Fed-up San Francisco neighbors use rocks to block homeless

SAN FRANCISCO — A group of San Francisco neighbors say they bought boulders and had them delivered to their sidewalk to stop people from camping and dealing drugs on their street.

In Los Angeles this summer, the owner of a cultural center erected massive planters around his building to block homeless people from sleeping outside the building.

The unsanctioned moves are the latest efforts by frustrated California residents to deal with an unprecedented homeless crisis in the state.

The boulders placed in an alley off Market Street, one of San Francisco’s major thoroughfares, were a deterrent for a couple of weeks. But homeless advocates learned about them and rolled them onto the street, posing a safety hazard.

Neighbors asked the city to remove them after they said they started getting threats.