Written by: Kevin Fagan
Read article: Click here
Ismael Tablada was worried.
Ever since a big electric-company complex closed in 2015 next to where he works in San Francisco’s Mission District, the block had become thick with camps of homeless people. Then city leaders decided to turn the old complex at South Van Ness Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street into a Navigation Center homeless shelter.
Great, Tablada thought. Now we’ll be the new Skid Row.
What happened was just the opposite — the camps vanished soon after the Navigation Center opened three weeks ago. On Monday, Tablada got his first good look inside it and marveled at the change it has brought to the neighborhood where he has been a sales representative at the Auto Zone supply store for many years.