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With so many homeless residents sheltering in place from their tents, there have been growing reports of transients illegally tapping into electricity around homes and businesses.
Dave Dolecki made a disturbing discovery when he picked up the mail at his shuttered office in San Francisco last week. Someone had hacked into an outdoor light and plugged in an extension cord and cell phone charger.
He told KCBS Radio that he managed to deal with it without a confrontation.
“I did find which circuit breaker it was, and cut it off just for that light, which means we don’t have a light over our building anymore,” Dolecki said. “But they figured it out pretty quickly, the next day the cords were gone.”
This type of power stealing is nothing new, we reported it extensively our recent series "Street Juice”, but incidents may be on the rise during the shelter in place.
With so many businesses closed, the homeless have fewer places to legally charge cell phones in coffee shops and libraries.
Jerome Shaw, who lives at a homeless shelter in Sunnyvale, told KCBS Radio they need more help from government officials.
“We’re encouraging the county to provide some kind of charging station or portable chargers to these individuals to help keep them in the loop when it comes to COVID-19,” Shaw said. “Mostly everybody gets their information from their phones.”
So far, Santa Clara County has purchased at least 75 solar power battery chargers for the homeless, with some community groups stepping up to help, but homeless advocates say they need a lot more.