the city may have missed a recent opportunity to stop him. joining with us more is ""san francisco chronicle" reporter and columnist heather knight. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> who is this guy? >> his name is bill gene hobbs. he's 33. he has been arrested many times in san francisco over the past several years. each time the cases have been dismissed, quote, in the interest of justice. i wrote about him for the first time last year when he was arrested for following and stalking, grabbing, a teenager on the streets of west portal. grabbing them close to him, say, you're my angel, my perfect mate. finally the teenager was able to call 911. he was arrested and served a few months in jail but a judge dismissed the case in the

interest of justice. he was sent back to ventura county for an auto theft warrant, where he served some more time but he's back in san francisco and there have been many, many reports from women all over the city of somebody who looks just like this guy coming up to them, out of the blue, grabbing them, sometimes kissing them, follow, chasing, it's very scary for these women and many of them have come forward to me to share their stories. >> how long have these reports of him stalking women been rolling? >> about a week. but interviewing people it turns out it's been going on for months. it's just all these women, it's weird encounters on the sidewalks in san francisco, they try to brush it off and forget but they realize it wasn't just them. it's been a huge pattern for months. and these women began contacting each other on nextdoor, on facebook, and other social media platform, sharing their story,

sharing pictures they were able to take of him, crowd sourcing this case. we know at least six women have filed police reports. there might be more. several more told me they're going to now, this week. so the issue is mounting for sure. >> let's take a look at a map we produced based on information you've been able to gather about some of these locations. talk to us about this. are these -- we have the general area. are these in parks? are they in private residences? are they in stores? give us a sense of where he's encountering the women? >> nice map. it was in the park in the handhandle, in do lohrs repark, but otherwise it was on the streets. broad daylight. people walking oner randz, to the gym, to work, to their apartment, after picking up grocery, very mundane, middle of the day activities. he comes up to them, tries up a conversation, oftentimes hitting on the women, saying you're my soul mate, i love you, how did

you get this way? sometimes it's weirder. he told one woman running in the panhandle he was jesus christ. and -- but yeah. at first we thought it was just the marina but hearing more cases, we've been able to establish that he's been all over the city. >> let's put the picture back up. he is rather distinctive look, at least the one women think is the guy. he's about 6'4" and he has an interesting tattoo. >> he has the letters e v-i-l, evil, tattooed on his four fingers. he's very tall. he has a shaved head or buzz cut. and covered in tattoos. >> as we keep the picture up, because i want people to take a good look at him. i want to ask you about if we can keep that picture up, people can keep looking at that, i wonder, you mentioned that police, he's had brushes with police. there was the grabbing the

15-year-old incident in which he was never convicted. more recently, there was something involving trespassing. tell us what happened there. by then he's on their radar, no? >> you would think but again it fell through the cracks. on august 11, a man who lived in a home in the marina with several roommates was out walking his dog and because it was just down the block he left his front door unlocked. when he came back from walking the dog he saw a stranger in his house. and turns out it was the same guy, bill gene hobbs, and hobbs told him that was moving in. he basically acted like he was the new roommate. he brought his bike and backpack and talked like he'd just live there. he had been exploring the bedrooms. had seen the family photos. and so this man's girlfriend was there and called 911. the police came and they did make an arrest because this guy told them that he was scott

peterson, famously the killer of his wife and unborn baby many years ago in california, and police took him to northern station and arrested him for trespassing because he didn't actually steal anything, and giving false information to the police. that case was handed then to district attorney brook jenkins and her office dropped it. again, in that weird phrase, quote, in the interest of justice. when i got a statement from her office yesterday she said he hadn't tampered with anything or stolen anything so that's why they dismissed this case. but when i talked to san mateo district attorney steve wagstaff what would you have done if it happened in san mateo county, he said it would amount to four to six months in jail with the point of connecting this person to mental health treatment services in jail. none of that happened in san francisco. the san mateo d.a. said, that's a strange city you have there. >> in san mateo county the d.a. is saying he'd go for four to

