It was 4:45 p.m. on a Wednesday last month when Bobby Johnson had an unwanted visitor at the door of his Curtis Park home.
He said an unstable woman out on his patio was trying to break down his door. Video footage later showed that she had already tried to do something similar next door.
“I’m afraid that had I not been home, she would have gotten a rock and broken a window and gone in,” Johnson said.
“I’m yelling at her, and she’s yelling at me, telling me that she needs to get in, and she’s allowed in and she’s going to break in. … I really thought that I was going to get physical right there.”
Though it can’t be said for certain where the woman came from, Johnson points the finger at , a homeless shelter across the street at 2323 Curtis St. that operates only during the daytime. He and several of his neighbors said the shelter cut its after-hours security at the start of February, deteriorating the safety of the block in the evenings and nights.
“If there was an officer there, it would have been a nonissue,” Johnson said.
Since late 2023, according to neighbors, SFC has had at least one police officer patrolling the block for several hours most days after the shelter closes, helping the homeless move to another shelter and breaking up disturbances.
“With security, we see a lot quieter of nights and generally less people hanging around. … Very recently, there’s been really noisy nights and mornings, [and] lots of people camping,” said Ashley Geisel, Johnson’s neighbor.
At one point, Geisel said she tried to move some folks along herself. One person began hurling rocks at her house in “retaliation.”
“We feel like a normal street when security is there,” she said.
Johnson, Geisel and others say SFC, led by CEO Nancy Burke, didn’t tell them of the security change — even though they thought she was supposed to.
In late 2023, neighbors began discussing a host of issues with the shelter, hoping to ultimately strike a “good neighbor agreement,” in which the shelter would agree to certain conditions. A city-hired mediator was involved, as was Councilman Darrell Watson, who represents the area.
But the talks collapsed last March when the SFC purchased another property on the block, which residents said misled those who were concerned about how SFC would use the property.
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