San Francisco, CA: On Thursday, San Francisco Police Officers said, “The Park is closed, you have 15 minutes to remove your belongings and vacate the premises or you will be arrested… Actually now you have 14 minutes.” Heavily armed San Francisco Police Department, Department of Public Works workers, and Park Rangers arrived at 2 am on Friday, December 19 at the Yelamu (SF) Sweeps-Free comeUnity and announced to over 35 peacefully sleeping houseless, formerly houseless and housed allies that they must vacate the “park” within 15 minutes.
In San Francisco everyone was removed to nowhere in the dark, cold night, including gravely disabled residents who were triggered by the violence.
“This terrifying experience is just another in an ongoing militarized and endless war on houseless peoples’ bodies across occupied Turtle Island. We have nowhere to go, we hide in doorways and bus shelters just to try to sleep, we die of cold exposure, we lose limbs and our minds just trying to stay alive outside and, if we are seen, we are harassed, arrested and terrorized for the sole act of not having access to the lie of rent,” said Tiny Gray-Garcia, formerly houseless, sweeps survivor and co-founder of POOR Magazine and Homefulness.
There were over 35 houseless residents of the sanctuary comeUnity who received healthy, daily meals, clean and warm clothes, medicine, support, writing workshops and inspiration that something else besides endless violence, removal and terror was possible. Mutual aid groups from all across the Bay supported this beautiful, prayerful, poor, and houseless peoples led sanctuary.
On Tuesday, December 17 in response to increasingly violent and relentless sweeps of houseless residents of California, houseless and formerly houseless sweeps survivors along with housed allies and spiritual leaders launched several “sweeps-free sanctuary comeUnities” at City Halls and other public land sites in Yelamu (San Francisco), Huchiun (Oakland), Yocut (Fresno), Tovaangar (Los Angeles) and Sogorea Te (Vallejo) and Chief Sia’hl (Seattle).
In both Huchiun and Yelamu (Oakland & San Francisco) houseless warriors are committed to the beautiful healing sanctuary ComeUnities we have built,
“In Huchiun we have relocated to the parking lot of the Greyhound Bus station and are holding space“ said John Janosko, formerly houseless resident leader of Wood street commons. Oakland Sanctuary remains.
The Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) in San Francisco stated, “Sweeps fracture communities, displace people and damage physical and mental health.”
“Stop the war on the Poor, sweeps are killing us,” Junebug Kealoha, formerly houseless organizer with POOR Magazine and Homefulness.
“We have solutions, they are houseless, indigenous people-led solutions called Homefulness and Wood Street ComeUnity, not sweeps,” said Muteado Silencio, formerly houseless co-founder of Homefulness and Sanctuary resident.
Updates from other locations which launched sweeps-free communities across so-called California
From Tovaangar/Los Angeles: Yesterday we gathered at the site of a former city-run shelter that has since been abandoned and locked up by barbed wire fences where a year ago, our community on Aetna Street was violently displaced. On these vacant, so-called “public” lands we rebuilt our sanctuary community on Aetna Street with our announcement of the San Fernando Valley Homeless Union led and founded by warrior women who lived on Aetna Street. We are fighting for Aetna Street to once again be a sanctuary for houseless people in the San Fernando Valley where community can power free laundry, free showers and provide free clothing and hot meals to everyone in our community.
That evening, we held a community dinner where 200 people came throughout the night to support local street vendors and receive free medical care powered by All Power Free Clinic to build the sanctuary we need to defend our communities from sweeps, raids, displacement and deportation. Six unhoused people die on the streets of LA every day. We are committed to the call of houseless action across CA to reverse the tide and stand with poor and houseless peoples fighting for land liberation everywhere. We are a landless peoples movement! We have the solutions. We are the solutions!
Updates from occupied Duwamish land Seattle: our noon rally was beautiful, and we had 30-40 houseless warriors and housed allies on the steps of “Seattle” Shitty Hall. There was music, food, hot drinks, safer drug use kits, clothes, blankets, sleeping bags. We had speakers from Nickelsville, International League of Peoples Struggle, vehicle residents and WHEELs Women in Black held a moment of silence for our stolen relatives.
From Yocut lands aka so-called Fresno, Dez Martinez formerly houseless founder of Homeless in Fresno and We are not Invisible stated, “Yesterday we met at City Hall lawn. We had prayer then we had four speakers. One spoke regarding the housing elements and lack of affordable housing units. Next, we had the attorney speak on the data of the arrest and the criminalization of the unhoused. The attorney also spoke on the current cases and trials that are now in the courts due to the citations and arrest of individuals for being unhoused. We had a previous unhoused individual speak about the difficulties of surviving the streets and the stress and disrespect that they went through in the shelters. The also discussed the length of time it took for them to get into permanent Supportive Housing.”
She further commented, “We did our chants outside then we went to go walk inside but they took our posters from us. We still went upstairs where we were met by another group of officers and then we went inside the chambers where we met by another group of officers. It was ridiculous to have that amount of police merely for community members wanting to speak up at Board of Supervisors County meeting. We had a few interviews from the media. I brought up the actions of Where Do We Go in Berkeley and Poor Magazine and Wood Street Commons in Oakland. We are joining forces in solidarity for this Liberation Day.”
Thanks for this report, Tiny. In our last installment of our War on the Homeless in San Francisco series, Gale and I left out an important excerpt from the Coalition on Homelessness’ lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco. It’s relevant here: “As such, the court found that unsheltered residents are involuntarily homeless consistent with the 9th Circuit’s holding in Martin. See Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584, 618 (9th Cir. 2019) (ENFORCEMENT IS IMPERMISSIBLE WHENEVER SHELTER IS NOT PRACTICALLY AVAILABLE). Now, I know for a fact that at 2 am SFPD and DPW were not trying to relocate homeless people to a safe and clean shelter or apartment. They pull these stunts at 2 am because no one is out there to videotape them. What burns me up even more is the fact that SFPD bilked city taxpayers for $100 million in overtime pay in 2024 and have the nerve to treat our homeless sisters and brothers in such a disrespectful and overtly violent manner. WHERE IS THE MONEY FOR PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING? Daniel Lurie, we are watching. January 3rd is approaching quickly and we want to see some solutions. Keep fighting! We are with you. In solidarity, Malik & Gale