COEUR d'ALENE - The tipping point for Josh Jenquine was when panhandlers approached his 9-year-old daughter and asked for change.

They came up to the Fernan Elementary School girl two months ago while she waited in the car with the windows down as her mother shopped inside the Exxon gas station at the corner of 15th Street and Sherman Avenue - a location that's since cracked down on 'aggressive panhandling' on its property.

"That's when I blew up," Jenquine said. "I wanted Fresh Start closed, I wanted them shut down, I wanted to start a petition."

Fresh Start is the drop-in center for homeless and near-homeless on East Sherman Avenue a block away from where the encounter occurred.

Before that, however, Jenquine had noticed - as many of his East Sherman Avenue business owners and neighbors also had - an increased amount of homeless in the area the last few months.

Aside from just numbers, they also noticed a disturbing trend: That a certain segment of that population was becoming aggressive, rude, even belligerent, and using the center as a hangout spot before and after operating hours.

It's turning their neighborhood blocks and alleys into a makeshift homeless camp, complete with parties, litter, and an uncomfortable atmosphere for business owners and families with children, they said, and something has to be done.

"I'm so frustrated by it I don't know," said Jenquine, who lives at 15th Street and Bancroft Avenue and has since forbade his daughter from riding her bike to school. "We're definitely active looking for a new house, I'll tell you that."

The latest incident happened Monday.

Coeur d'Alene police arrested transient Erik Dunnagan for public urination and littering beer bottles near 16th Street. Police reports state that when officers made contact with Dunnagan around 3:30 p.m., he smelled of alcohol and yelled profanities at officers.

"Everybody's just frustrated down there. They think it's the dumping grounds," said Brad Fosseen, co-owner of Moontime restaurant on East Sherman Avenue.

When Fosseen opens the restaurant he's owned since 1996 in the morning, it's not uncommon to see people changing in cars parked in his driveway. When the restaurant is open, he's trespassed homeless people from the back patio where they drink alcohol and ask patrons for cigarettes. Some waitresses are nervous to ride their bicycles to work, and closing the restaurant at night.

"It's just something you don't want to deal with as a business owner," he said. "It's beyond frustrating to have to deal with another thing like that."

Spurred by the recent complaints, business owners, city officials, neighbors and homeless provider representatives met Wednesday to begin what they hope is a series of neighborhood meetings to identify possible solutions.

A meeting Mike Kennedy, Coeur d'Alene City Councilman and chair of the city's 10-year-plan to End Homelessness Committee, called "sobering" but "a good first step."

"I think it's a problem and there are enough instances to call attention to it. They had some real concerns, and we heard them loud and clear," Kennedy said.

A short-term solution is an increased bicycle patrol that will run from downtown through East Sherman Avenue this summer.

But Police Chief Wayne Longo added that resources are already stretched thin. And although the homeless population may be more visible along East Sherman Avenue - an entryway into the city from the east side - the department receives a similar amount of calls for service in areas all across town.

Those include north of town near a homeless camp near Hayden.

In fact, in May police have responded to 23 calls for service over a range of reports in a two-block radius around Fresh Start, 1524 E. Sherman Ave.

That's not out of line with other sections of town.

Since the economic recession in 2008, and with unemployment in Kootenai County still around 11 percent, the problem isn't unique to East Sherman Avenue.

"You're still talking about a problem that perplexes everyone," Longo said. "The same thing is happening in other neighborhoods."

Still, he added, the report that female servers are uncomfortable around work disturbs him.

"As the chief of police I take that personally," he said. "I feel like a failure."

Added to a possible short-term solution will be a crackdown on panhandling while patrols are on foot, with signs saying as much possibly posted.

But as far as East Sherman taking precedence over other neighborhoods, the department couldn't promise that.

Some business owners and residents agreed that police patrols aren't the long-term solution.

