An anonymous San Franciscan bought a full page newspaper ad claiming residents need to ‘watch your backs’ because the city can’t do anything about the homelessness crisis

san francisco chronicle ad homeless

An anonymous San Francisco resident placed a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday, detailing an alleged experience with a homeless man in a Neiman Marcus cafe that left her feeling "horrified."
She titled the ad "Watch your backs — nobody else is," to highlight what she believes is the negligence of city officials in dealing with the city's homelessness crisis.
The ad was allegedly paid for by the "Fed Up Populace Campaign" — a campaign that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else.
San Francisco's homelessness crisis is a hot-button issue in the city, as residents increasingly complain that they don't feel safe in the city.

An anonymous resident of San Francisco placed a full-page ad San Francisco Chronicle Friday to draw attention to the city's homelessness crisis after an alleged experience with a scissors-wielding homeless man in a downtown cafe left her feeling "horrified."

The woman detailed her account in the ad, titled "Watch your backs — nobody else is." You can read the entire ad above.

"The San Francisco city fathers and those who should be held accountable for our public safety have for years let us down by catering to the lowest common denominator," the ad says. "We, the tax paying, responsible contributing members of society have had our quality of life as San Franciscans seriously compromised, dangerously so."

In the ad, she says that she was trying to enjoy her lunch at a Neiman Marcus cafe in San Francisco's downtown, when she had a run-in with a homeless person wielding scissors. She says that this "psychotic homeless person" was opening and closing the scissors "erratically," making her fear for her safety. We've reached out to the Neiman Marcus in San Francisco for comment.

The ad claims to have been paid for by the "Fed Up Populace Campaign." However, this campaign seems to have no online prescence — Business Insider couldn't find a website for the "Fed Up Populace Campaign" at the time of publication, nor does it appear to have any kind of social media presence.

Regardless, the ad comes at a time when the homelessness crisis continues to stoke tensions in San Francisco, as city residents increasingly complain that they don't feel safe walking around highly-trafficked areas with large homeless populations. It's started to take a toll on San Francisco's tourism industry, too, as at least one major medical conference reportedly decided to cancel its annual convention in the city, citing the homelessness problem.

The city's homeless problem is attributed largely to the city's lack of affordable housing, which has led real estate prices to soar. Now, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who was just sworn in this week, has pledged to take action on the homelessness crisis, even as she promises that the city will make way for more housing.

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