“Be careful where you walk,” said Sophie Wallace, 55, as she stood near the corner of Caledonia and 15th streets, just off of Valencia Street. “Someone comes here every day and poops.” Someone human, she meant, and partial to that specific bit of the sidewalk. Nobody picks it up, Wallace added.
When Wallace moved a few blocks north of 16th and Mission streets in 2019, she knew that she’d be living near more unhoused people than in some other parts of the city. One unhoused man lived quietly on her street for a few years, and she did what she could to help him, Wallace said.
But since Mayor Daniel Lurie’s crackdown on overt drug use and fencing of stolen goods at 16th and Mission started two months ago, many residents who live near the plaza, like Wallace, have seen troubled people migrate onto their streets.
The people spending their days and nights on Wallace’s block are unfamiliar, and there’s more of them. The amount of garbage on the street has increased, too. The steps of Marshall Elementary School, at the corner of 15th and Capp streets, for example, was littered with empty bottles and food containers on Monday, just before 2 p.m.
Julian Avenue and Wiese Street also have more people and more litter than before, Wallace said. On Julian, a handful of people sat, hunched over along the sidewalk. Police cars circled the block nearby. Wallace, for her part, said she “definitely” saw a renewed effort, gesturing at the car.
In contrast to the side streets, Wallace said, the 16th Street BART Plaza is the best she’s ever seen it. Around 2 p.m., the plaza was full of people coming and going about their days. But, Wallace added, if police are going to stop people from doing certain things in the plaza, then they need to enforce similar rules in the rest of the neighborhood.
Wallace has submitted about 100 311 requests to the city in the past year. Most are to get the garbage along the streets cleaned up. The city is generally responsive, she said, scrolling through request after request on her phone. But, she’d rather the city take the initiative and clean up the garbage without anyone having to ask it to.
Next door to Marshall Elementary is the site of what will be an affordable-housing complex. Projects like that will hopefully help keep people off the streets in the long term, Wallace said. Former Mission Station police captain Al Casciato thinks it will: The city lifer said such projects put eyes on the street and generally improve conditions.
But until there is enough housing and treatment in San Francisco, Wallace said, the mayor needs to expand enforcement further, from the intersection of 16th and Mission north to 13th, and east to Valencia and west to South Van Ness Avenue.
Mostly garbage and poop. thank you for your excellent reporting!
Same shit, different day.
Campers,
The people DPW assigns to pick up trash are almost all poorly trained and hostile.
They take no pride in their job.
And, poorly equipped.
Their trash containers are barely large enough for a 12 pack.
They phone for back-up when they encounter crap or broken glass.
I use a much larger salvaged laundry hamper and pick up the ‘deplorables’ with pieces of cardboard I slice from said beer containers and other cardboard with an exacto blade.
My dog and I clean both sides of 14th Street from the West side of Guerrero to the West side of Mission every morning and toss in the West side of the Armory and Valencia both sides up to the Friends school on one side and the Greek Orthodox Church on the other.
Which is how I met and conversed with the ‘to-be’ Mayor.
Plus, my neighbors absolutely love me and that feels boss to an old codger and his cur.
lol
Pick up trash, San Franciscans.
DPW also loves me and provides bags and pickers and disinfectant.
Earn the right to bitch big time.
go Warriors !!
h.
“But until there is enough housing and treatment in San Francisco, Wallace said, the mayor needs to expand enforcement further, from the intersection of 16th and Mission north to 13th, and east to Valencia and west to Van Ness.”
So close to getting it, and yet so far. Why would anyone expect that to work and not just continue the displacement into Western SoMa and other parts of the Mission? And if the mayor has the resources available to him to expand enforcement further, why don’t we ask him to use those resources to expand housing and treatment, which actually solves the problem? For example, he could fund Vanguard Lab (https://missionlocal.org/2025/05/sf-addicts-services-doge-cuts-funding/), just reported by Mission Local as closing because it got DOGE’d, or allocate funding to the affordable housing development stalled at 18th & Mission.
Also, Valencia is to the west, South Van Ness to the east.