sex along the freeway, people parking trucks and campers overnight, people partying under the overpass and tossing the remains of the festivities to the street. Walk along 56th right now and you can see an amazing collection of coffee cups and other junk.
There is a CalTrans lot at 56th and Carberry. Julius sweeps it, though several people (we haven't been able to catch more than one) leave bird feed, which attracts pigeons and rats, to the lot.
There are two overhangs popular with campers, one on 56th and one on Telegraph. Hope this helps.

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