Pressure is growing to do something about the so-called homeless “tent city” that some in the community fear is getting out of hand at the Pacific Beach\/Taylor Branch Library.
\n“The library and its park are a magnet for transients,” said Pacific Beach resident Marcella Teran. “The park, especially, has been a hangout for drug dealing, smoking pot and people stowing things in the park bushes and using them as toilets. The surrounding neighbors of Cass, Reed, Thomas and Dawes streets over the last few years have called the police non-emergency line almost on a daily basis due to drug dealing.”
\nAnother Pacific Beach resident, David Thomas, who lives a couple of blocks from the library and its park, agreed the time may have come to address the homeless issue more intensely.
\n“While I understand a sizable number of homeless people have no other options as far as living conditions at the moment, I\u2019m rather surprised they are allowed to congregate on the library grounds (grass and sidewalk) areas, especially across the street from a daycare with little kids,” Thomas said. “While I\u2019m sure the majority of homeless on the library grounds are harmless, it doesn\u2019t exactly paint a rosy picture of Pacific Beach when residents and visitors show up at the library and see sleeping bags, shopping carts and so forth all over the place,” he said. “In an ideal world, there would be a central location for homeless to gather to get food, shelter and the help they need to get back into society.”
\nNoting “police have been amazing in listening to our concerns,” Teran said Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman and Northern Division Capt. Jerry Hara have implemented a “Quality of Life Team” to help with the problem.
\nHara said a team of three officers was dispatched Oct. 9 to do a transient sweep in Pacific Beach, which culminated in six misdemeanor arrests.
\n“One misdemeanor arrest for illegal lodging was a business complaint at 2830 Garnet Ave. in an industrial complex recently renovated to invite new businesses,” Hara said.\u00a0 “We received a letter of agency (permission to access private property) because of a growing problem of transients overrunning the property. The owners were very appreciative of the quick police response.”
\nHara said four other misdemeanor arrests were issued during that sweep for illegal lodging\/trespassing\/violations of court orders and possession of drug paraphernalia at the Pacific Beach Methodist Church at 1561 Thomas Ave.\u00a0
\n\u00a0“There was one other misdemeanor arrest of a 17-year-old girl for daytime loitering and resisting police during selective enforcement of a canyon area involved with illegal lodging and drug activity,” Hara said. “Officers located a male and female off Pocahontas and Ogalala avenues.\u00a0 When the subjects saw us, they fled up the canyon.\u00a0We captured the girl, but the male fled.”
\nHara said the girl turned out to be a methamphetamine user meeting her juvenile boyfriend in the canyon for possible drug-related activity.\u00a0
\n“Her parents were notified and she was returned home,” Hara said.
\nTeran said she understands the magnitude of trying to police transients in public places. “The growing problem with homelessness at the Pacific Beach library park and elsewhere cannot be solely managed by police,” Teran said. “A policing\u00a0strategy has been used to attempt to\u00a0 control bad behavior on Garnet,\u00a0 and it\u2019s like herding cats. The police are doing the best they can, but it is not up to them\u00a0to solve this library problem.”
\nMichelle Clark, the youth services librarian at the Pacific Beach\/Taylor Branch Library, said the facility has a “whole list of rules” on appropriate conduct \u2014 both inside and outside the building.
\n“People during the day are allowed to be on the lawn,” Clark said. “They can lie down and take a nap. But they can\u2019t be covered up; no sleeping bags or tents. There\u2019s no camping. That\u2019s against our policy.”
\nAsked whether the library grounds was an attractive nuisance for transients, Clark replied, “Sure, it\u2019s a great place to be with the beautiful park, whether the people are homeless or not.”
\nClark said the library does have a security guard who patrols, adding the facility is open varying hours every day but Sunday.
\nTeran said she is convinced there isn\u2019t one solution for homelessness at the Pacific Beach library, park and elsewhere.
\n“We have to look at this problem from many angles,” she said, adding a recent meeting was held involving neighbors, the library\u2019s manager and her supervisor, police representatives, the neighborhood prosecutor and the District 2 City Council\u2019s office.
\n“The purpose of the meeting was to gather ideas and look at short- and long-term solutions,” Teran said. “We are looking at lighting, sprinkler timing and changing the landscaping, even having exercise classes out on the lawn at certain times of the day, The library and its park\u00a0have a\u00a0 great potential to create\u00a0 a sense of community. I welcome\u00a0any ideas or suggestions addressing these problems.”
\nTeran can be contacted at marcellateran@gmail.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pressure is growing to do something about the so-called homeless “tent city” that some in the community fear is getting out of hand at the Pacific Beach\/Taylor Branch Library. “The library and its park are a magnet for transients,” said Pacific Beach resident Marcella Teran. “The park, especially, has been a hangout for drug dealing, […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":268758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Transients: a thorny dilemma for cops, neighbors, PB library","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}