SDPD Homeless Outreach Team

EWWWWWW Homeless peeps are sooooooooooo gross. I wish the city would stop spending money on these outreach teams. send the gross things to LA.

«Homelessness is an extremely complex social problem that impacts the quality of life in our community,» so says the SDPD website. «Many homeless are on the street because of substance abuse, mental illness, or both and often the disorder issues associated with homelessness are criminal in nature but difficult to enforce. «
To assist the City and County provide better service to this «at risk» population, the SDPD has created the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). The website states that «the team consists of police officers, County Health and Human Services specialists, and psychiatric clinicians from the Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT), a private non-​profit organization. «
The issues that HOT most often deal with are the standard ones like: public intoxication, loitering, prowling, fighting, trespassing, aggressive panhandling, soliciting, urinating and defecating, consuming alcoholic beverages in certain public places, camping or sleeping in parks, littering, obstructing sidewalks, living in a vehicle parked on a public street, disturbing the peace by loud and unreasonable noises, using offensive words, behaving in a threatening manner. I have seen the HOT team walking along the Ocean Beach Bike Path looking for some of the homeless who camp there on a regular basis.
I was also very happy to see HOT in front of the Walgreen’s on Midway Drive the other day. That place is a hotbed of homeless who congregate and intimidate the customers. The empty lot that used to be next door was the hang-​out and then they would end up at Walgreen’s but it has improved substantially lately. I did deduct 1 Unilocal STAR from HOT because I have overheard several homeless people denigrating them. They even put the word out when the HOT team is in the area to lay low I guess many of the shelter-​challenged do not care for the outreach groups trying to help them. By them scattering when HOT shows up, it defeats the entire purpose of the HOT.
Otherwise, I think the intentions are good here and Yay! I’m a fan.