The spectacular Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in the state of California in the US is turning into a site of bitter confrontation between homeless campers and the better-off in the neighbourhood.
Three murders in the space of 13 months, syringes scattered all over and repeated police crackdown, all point to rising tensions.
Clearly ‘residents’ are miffed by what they consider as encroachment by the homeless.
Like Belle Burnett, who lives near where a homeless man was found murdered. Groups of men still sleep in the park and that makes her extremely uncomfortable, she complains.
"Wednesday, we put out the garbage," says Burnett, who has lived there for three years now. "When I am coming home late, and I see somebody in my driveway going through my trash, they look angry at me. I'm thinking, 'No, this is my house.' "
The homeless though see themselves as harmless eccentrics, living on the fringes of society and are upset that the better-off residents should grudge them even that. Jeff Olsen, who lives in a battered camper ( a small truck), recalls bitterly, "I waved to one of the neighbors this morning, and he flipped me off….You try to be nice, but if you're homeless, you're automatically the scum of the earth."
The friction has only increased since the park has turned violent. The police say there are "similarities" in the three deaths, and speculation about a single homicide suspect is rampant. Olsen mutters darkly about residents near the park in the Outer Richmond who, he says, would be worth investigating. He says a tire was slit on one of his friend's truck, and he mentions a neighborhood man who often hassles them.
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