NEEDLE EXCHANGE'S PLANNED MOVE ALARMS UPPER HAIGHT NEIGHBORS

While the problems of homeless encampments and cast-off hypodermic
needles have decreased in the east end of Golden Gate Park, the
quality-of-life struggle continues for residents of surrounding neighborhoods.

But there is hope. It comes in the form of an energized, activist
public, ready to step up, speak out and defend their turf. Exhibit A
is a pocket of the residential upper Haight neighborhood, two blocks
from the bustle, grit and panhandling on Haight Street below.

Citing a need for more room and better facilities, the Homeless Youth
Alliance - which runs a needle exchange center at Haight and Cole
streets and has been sharply criticized for handing out clean needles
without bothering to monitor what happens to them - proposed a move.
The proposed new home: Hamilton United Methodist Church at Belvedere
and Waller streets.

And all hell broke loose.

Wednesday night some 200 neighbors crowded into the chapel at
Hamilton - a classic, if battered, church built in 1908 - to express
their views. In a session that everyone agrees became very heated, it
was quickly clear that few of the residents supported relocating the
needle exchange into their neighborhood.

"I sense that my neighbors and I, we've kind of drawn the line," says
Erin Pashelinsky, who has lived across the street from the church for
over 30 years. "We're saying, 'This is not how I want to live. I want
the streets to be clean. We're tired of the homeless having sex in
our alleys, leaving feces in our alleys, and using drugs.' "

The meeting ripped the cover off a host of other neighborhood issues:
from complaints about the congregation at the church - which has been
hosting an extended funeral service that has featured late-night
drinking and rowdy behavior - to serious concerns about whether the
needle exchange could be controlled, to Pashelinsky's general
dissatisfaction with the Haight Street culture.

Tracey Packer, the director of HIV prevention for the Department of
Public Health, which funds the Homeless Youth Alliance needle
exchange operation, says she got the message that the neighbors were
up in arms loud and clear.

"Oh, I am so aware of that," she says. "And in the face of the
community concern, I couldn't say in good faith that the exchange
should move right now."

The Rev. Gary Barbaree, co-pastor at Hamilton, goes even farther.

"Every single person that I heard had a credible reason for what they
were saying," Barbaree said. "I am taking the needle exchange off the table."

So, problem solved, right?

Not really. If there was anything learned from this it was that all
of the groups - from the congregation of Tongan Methodists, to the
neighbors, to the needle exchange directors - need to do a better job
of communicating.

There may have been some angry words at Wednesday's meeting, but
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose District Five includes the area,
says there was some light with the heat.

"I was appreciative of the turnout," says Mirkarimi, who stayed
through the entire session. "I encourage it. Communication is
central to the start of settling this."

And there may be more common ground than anyone expected. Peter
Davidson, the chairman of the board of the Homeless Youth Alliance,
listened to residents say they had "been complaining about this for
years." This being, for example, that the center has become a magnet
for homeless addicts. And yet, he said, he'd never heard of the
issues. Others would describe specific instances of bad behavior.

"And I'd think, 'Oh wow, that sounds awful,' " Davidson says. "I
wouldn't like that much either."

However, Davidson adds, "There were a lot of misconceptions about
what we do and what we plan to do."

He says the two things he heard most often were that the exchange was
being evicted from Cole Street and that it wanted to set up a 24-hour
homeless residence. Neither, he says, is true.

However, as Mirkarimi says, "HYA has a history of not working well
with the neighborhood. The service provider (of the needle exchange)
feels it is doing the Lord's work, and they aren't sure why they are
not loved."

Davidson and Packer agree that they can do better and say they intend
to work to reach out to the community.

Meanwhile, the conflict with the church and the residents is another
example of two groups working at cross purposes. Roughly 10 years
ago, the Tongan Methodist congregation took over Hamilton, which had
seen its membership dwindle to nearly nothing.

However, the Tongans, most of whom do not live in the area, only
added to the anxiety about where the neighborhood was headed. The
recent funeral service has been going on for two weeks, and features
late-night drinking, loud music and double-parking.

That, in turn, say neighbors like Derek Haynes, left them even more
skeptical about the needle exchange.

"This isn't being argued on fear or discrimination," Hayes said in an
e-mail. "The church was unable to control the previous tenant and has
difficulty controlling the current one. It is irrational to expect
this behavior to change."

Haynes says he is no NIMBY. He's offered to help with the renovation
of the church's gym and visits the daily lunch program for seniors
and homeless. But he, like others in the neighborhood, reached a
limit, and stood up to make a statement.

"I worked like crazy to buy this place," says Hayes, who lives with
his girlfriend in a tenancy in common unit next to the church. "I
didn't even get money from my parents. And it just feels like a
little bit of what I worked for is being taken away."

Certainly the Rev. Barbaree never intended to be in the midst of
these rip-roaring neighborhood controversies. He's been at Hamilton
only since July, and jokes that when he left seminary school, he was
given a book suggesting ideas for how to meet the neighbors when you
move to a new church. One was, he says, "Find the biggest controversy
in the neighborhood and invite it into the church."

Looking back on it, he says, "Maybe I should have gone with a bake sale."