Years ago, when the awful stories began coming out about the homeless encampments, I postulated that someone was deliberately allowing this to happen in order to bring down property values in SF. Looks like I was right.
They do that in Florida too. Then once they buy properties they rent them to the trashiest people they can so the neighbors sell and move out.
Then, once they own all the land they want they have the homeless pushed out towards the next targeted area, and price out the old renters. They fix up the rentals and charge higher rents or tear the places down and build new luxury homes. Wash,rinse, repeat.