STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Al Gentile has seen a lot of changes in the more than three decades he has spent as the owner for a local pharmacy on Stuyvesant Place.
New people, restaurants, rising rents, more kids.
But one of the most profound changes Gentile said he has seen in the area is the the increase in homeless people in recent years -- a change he says is affecting the area's quality of life and local businesses like his.
About a decade ago, Gentile said he would see one or two homeless people a day, who wouldn't bother the businesses and customers.
Now, he said dozens of homeless roam Stuyvesant Place and nearby areas on a daily basis, many of them he knows by name.
Gentile said the area's homeless often litter, urinate and drink booze on the streets. They also aggressively panhandle customers, he said, scaring many of them away.
Last month, a fire was started in the back of Gentile's building, and police arrested Hector Meza, a homeless man, in connection with the incident.
The fire tore apart his pharmacy leaving behind more than $700,000 worth of damages and thousands in fines from the city.
Because he fills about 100 prescriptions a day, Gentile said he was forced to open just days after the fire.
He is now working between a small table just at the front of his shop where he can open the door for light, and a trailer outside.
If he wants supplies, he has to walk through his pitch black shop with a flashlight and navigate through pieces of charred roof, boxes, burnt supplies scattered around the floor, and stay clear of falling light fixtures.
He was one of the lucky ones though, the Dunkin Donuts right next door that also got hit by the fire, is boarded up and has yet to open.
"Since I got there in 1983 we had homeless people, but nothing near ... the quantity that we deal with now," Gentile said.
"It just affects the quality of life in our neighborhood," he continued. "It's an up and coming neighborhood, it took forever to get there, and now I'm actually getting more and more complaints from customers about the aggressiveness of the panhandlers."
OWNERS WANT TO HELP BUT WANT THEIR BUSINESSES TO THRIVE TOO
Many employees and business owners in St. George have similar experiences as Gentile and say they too have seen a huge influx in homeless in the area in just the last four to six years.
They say the homeless hurt their businesses and drive away customers and tourists visiting the area.
"They are bad for us," said an employee at a deli near Richmond Terrace, adding that there were less homeless in the area under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
But their presence in the area also presents a constant moral struggle for many business owners.
On the one hand, they say want to help them, and often do, but on the other, they want their businesses to thrive too.
"I don't want nobody to be homeless, I want everybody to have a roof on their head," said Adem Klobucista, the co-owner of A & S pizza.
Often times, Klobucista said he gives his leftover food to homeless in front of his shop and sometimes will send his delivery staff to drop off leftover food at a nearby shelter.
But at the same time, Klobucista says the homeless are "hurting" St. George's image, an area often the first and last place visitors coming off the ferry set foot in and remember when the leave.
Last year, Klobucista said a homeless person shattered his store's window.
"They have to find a solution for this" Klobucista said.
WHAT'S THE BEST SOLUTION?
Last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to open 90 new homeless shelters across all five boroughs over the next five years in an effort to house the city's 61,000 homeless population.
The city said there are about 1,300 homeless from Staten Island in shelters citywide, but it's unclear how many homeless are actually on the borough's streets at any given point in time.
On the Island there is only enough capacity to provide shelter to some 40 families and 119 homeless in just one Island shelter, the Department of Homeless Services said.
The city is still looking for sites to build new shelters in the borough, but all of the Island's City Council members oppose homeless shelters in their districts.
The de Blasio administration has also been ramping up funding for the Department of Homeless Services.
From 2015 to 2018 the city's budget for DHS increased by 92 percent, starting off at $1.2 billion in fiscal 2015 and rising to $2.2 billion in fiscal 2018. Most of that funding went toward shelter operations and support.
"We continue to transform the shelter system by making unprecedented investments in our not-for-profit partners, including renovating facilities and repairing conditions that went unaddressed for decades, reforming rates for historically underfunded providers, and working collaboratively to enhance and deliver the services and supports our homeless neighbors deserve," a DHS spokesperson said.
For homeless advocates like Omayra Soto, a case manager at Good Counsel Homes on Staten Island -- a group that works with homeless, expectant, and new mothers and their children -- simply adding more shelters is not the best and only solution to help the homeless.
Access to treatment, job readiness programs, and affordable housing options Soto said are also desperately needed.
She said many of the Island's homeless she encounters end up on the streets because they were dealt financial setbacks and do not have the means to get back on their feet.
"I don't think [shelters are] enough...there's people that are homeless that can be instead of living on the street can be working, or affordable housing or low income apartments, but the rent has to go down, it's so hard to live in New York, there's so much that goes into homelessness," Soto said.