Robert L. Terrell

October 2007

Robert L. Terrell

Back to Street Spirit…

I knew it was coming.

This morning’s newspaper headlines heralded the establishment of a new city hall assault intended to rid my neighborhood of poor, homeless people.

“S.F. sweeps of Homeless shift south of Market,” blared the lead headline in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The San Francisco Examiner also provided prominent front-page coverage of the upcoming assault, which will be launched within a week.

But the Examiner’s front-page headline emphasized an element ignored by the always-deferential San Francisco Chronicle.

The Examiner’s headline read thusly: “Patrols to move SF homeless away from tourist centers.”

The newspaper stories excitedly announced that teams composed of police officers and social workers will scour the streets of the targeted area in search of homeless people committing minor infractions of the law, known otherwise as “quality of life crimes.”

When such persons are encountered, they will be offered the option of transport to places where they may allegedly acquire shelter, housing and rehabilitative services. Those who decline such assistance will be provided citations. If they are subsequently busted within eight hours, they will be taken into custody.

The overall program is essentially an extension of the major offensive the city administration has been conducting in Golden Gate Park for the past month of so. Approximately 600 citations have been issued to people accosted by city officials in Golden Gate Park.

Here in the South of Market area, which is rapidly being transformed into one of San Francisco’s most popular neighborhoods, hundred of homeless people are now at risk.

Before hyper-gentrification took root here, the homeless people lived in relative peace with the rest of us. There are numerous places for them to hang out during the days, and many relatively sheltered places for them to shelter at night and during the rainy season. Now that they are being specifically targeted, their exceedingly difficult lives are certain to become less stable and more vulnerable.

As indicated, The Examiner article suggests that the city administration is motivated by the desire to make the targeted neighborhood more pleasant for tourists. That is partially accurate.

The opinions of tourists, who provide a major chunk of the income that buoys the local economy, are certainly one of the primary motivations for the administration’s upcoming assault.

But the opinions of many of the new, upscale, breeds of people who have moved into the neighborhood during the past few years are also significant sources of motivation for the city administration. As far as many of these people are concerned, fewer homeless people mean higher property values.

As a result, city officials have been engaged in meetings with local residents for the past year or so, meetings during which a coalition has been established involving community outreach workers, neighborhood watch organizations, business people, homeowners associations and police officers.

City spokespersons are doing their best to describe the upcoming assault in ways that do not provoke the fragmented collection of individuals and groups, which normally advocate for the poor and homeless people. They say they are primarily committed to providing services. But the truth of the matter is that they are willing participants in an ill-conceived, heatless assault whose long-range objective is to get Mayor Newsom re-elected—and to drive the city’s poorest residents out of town.

The Mayor is a clever fellow, with finely honed public relations instincts. He took office claiming that he would make definitive strides toward eliminating the city’s massive homelessness problem His most celebrated tactic for accomplishing this objective was the implementation of draconian cuts in the levels of financial support provided indigent people.

The results achieved over the past three years have been more or less predictable. Many homeless people have been driven from the city. And a few hundred have been provided subsidized housing in decrepit residential hotels. But the roots of the problem have not really been addressed. As a result, San Francisco’s streets, parks and neighborhoods still contain huge numbers of people who survive via boosting, begging, scavenging and the irregular assistance of compassionate strangers.

Given the shallow, public relations-oriented approach that has characterized much of the city administration’s approach to the problem during Mayor Newsom’s term in office, there is little reason to believe that the assault announced this morning will amount to much.

Nonetheless, one thing is certain. The homeless people in my neighborhood are on the verge of being subjected to, harsh, expensive, politically expedient San Francisco-style ethnic cleansing.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) – Police officers and social workers are teaming up to steer homeless people found committing infractions such as littering or blocking sidewalks in tourist areas toward social services.

Starting this week, the teams will patrol about 15 blocks of the city’s downtown looking for people committing so-called “quality of life crimes.” They will be taken to places where they can get shelter, housing and rehabilitative services, according to the plan spelled out in a memo from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office.

But if the homeless person doesn’t agree, he or she could receive a citation and be asked to show up in court. If they’re caught committing a similar infraction within an 8-hour period, they could be taken into custody, according to the plan.

The idea is to take to the streets recent successful efforts to connect homeless people found in Golden Gate Park with services, said members of Newsom’s administration.