Most homeless people who enter East Village Market want to buy something and go about their day, said one of the store’s managers, David Gabreli. But, fairly frequently, interactions spin out of control.
Once, a man blocked the door and wouldn’t let people come or go. Gabreli tried to get him to move along, he said, but the man claimed he owned the entryway. Gabreli called the police. The man showed Gabreli a knife and told him to back down. Gabreli told the police to hurry and put down the phone. He and others continued to try to move the man along.
The confrontation boiled on for 30 minutes before cops arrived. “I’m not lying to you. That’s how long it took,” said Gabreli.
Gabreli’s story isn’t extraordinary; in fact, it’s typical for workers in Central San Diego. Workers, managers, and owners told us it is not uncommon for them to feel scared or that their lives are in danger. But when these crises arise, they frequently get passed from 911 to non-emergency lines. Sometimes no one picks up that line, they said. And when they do, dispatchers ask tedious questions. Sometimes cops show up in 30 minutes. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes no one shows up at all, they said.
Most workers said they empathized with the struggles of their unhoused neighbors. Many work minimum wage jobs themselves. Just a small minority of interactions, they said, threaten to turn violent. But even still, those events are common, happening on a daily basis inside many shared spaces across the...
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