six months, just based on trespass, not the accusations women have laid in terms of his stalking them? >> yes. he said your home is your sanctuary. this is where you should expect to feel safe and to come home and find a stranger in your house is a scary situation. that's what he would have done in san mateo. he said the real key now is for as many people as possible who have encountered this person to file police reports. the police need to work up as big a case as possible. most of these incidences individually might not rise to much of a crime but when you put them all together, a bigger case can be made and hopefully get this guy off the streets. >> i was going to ask you, none of these, what you described, sounds like it amounts to sexual assault. it's creepy. it's harassment. there's some touching. i wonder if police have never caught him in the act of one of those things and if they did, could they, you know, charge him with something even though it seems a little low level, but there's so many? >> yeah, i think really it's the

number that needs to be built up to establish a pattern. another little interesting tidbit is, supervisor katherine stephanie who represents the marina where many of these strange encounters have happened, said she's been in close contact with the captain at north station and he told her hobbs forcibly kissed a female police officer. i couldn't get more information about that if the police department. they have gone hush-hush on this as they build their investigation that would seem, you know, pretty serious. >> yeah, that's one step further. do you feel like with the attention both on social and your articles, getting any indication the police and the d.a. may approach with more urgency now? >> i think so. people are really mad. obviously the women this has happened to, the original family in west portal, there's another farmly that i mentioned, where he followed another teenager recently and has kept coming back to the dad's small business, there are so many examples now in the chronicle

columns alone that everybody is really, you know, i think the public is demanding action here. >> all right. we'll see fit happens. heather knight, ""san francisco chronicle" columnist. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> coming up next, tackling pandemic fatigue. getting people excited about the new covid booster is a tall tax. what can health care experts do? a bay area psychology professor a bay area psychology professor gives us his take next on life is busy. so, come to shell and get three things done at once. first, fill up with shell v-power nitro+ to help keep your engine running like new. nice! then save up with the fuel rewards program and never pay full price for gas again. oh wow! and, finally, snack up to save even more at the pump. that's great! make the most of the stop you need to make with shell. wait! there's three of me? awesome!

>> welcome back. covid numbers in the bay area are finallien the decline after several omicron waves since the start of the year. even as the white house and health officials try to convince americans to get the new bivalent covid booster, they're

facing fierce resistance. americans are suffering from pandemic fatigue so what can health officials do? that's where an expert in social psychology comes in. joining us live is ben rosenberg, psychology professor. thank you for your time. >> thank you for having me. how is it going? >> it's going well, all things considered. we're going to try to stick with psychology and stay away from medical advice, since that's your specialty, but what is pandemic fatigue? >> that's a good question. i think folks are tired of talking about, hearing about covid. we're going on three years practically. at a certain point people start to tune out. as you guys said in your intro, even the president is say, the pandemic is over. people are generally tired of thinking about and talking about these issues. >> in terms of human psychology, when we're tired of something because it's gone on for so long what starts to happen? what kind of things do we man test and what kind of things do

we decide to drop and how do we decide to behave? >> two of the biggest things for sure are attention. so people are likely at this point, rather than turning toward things having to do with covid that they see in the news or on twitter or elsewhere, they might just turn away and stop thinking about them, stop listening to them, start ignoring them a bit more. the second is behavioral. so with that lack of attention comes a lack of motivation to want to do anything about things related to covid and what got us thinking about this in particular is the rollout of the bivalent vaccines. there hasn't been much of a cohesive message around who is eligible, who should be getting them. i think that coupled with the things i just mentioned are creating potentially a bad storm. >> ok so how would officials running a bivalent booster campaign right now overcome those strongheadwinds.

>> a few things to think about, and a lot of this comes from the work of one of my colleagues, dr. jason segal, a professor at claremont graduate university in socal. he was doing work around orr began donation. the issue there, people with generally positive about signing up to be an organ donor but not super motivated to do so. we thought there were some similarities here with the rollout of the bivalent booster campaign. in that people, especially those who have gotten two, three, or four shots already, probably feel fairly positive about vaccination, they think it's good, but may not be motivated, which touches on the covid fatigue. so there's a model and he and colleagues came up with to persuade folks, motivate them to sign up to become organ donors. we thought it might apply here as well. this relies on four components that need to be simultaneously present when somebody could potentially sign up to receive the bivalent booster.

