Keep in mind, that in another country (and in the states, even in another city) the clues about the safety of a neighborhood can vary greatly. In Belfast, NI for example, beautiful murals which would seem to an uninformed tourist to be a sign of urban pride are actually a sign of urban warfare. In certain US cities, a clue to a neighborhood's safety is the shop signs changing languages, but in other cities, and in fact, in other neighborhoods in the same city, that means nothing. Without familiarity with Istanbul (and we've discussed that she may not have know as much about the city as more seasoned travelers would), she may simply have though this was a harmless homeless enclave.
