We're not the only neighborhood to see an uptick in problems related to San Francisco's transient population.

According to SFist, the chairs were taken out of the the Castro/Market intersection because too many "gutter punks" settled there after Sit/Lie took effect. They got their information from the Castro Biscuit blog, which reported that every time the homeless youth start to congregate somewhere in the Castro, the Castro Community Benefit District moves the chairs or benches. Needless to say, they always find another place to congregate, and the neighborhood is getting pretty pissed off that their plazas keep getting cleared out. But SFist's claim is that they've migrated from the Haight:

Now that it's illegal to chill out, play the guitar, snort heroin, and pet your dog on Haight Street, many of the city's stalwart anti-establishment and drug-friendly teens and twentysomethings have picked up and relocated to public plazas, such as those around Castro and Market Streets.

While we're sure that the Castro has seen an increase in homeless and homeless youth, we couldn't find any source to confirm that they've been vacating the Haight and ambling down the hill. As you know, if you've been reading the comments around here, Upper Haighters have the same complaints: there have been more, and more aggressive homeless youth of late; they've been congregating in public spaces; when you shoo them away they just move down the street and keep playing music and dealing drugs, etc. Considering that more than one neighborhood is feeling the tension, perhaps there's an underlying cause or trend nobody's talking about? We want to know. We're in the process of reaching out to the Homeless Youth Alliance, Huckleberry Youth Programs, At the Crossroads, and other organizations that work with homeless youth to find out what the people involved have to say. If you, or anyone you know works for or with any organizations connected to the homeless (or better, homeless youth), tell them to reach out to us at tips[at]uppercasing[dot]com. The more perspectives, the better. To be continued.