By Joseph Cole, Michael Batrouni, Andy Zhao
On a recent sunny Thursday afternoon, a few University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students walked past the storefront of Tar Heel Station, a convenience store on Franklin Street. Two patrolling police officers stepped inside to ask the manager how she was doing. She said that she was happy because nobody had been causing any issues recently, a departure from a common problem on Franklin Street.
Franklin Street is often considered the hotspot for Chapel Hill’s bustling culture, hosting many popular storefronts, restaurants and offices. Although its rich history and diverse shops bring a lot of foot traffic and capital towards businesses, it can also come with trade-offs. According to some local business owners, challenges include navigating how to handle interactions with the unhoused population and instances of petty crimes.
The term unhoused is hard to define, and might not be a true representation of individuals in some cases business owners cite. Homelessness is a very individual and nuanced idea, as not all living conditions for people who could be labeled as unhoused are the same. Identifying if an individual is unhoused is an assumption made quickly during business transactions, and as there is no blanket term to group each individual on this spectrum accurately, many business owners use the term “homeless” or “unhoused” to refer to individuals they perceive as fitting this category.
According to data collected by the North Carolina Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, the unhoused population has increased by 17% since last year, continuing the upward trend since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Regardless of who commits these crimes, Franklin Street business owners have to deal with the consequences of them.
Que Chula, a restaurant at the corner of Church Street and Franklin Street, has been a victim of repeated theft of outdoor seating. Co-owner José Ramirez said that one to two chairs have been stolen every year since 2020, along with a few coffee mugs. This year, however, they have experienced more larcenies than usual.
Although the chair-nappings might seem like a small problem, each chair’s cost ranges from $80 to $100, totaling upwards of $500 in damages over the past four years.
The owners of Que Chula hand-painted and decorated the majority of their store, so their items do not just hold monetary value to them, but sentimental value as well.
“When the first chair got stolen she cried and she freaked out,” said Ramirez, referring to his wife. “The second time she just gave up. She was like, ‘What do we do now?’”
In recent years, petty crimes have increased on Franklin Street. According to data from the Town of Chapel Hill Geographic Information System & Analytics, only seven cases of attempted larceny were reported in police reports from 2014 to 2019, compared to the 23 cases that have been reported since 2020.
Jennifer, a manager at the convenience store Tar Heel Station who declined to provide her last name, said that the biggest problem she faced was navigating how to best handle interactions with unhoused individuals, who she said sometimes harass or scare customers.
“A lot of them are respectful,” she said. “So, a lot of them love me because … I don’t automatically think, okay, you’re homeless, get the f— out, like a lot of businesses have done to them.”
She added that some unhoused people engage in behaviors that disrupt business, such as panhandling near store entrances or attempting to sell stolen food and drinks.
“They are getting aggressive out there,” Jennifer said. “One of my college kids said that one of the homeless guys followed their friend with a knife.”
She said that some unhoused individuals have started to demand electronic payments when denied cash and that the situation seems like it’s worsened over time. “They didn’t do that last year,” she said. “If you said no, they’re like, ‘OK, thank you. Have a great day,’ but now they’re telling you there’s an ATM, or telling you to Cash App them. I think something needs to be done, and it needs to be put under control.”
A little farther down Franklin Street is Mexican restaurant, Cosmic Cantina. Yeshua Sanchez, their catering coordinator, said that the problem has worsened, and now some students feel less safe shopping at local businesses.
“We have to call the police every other night because someone is coming in and asking for money or trying to sell things inside of our restaurant,” Sanchez said. “And, you know, obviously, that’s an uncomfortable experience.”
Sanchez said that while businesses cannot do much for the unhoused population other than treat them with kindness and respect, he thinks the town could potentially do more to address the situation.
Due to the high population and commercial density of Franklin Street, police are often called in by business owners or residents to deal with problems. The department has received consistent increases in funding from the town, with the Chapel Hill Police Department budget increasing by 9.3% from 2023 to 2024.
Despite the challenges of doing business on Franklin Street, all three businesses are committed to their community and value the close-knit relationship between them and their customers, who consist mostly of students from UNC Chapel Hill.
“When they have problems, they come to me and I try to help them. Their parents aren’t here. Their families aren’t here,” said Jennifer, of Tar Heel Station. “So I play mom and I try to help them as much as I can, offer advice. There’s some of them, if I’m worried about the way they’re eating, I will actually bring the meals in when I cook.”
Both Sanchez of Cosmic Cantina and Ramirez of Que Chula agree that taking care of their community is a top priority, even taking precedence over dealing with the issues related to crime on Franklin Street.
At Cosmic Cantina, catering coordinator Sanchez shared a similar outlook. “At the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do,” Sanchez said. “We have to try to be compassionate and kind to everyone. I think that’s something that we also pride ourselves on with our staff, at the end of the day, we’re all human.”