Calling the Railyard Park area “a neighborhood under siege,” Councilor Patti Bushee moderated a Monday evening discussion about St. Elizabeth Shelter to see what could be done to deal with increasing incidents of disorderly conduct, property crime and violence.

“It’s a wonderful thing to walk to this wonderful park, but not if you are afraid to walk home,” Bushee said, urging the participants to voice concerns and come up with solutions to the problem.

But, as Bushee noted around the halfway mark of the roughly two-hour meeting, finger-pointing, defensive attitudes and tension crept into the proceedings.

Neighbors spoke of being accosted for money by transients right outside their front doors, of finding discarded clothes and sleeping bags in the area and, in one recent case, of encountering a group of children playing and jumping over the prone body of an inebriated man in the park.

Several intimated that such incidents have increased over the past year or so due to both the growing popularity of Railyard Park — which officially opened three years ago this month — and the presence of St. Elizabeth Shelter.
Deborah Tang, executive director of the 25-year-old shelter, mostly listened to the comments before giving attendees some background on the services St. Elizabeth offers.

She said 40 percent of the people the shelter takes in find permanent housing within 30 days.
“You should be thanking us for moving people off the street,” she said.

One woman told Tang that the shelter — which has 28 beds for men — can only be compatible with the neighborhood if it serves only women and children and takes in people “who are thoroughly and completely screened.”

“You’re saying we’re not compatible?” Tang asked the woman.

“No, you are not,” the woman said.

While several people seemed to share that woman’s sentiment, other neighbors said she did not speak for all.
“This should not turn into a discussion of telling St. E’s how to run their business,” one man said, while another woman said to the assemblage, “You can’t throw out people who don’t fit into what your lifestyle is designed to be.”

One elderly man said the panhandlers are not just asking for money: “It’s extortion,” he said, acknowledging he fears running into three or four homeless people at once. “You are luring into our neighborhood criminals, sexual predators,” he said of St. Elizabeth staffers.

Another man responded to him with, “In other words, send it to another neighborhood, right?”

Matters weren’t helped when Santa Fe police Officer Ben Chavarria read the department’s list of reported burglaries in the area since 2009: one in 2009, three in 2010 and none this year.

At least four people stood up to say they have been burglarized since New Year’s Day. All four said they called the police department to report the incident.

Chavarria said he’d follow up on their comments.

When another police officer suggested the neighborhood was “much worse” some 10 years ago, another neighbor said, “This stuff has always been around — that doesn’t mean it’s OK.”

The event, held in the community room at the park, drew about 40 people.

It was the second in a planned series of meetings designed to draw the community together on the issue. Bushee is moderating another gathering Oct. 10.

Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.