the first is immediate access. we want someone as soon as they become motivated to receive a booster to be able to get it right then and there. that motivation may be short-lived. so we need to seize it wherever we can. the second component is information. we need to provide clear and accurate information to folks about who is eligible to receive the bivalent booster shot. going back many months there were misconceptions about who could get the niche boosters. uptake of those is low. even now with the rollout of these shots i haven't seen a ton of clear information telling folks they can get the shots. in addition we should make it really clear that people need to be engaged with this information. so thinking about how we can provide them a venue where we can provide clear information to engage their interest and their attention again. because most people just aren't thinking about covid-related issues. and the last thing is to highlight the benefits of these booster shots.

it may be that even though folks feel fairly positive about getting shots or about vaccination or general -- more generally, they also have some negative attitudes or thoughts that come about when they think about vaccines. so the side effects or their colleagues or friends who have received shots but still ended up getting covid. so if we can highlight the positive things rather than allowing people to think about the negative thing, those factors, if we offer them together, might be helpful. >> this part fascinates me. i feel like we tend to remember the negative things more. is that normal in terms of human psychology? why do we do that? >> indeed. we do tend to recall the negative aspects of experiences more prominently in our minds than the positive. and i wish i could tell you why exactly that was but there's definitely research to back up your observation. >> all right. yeah, you remember the one person who had the breakthrough case, right? at this point though work the fatigue, doesn't it seem like anything that looks like a

mandate will invite a, no way, stop telling me what to do, response? i run into that with my teenagers. i try reverse psychology. what's the better way. >> i have a 3 1/2-year-old, i'm dealing with the same amount of pushback. no doubt mandates are out though window. encouragement. softer ebb couragement, i think is better. really get highlighting, the picture i guess i keep coming back to is either in an urgent care center or pharmacist or doctor's office where right when you check in, somebody asks you about whether you've gotten the most recent shot. if you haven't, then a couple of things could happen. they could offer you the shot right then and there. they could highlight the positive aspects of getting the shot. and they can provide you with clear and accurate information about the shots, about its benefits. and taking this a step further, when you walk into any of those settings, urgent care, doctor's office, your local pharmacy, they have signs up saying some of these things. not mandates, not using harsh

language but encouraging folks and providing accurate information. and if they get motivated, give them the opportunity for the shot right then and there. >> it sounds like with flu shot clinics going, that may be a good opportunity right there. it's available right there and pharmacy place a role. dr. rosenberg, thank you for joining us. interesting conversation, appreciate your time. >> thanks so much for having me. appreciate it. >> coming up next, a look at a casualty of the pandemic, san francisco's luxury condo market. our media partners at the san francisco standard will dig into the current trends next.

>> you can thank or blame the massive surge in home prices and rent in the last 2 1/2 years on remote work. that's according to a new study from the federal reserve bank of san francisco. but apparently that's more true in the suburbs than in the big cities. our media partners at the san francisco standard have published a new article showing san francisco downtown condos

are tumbling in price as vacancies soar. the housing market here is definitely cooling off. joining us live now to take a closer look at what's happening is san francisco standard reporter kevin. good to see you. >> nice seeing you. >> i know you've been tracking this. how long have san francisco housing prices been falling? >> it's basically over the last couple of quarters. you know, last year, anyone who was on the home buying market could tell you, san francisco's market was white hot. you had homes basically going without people even checking it out. i talked to a gentleman earlier this week who basically said he had a facetime video and put in an offer. things could change quite -- things have changed quite a bit. >> that's not happening so much anymore. how far, how much have prices fallen? >> for the condo market specifically, i think in august prices with down around 13% year over year. single family homes it's a

little bit less. >> why is that? why are homes holding up better than condos? >> well, a lot of this has to do with the pandemic. the pandemic hit the condo market nationally really hard as folks started to think twice about sort of communal live, shared immunities and wanting more space and outdoor areas to enjoy. and obviously, when you think about condos in high rise buildings, they don't necessarily have those types of benefits. >> let's take a closer look at the different neighborhoods. you provided some numbers for the different neighborhoods in san francisco. what trends do you notice as we look at these? maybe you can point out a couple of highlights. >> right. we basically have seen a divergence, particularly in the condo market, between the interior neighborhoods, ones close to downtown, like soma, south beach, mission bay. and those homes are selling on

