Timeline: For More Than 100 years, SoMa Has Been Home to the Homeless
June 29, 2016
In 2015, the mortgage banker-turned-restaurateur Adam Mesnick — described in the San Francisco Chronicle as “a San Francisco success story” — sent a letter to his neighbors in the South of Market neighborhood. “I have been a SoMa resident and business owner since 2009,” he wrote. “Let’s make SoMa a place where children don’t need to see needles and shit.”
A photo of the letter was uploaded to NextDoor.com, where SoMa residents were already engaged in heated conversation about the area’s homeless population. “I’ve been in SoMa for three years,” wrote one commenter, “and I’ve had it with people who have decided they don’t want REAL help but want to take over our parks, front doors and alleyways as their own private toilets.” Click here for the full article.