We've all had to deal with loud, bothersome neighbors moving in next door, right? Just imagine having the neighbors at the Seneca Hotel, operated by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. The city supplies the THC with folks in need, and the clinic must oblige by providing housing, no matter how uncomfortable those folks might make the hotel's non-clinic residents. One such resident -- he moved in years ago, when it was just a normal hotel -- has set up a video blog to collect the awkward scenes by which he finds himself surrounded: shouting tenants, drug dealers, petty theft, all caught on tape. Is the clinic to blame? No way, says the clinic; while their blogging gadfly says yes, absolutely.

For their part, the clinic told us that they evict any tenant who behaves very poorly. A search of SF Superior Court records for "Tenderloin Housing Clinic" as plaintiff reveals that they do invite a lot of people to leave. (Mostly due to non-payment of rent.) In emails to us, the owner of the blog says that the clinic's monitoring of clients has recently improved, but he still doesn't think there's much oversight. He's got a litany of complaints -- the THC allowed a tenant to be taken scammed by a domestic-partnering con artist, he says, and they have sex offenders living illegally in the building, and he says that Randy Shaw (the clinic's executive director) is using the clinic for financial gain.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Is any of that true? Well, some of it is -- a sex offender does live at the hotel, but not illegally. (Sex offenders can't get public housing, but the clinic is legally distinct from public housing.) And it's pretty obvious that Randy Shaw isn't running the clinic for monetary gain; he's doing it because he believes it's the right thing to do for the people and the neighborhood.

But that's not much comfort to the guy who lives in the midst of the shouting and crime. Whether the clinic causes or relieves the neighborhood's problems, all he sees is a parade of criminals and a callous, uncaring clinic.

If you woke up to found your home surrounded by a bunch of strangers, some of whom unable or unwilling to live civilly and independently, you'd probably freak out a bit too. Then again, if you were in a desperate housing situation, you'd probably also find yourself thankful that the Tenderloin Housing Clinic exists. We hope everyone can work something out.