average at a lower price than their listing value. whereas on the other end of the spectrum places like the richmond, cole valley, these places kind of close to the park, places with a little more outdoor space, selling at something like 115% of listing price. >> the percentage in yellow is percentage of selling price over asking? is that? >> yeah, basically. on average. >> and the number on the left is the average selling price. and the middle is per square foot? >> per square foot, yes. >> thank you for clay fiing that. i wonder if this reinforces the narrative that downtowns are in trouble? >> yeah, i mean, part of the problem with the recovery in some of these housing markets is the fact is, people don't necessarily want to buy condos downtown because there's not as much social life. and because of the transition to

remote work, living where you work is not necessarily as big of a one other factor i was talking to a broker who was telling me a lot of the investors that bought at the peak of the market and had tenants that were working on the peninsula, working downtown and were paying very high prices for that, are now tod their pro. se tantsre >> if that happens you'll get a glut and that should bring prices down more, right, based on supply and demand? >> yeah. what we're seeing right now is a lot more con dhoans market, a lot more time on the market. these condos that used to be trading like hotcakes in the prepandemic times are sitting there and seeing price drops. >> is this somewhat bad timing in terms of market for san francisco? because i seem to remember right before the pandemic there was a rush to build luxury high-end, high rise condos in the city, especially in those neighborhoods you were talking

about. >> yeah, it's really intring. this is where a lot of the for sale housing stock has been created. you had over the last couple of years, even during the pandemic, buildings that are delivering with not necessarily the buyers to meet them. so you have a lot of these new buildings in particular turning to benefits, amenities, cutting prices, base prices, offering things like parking for free, giving folks a credit after they close to buy furniture in order to sweeten the pot. that's add to the competition as well. >> i don't know in your reporting if you talked to experts who offered a glimpse into what it would take to get people to come back and want to live here, you know, where they play here and work here and just occupy those condos again. >> well you know, a lot of folks i talk to are pretty optimistic and i think folks, especially in the real estate industry that have weathered the various ups and downs of the last 20 years or so, have to be by their nature a little optimistic about

what's coming ahead. they believe that, you know, things will eventually settle out. what that looks like they're not sure. but part of the solution could be, you know, bringing more vie brancy downtown. whether it's increasing retail uses, increasing residences in those offices, or arts displays. and other types of social events to actually with a draw and make downtown more of a 24-hour neighborhood rather than a 9:00 to 5:00. >> if you are a buyer, do you have any good advice from your experts? >> yeah, so if you're a buyer apparently this is a good time to buy. right now it's difficult because of the high mortgage rates but that's coming with an intervening lower, generally lower list price. if you are able to sign a short-term mortgage right now, you can kind of bet on potentially interest rates going down. and then get -- put in your offer for a property at a lower price you would have seen even

three or four or five months ago. >> and maybe you don't need to write that love letter we needed to write a few years ago about why you should choose me to get to buy your home. kevin, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> hopefully folks will check out that article and others on the san francisco standard's website, they have a lot of original reporting and it's sfstandard.com. abc 7 will continue to bring you more segments featuring the standard's city-focused journalism. get our live newscast, breaking news, weather and more with our streaming tv app. just search abc 7 bay area and

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>> thank you so much for joining us for "getting answers" today. we'll be here every weekday at

3:00 on air and live stream. "world news tonight" is next. i'll see you back here at 4:00. tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. when will this hurricane hit? the new track just in tonight, as hurricane ian bears down on florida. the category 3 hurricane growing stronger. expected to become a category 4 storm as early as tonight. and well before making landfall tomorrow. when and where is this now expected to hit? bringing real storm surge fears up and down the west coast of florida. tonight, winds already topping 120 miles per hour. a devastating storm surge of up to 12 feet of water is possible in some areas. the storm already battering cuba. key west already seeing high winds and flooding tonight. airports now shutting down across florida. chief meteorologist ginger zee and senior meteorologist rob marciano both in the storm zone timing this out tonight from florida.