They said it would be a waste of resources, and want a more permanent resolution, like moving Fresh Start out of the neighborhood. Even the Citylink benches along the Avenue where some homeless hang out should go. Establish a detox center and move Fresh Start to a less-residential area, like in the Coeur d'Alene Industrial Park, they said.

"It's just not a good fit," said Brian Clark, homeowner on Front Avenue, who had to ask a homeless man to leave Clark's front porch recently. The man was sitting on Clark's porch reading Clark's mail when a neighbor called the homeowner to alert him. Clark, who's also been approached for money while raking his front yard, said the neighborhood setting doesn't mesh well with the abundance of homeless.

"There are more and more people panhandling and getting drunk in the alley," he said. "It just makes me uncomfortable."

But moving a large operation isn't easy.

Finding a location, funding the move and ensuring it's accessable aren't overnight achievements, said Howard and Teresa Martinson, Fresh Start directors.

It would also shift concerns to a new neighborhood, and the East Sherman neighborhood hosts a soup kitchen and St. Vincent de Paul transitional housing units.

"We've intentionally brought services for the homeless into the neighborhood, Howard Martinson said. "It wouldn't make sense to establish these services in the Hayden Lake Country Club or the Resort golf course. You establish them where they already are."

It seems, Martinson said, that Fresh Start "is in the cross hairs."

Asking them to simply leave is like "shooting a mosquito with a shotgun," he said.

But the concerns are valid, and the Martinsons said they're glad the dialogue has begun.

They, too, saw an increased amount of aggressive behavior in the last 90 days, a problem to which they couldn't attribute a reason, so they already have taken action.

They fenced off the back patio area to Fresh Start last month to prevent people from hanging out there after hours, drinking alcohol and littering.

That had been a problem, they said, and they removed the Porta-Potty that had been there too, that had also collected trash. And they've established a litter pick-up patrol with the clientele, who cover a five-block radius every day in search of trash.

The majority of patrons follow the rules, Howard Martinson said. It's a slim minority making the most noise.

"It really, really concerns me that most of the discussion that goes on is about 1 percent of the population. The success stories are 100 percent more typical, so we have to keep doing what we're doing in that regard."

The center, open 7:30 a.m. to noon six days a week, offers food, coffee, Internet, showers, medical clinic, and reading material for its patrons - all for free. More than half the clientele suffer from alcoholism or mental illness.

Last year, it saw 20,000 visits from 2,000 unduplicated patrons. This year the center, which relies on 30 or so volunteers, has trespassed or suspended visiting privileges to five people.

Should that rate keep up, it would be about a dozen people out of 2,000 for the year.

Renaye Rowe, a laid-off maid living out of her truck and trying to stay sober, said it was a few bad apples ruining the bunch.

She visits Fresh Start a couple times a week, and said she'd be all for stricter punishment for the troublemakers, few and far between they may be.

There's no set standard for people who show up under the influence of alcohol at the center - alcohol is not permitted on the property - other than if they cause problems they will be removed.

"That's what makes me mad, is when people take advantage of it," Rowe said of abusing hospitality.

Rowe and her husband are both alcoholics. Both are in treatment and if both stay sober they will qualify for assisted housing. It's an opportunity Rowe said she doesn't want to miss, and Fresh Start is helping her along the way.

"I can eat here, I can take a shower, I can talk to people and share wounds, so to speak," she said, waiting at Fresh Start on Thursday until her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting started. "I may be quote, unquote, homeless but that doesn't mean I have to look like it."

She drives her truck away from the neighborhood when she overnights she said because she knows the neighborhood doesn't want her there all night.

Barbara Permanter agrees it's only a few misbehaving ones are causing the trouble.

Permanter works the register at Exxon gas station where the incident with the 9-year-old-girl occurred, as well as the nearby Piggies Deli and market. She said she's trespassed the same five or six people, which has helped. It's up to business owners to crack down on their own properties, she said, and she wants to join the neighborhood discussion on how to improve East Sherman Avenue. But as far as not selling 40-ounce beers and the inexpensive wines with high alcoholic content that seem to be the drink of choice for the population, the stores won't do that.

