Navigation Center for whose neighborhood?

Photo: Leah Millis

The above is a photo of the proposed location of a Navigation Center discussed below:

Letters to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:

Common Ground?

Regarding “Mayor stands up” (Editorial, April 5): The Chronicle’s editors were very kind to Mayor London Breed in the editorial.

Prior to her arrival at Wednesday’s first real informational meeting on a plan to place a 200-bed facility for the homeless on The Embarcadero, city staff, police officials and consultants had spent an hour explaining to a largely skeptical but respectful crowd of South of Market residents how the center would operate. The meeting was going well.

Within minutes of her arrival, an impatient and frustrated mayor faced with very predictable caterwauling threatened to walk out of the meeting and then just as quickly reversed herself and told those opposed to her plan that they should leave. The reaction of the crowd was just as predictable as it was avoidable.

Breed needs to try much harder to find common ground with her constituents who have legitimate concerns (and are hardly the NIMBY bullies The Chronicle imagines) about yet another homeless shelter in the SoMa neighborhood.

Bob Wynne

San Francisco

Don’t criticize

Regarding “Disregard for the homeless” (Letters, April 4): I read that a letter writer feels it is shameful that a planned Navigation Center for the homeless is in limbo because of worried neighbors in apartments ringing the area.

Such holier-than-thou preaching does not accurately reflect life in the real world. Did she expect the area’s residents to be jumping for joy and shouting hallelujah? 

Homeless encampments are often rife with drug and alcohol problems as well as mental and emotional health issues. Crime among the homeless is an ongoing problem.

Few among us, especially parents with children, want this kind of climate introduced into our neighborhood. I doubt these problems would suddenly disappear because the homeless are being housed in a navigation center. To pass judgment and criticize people with these kinds of objections is asinine.

Kenneth Jones

San Francisco