The homeless problem has gotten worse in Manteca.
You hear that over and over again.
I don’t buy it.
The numbers have gotten larger but proportionately to the population growth of those that are renting or buying or pay for an extra bedroom so they have a roof over their head, I seriously doubt it’s gotten worse.
Three things happened in the past five years that helped make the homeless more visible citywide. The first was the cleaning up of a rogue trailer park on Moffat Boulevard that displaced between 20 and 30 people who were skating by either paying minimum rent in what might politely be called substandard housing or else were squatting in makeshift housing next to trailers.
It was a mess that had to be cleaned up which the city did working in concert with county and state agencies. The problem was there was no place for the displaced to go.
 Then there was the cry and hue about the cyclical resurfacing of the real homeless and questionable people we’ll call the daytime homeless at Library Park. When the police stepped up enforcement the City Council took it to the next level. They wanted to break the cycle and wanted the homeless situation in Manteca addressed. The council budgeted close to $240,000 in tax dollars yearly to work on getting homeless that are ready and willing off the street and to use whatever legal means are available to go after the homeless that break the law. Currently only half the money is being spent as the Manteca Police interview for a second community resource officer.
The third was gleaned from comments made by longtime Manteca homeless and a few new arrivals I talked to in January of 2016. A good number of homeless pushed out of the Bay Area so they wouldn’t be an image problem during the Super Bowl ended up in the Northern San Joaquin Valley. A number of cities — including in the Central Valley — “solve” their homeless problem by driving or chasing them out of town. As much as you might think that is a good idea it is illegal as hell. It’s also akin to solving your poverty problem by driving the poor out of town.
The homeless were cleared out of Library Park plus other locales. Pressure was put on for them not to gather in a manner that the courts have clearly ruled can be considered illegal as long as the law is applied to everyone regardless of housing status. Encampments that once were restricted to high weeds and such on the Manteca side of freeway fences as well as makeshift crash pads in alleys in the older sections ended up popping up all over town.
Because of that Powers Avenue that passes through the neighborhood I live in between Moffat Boulevard and Yosemite Avenue saw homeless foot traffic drop significantly during the day as well as in the wee hours of the morning.
There are also a lot of itinerant homeless who land here for a few days, a few weeks or a month or so before heading on. Lincoln Park — which is off Powers Avenue — is a place such homeless will hang out being careful to stay away from other people. There have been six different vehicles stacked to the gills with belongings — think the Joad family in the “Grapes of Wrath” — that have been parked along the street off and on for a number of days or weeks before they disappear.
I probably see more homeless than most Manteca residents basically because for the last 26 years I have had a schedule that puts me on the streets between 1 and 2 a.m. six days a week going home from work. There are more bicyclists by far on Yosemite Avenue at 1 a.m. than 1 p.m.
Two decades ago it was common to spy as many as 10 vehicles being used by the homeless to sleep in at various hiding places on any given night in the central district. Encampments were relatively rare. Now the car homeless seem to have dropped but encampments are up.
Given some rather rude encounters I’ve had with a few homeless as well as a guy I call “Popeye” who is a certifiable crazy homeless man, I can honestly say the homeless for the most part are fairly mellow. The vast majority try to stay low-key and out of sight. Of course there a few choice jerks as well as a couple of seriously crazy homeless that are an exception to that rule.
If you want to see how most of the homeless conduct themselves, drive by Lincoln Park after the sun has set. Many evenings a group of homeless are gathered there barbecuing. They eventually scatter to the four winds to bed down at whatever hiding places they have secured for the night.
There are a few times when you will see a homeless individual there at 2 a.m.  A nearby resident has indicated over the years such homeless have ended up being foster kids that have been dumped out of the system unable to stand on their own two feet or teens kicked out by their parents. In one instance the neighbor noted a 17-year-old boy who was kicked out by his parents traveled to Manteca from Stockton because he was scared to be on the streets but felt somewhat safer in Manteca.
As a community we need to keep working on the homeless problem even though we will never be able to solve it. Think of it like world peace. We’ll probably never attain it but we can make the world a better place by working toward it.