It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The sun was shining. The blossoms were full. And the two homeless people camping in a ramshackle structure behind Spreckels Park were walking along the railroad spur back towards civilization toting an open 12-pack of some off-brand beer. Welcome to Manteca — the new Stockton?Much has been said about Manteca’s homeless concerns in the past two years as the city council works to grapple with the issues of a growing community that’s sandwiched between both of the Northern San Joaquin Valley’s largest cities. It’s illegal to construct an encampment within Manteca’s city limits. The bathrooms that were installed at Library Park have been locked to prevent people from using it as a hookup spot, shooting gallery or makeshift shelter. Some, though, have branded elected leaders and municipal workers trying to solve the as fascists for not caring about their fellow human beings the way that some people think they should. But what kind of a message does it send to the Bay Area folks about Manteca that are traveling back to their homes after a weekend skiing in Tahoe or up at Kirkwood or Bear or even Dodge Ridge when the thing that they see when they pass by the big looping curve of the Highway 99/120 interchange is a homeless shanty – dutifully standing out amongst the seldom-used railroad spur?“Let’s not stop here,” is something, I would guess, is uttered a lot by the folks that see that. And from what I hear, it has been there for quite a while and nothing has yet been done about it. This isn’t some column about bashing the homeless. Anybody that knows me knows that that my heart bleeds more than most. I love both San Francisco and Berkeley and the unique ambiance they bring to the world when so many different people – some of them homeless – converge in the same place. With that said, I also know that the times that I’ve taken out-of-state people to those places, there have been periods when they’ve reflexively tensed up when we got off of a busy freeway and there was a tent or a makeshift structure sitting right there in the open – something that they’re not used to seeing in the communities that they’re from. Maybe that’s not the right feeling we should get when we see somebody that doesn’t have a home where they can go to. But unfortunately, the real world is the real world and things don’t always work out that way. To say nothing of the problems that have occurred in Downtown Manteca as a result of what seemed like a homeless explosion not all that long ago – including homeless tool-wielding thugs that shattered windows in broad daylight in retaliation to shop owners that called the police to report them. “Come shop at our stores downtown – just make sure you stay away from the windows.”I think that would make a good bumper sticker. Yes, many of these problems have died down thanks to proactive policing and a council that made the tough decisions that nobody wanted to make. But what kind of a message does it send to those who aren’t from our community when something so public is being blatantly flaunted for all who pass by?At the end of the day the law is the law. And the longer that structure stands, the more emboldened people will become.