i've bicycled through there and seen groups of people looking ominously. i'm from the wrong side of the tracks. i've learned how to avoid. but that area has given me the creeps more than once.
the homeless drug users are a problem but they aren't the same kind of problem as the culture of violence in the low income housed population, who mostly don't do drugs, and can afford the ones they do. it's a difference of scale. the focus is getting them off the street, but that often just makes them worse.