That measure was suggested at the meeting by neighbors who have become accustomed to picking up those bottles from their sidewalks.

"I'm not going to do that - it's money," she said of the product. "Seriously, I wouldn't have job then."

For Jim Purtee, owner of Jimmy's Down the Street on East Sherman Avenue, the homeless population is a microcosm of how the city views the neighborhood on a whole.

He calls it the city's stepchild, not given the attention Northwest Boulevard, the western entrance into Coeur d'Alene, was given - or the makeover Midtown received. And Midtown is on a one-way street out of town, he said, not to mention the detail downtown is receiving.

"The status quo doesn't have to be the status quo," he said of changing the neighborhood step by step. That would include relocating the services, requiring detox, and incentivizing private development in the area by sprucing up the sidewalks, and adding trees and decorative stoplights.

"It's not a hard thing to do," he said. He said his restaurant hasn't had problems with the homeless population because he told them to not disturb his clientele, as Permanter had. "But you have to stop making this a resort area for those who are on rough times."

In 2007, St. Vincent de Paul had an opportunity to locate a service center in the federal building downtown. It was opposed by the Downtown Association at the time, according to Press articles, as it said it wouldn't be a good fit for the neighborhood.

St. Vincent later located that Service Center to Harrison Avenue, north of downtown.

Unlike midtown and downtown, East Sherman is not in an urban renewal district, which can use property tax financing to help spur development.

Regardless, Mayor Sandi Bloem said East Sherman is on the city's radar.

The topic of design codes and possible city partnerships with development could come up again this summer. It had been on the city's radar before, including bringing a moderator on board, but was put aside as development slowed and other issues arose.

"I think the city would willing to be a partners in any way that we can," she said, adding that the arts commission recently put a public art display near the Interstate 90 entrance into town along East Sherman as it gears up to begin the change from "space to place."

"When development starts to speed up again, I think East Sherman is really ripe for that to happen," she said. "I believe the opportunity is there for us to work collectively."

At Fresh Start this week, there were success stories.

Kasey Chapman used it to get back on her feet and find home so she could reunite with her 7-year-old son and Mike Dusek, who uses its services to help fight his substance abuse problems, called the place "mellow."

"I love hearing other people succeeded and got out of their own situations," Chapman said, swinging by the place Friday to visit old friends, and encourage them.

The services don't attract homelessness, providers said, as Idaho offers far less money for social services compared to most other states. It's a problem that is affecting locals, all across town.

In fact, Fresh Start relocated to East Sherman because it outgrew its former location closer to downtown.

"I don't think it's 'if you build it they will come,'" Howard Martinson said. "They're already there."

Police agreed, saying the majority of their encounters with homeless are with people from Kootenai County.

East Sherman may just be more visible, they said.

Neighbors are sympathetic with the homeless plight. Jenquine, who's daughter was approached two months ago, has since met with Fresh Start and said it does provide key services. But it's affecting them too much, they said.

Fosseen, who owns five restaurants in Spokane, Hayden and Coeur d'Alene, said it's his East Sherman Avenue spot that's taken a hit financially, not the others.

"I can't say for sure it's that," he said. "But none of the other ones have taken a hit."

Still, said Gerald, who uses the center but didn't want to give his real name, cracking down on out-of-line behavior is more than just hanging signs. Patrons around the center know Gerald as "Grumpy."

Sitting in the back patio as the center was closing, Gerald motioned to two minors leaving the center (minors must be accompanied by adults, which they didn't have Thursday).

"See what I mean," he said.

Then the center closed and Gerald began walking down the street. He said he could borrow a pole and go fishing, but didn't know exactly where he would go.

"I don't know," he said. "Somewhere. You can't stay here."