A couple weeks ago, Mayor London Breed (San Francisco, CA) appeared in a debate alongside a number of other potential mayoral candidates vying for public support. Mayor Breed made comments related to the removal of homeless people from city streets. I perceived her carefully chosen words as a clear warning aimed at the homeless population of San Francisco.
The month of August 2024 will usher in the beginning of a San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) operation which seeks to remove homeless people from areas deemed as public property and relocate them elsewhere. As I listened to Mayor Breed lay out her strategy, I heard her say that homeless human beings on the streets of San Francisco will be offered alternatives to their current livings situations on public property. Mayor Breed’s congenial and friendly tone seemed to change instantly when she began discussing what exactly would happen to homeless people if they refused the City’s offer of “help.” All of a sudden the mention of criminal citations and potential jail time were introduced as “options” in order to coerce compliance. Last week, Governor Newsom issued an executive order on how state agencies are to remove homeless encampments. There appears to be a state-wide effort to key in on homeless people.
However, for right now, my attention is on the local effort in the City. I don’t think many of the homeless people on the streets of San Francisco are aware of the potential trauma coming their way. I am pleading with community activists and activists for the homeless to not wait until the last minute to act. First, I believe we must come together and educate homeless people about this eviction operation that is about to hit the streets of San Francisco. Homeless people need to know their rights. A key issue that is often downplayed and ignored is the disregard and blatant disrespect that San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and the City’s Public Works Department (Public Works) have for the personal property of homeless people.
So many times their belongings are confiscated, destroyed, or trashed by those whose mandate is to “protect and serve.” The policy that governs how SFPD officers are supposed to treat a homeless person’s property is “bag and tag.” “Bag and tag” instructs the employees to inventory and label property belonging to homeless people who are being relocated. In order to ensure that the SFPD and Public Works employees adhere to these practices, I strongly recommend that activists and advocates organize disciplined video and audio recording of these imminent street evictions. More than likely SFPD and Public Works will coordinate their homeless eviction street raids in the wee hours of the morning in order to evade public scrutiny. It is imperative that any video and audio recordings be shared with the public at large and with the media by any means necessary. Remember, the best antiseptic for injustice is sunlight.
I recently spoke with Del Seymour, the co-founder of Code Tenderloin and a long-time advocate for the homeless in San Francisco about the imminent street evictions. Del said, “We fully support the ‘bag and tag’ policy. No San Franciscan should lose their personal belongings just because they are unhoused. Many organizations in the City also support the relocation of homeless people from the street to alternative locations that are safe and clean living spaces.”
I also interviewed a long-time resident of the Tenderloin, Jay Bucy. Here’s what he said about how SFPD and Public Works employees view the property of homeless people. Mr. Bucy said, “Homeless people can’t get ahead in this City because SFPD and Public Works keeps throwing all their belongings away. My 56-year-old wife lived on the streets of the Tenderloin for two years. She could never get a place to live because she was constantly replacing the personal property taken from her and destroyed by the City of San Francisco.”
ENRICHING THE EVICTION POLICE
It is common knowledge that the SFPD is understaffed. However, recently the City has proposed a policy which I believe is a gross misallocation of taxpayer dollars. The propsed incentive which is directed toward SFPD employees nearing retirement promises salaries of $400,000 to $500,000 a year per senior officer. I want our readers to read that again and allow it to sink in. Think about the housing that could be built for the houseless in San Francisco with the salaries of just five of these retiring officers. Think about that for a moment.
Ironically, only one member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Hillary Ronen, has spoken out about this wasteful fiscal policy. I want the public at large to take a deeper introspective look at what is unfolding in the City. I leave you with some food for thought.
We at Destination Freedom Media Group know that the State of California has at least a budget deficit of $27.6 billion dollars. We are asking the people: Does it make ethical or fiscal sense to pay a retiring police officer $500,000 per year while turning a blind eye to the mental health and homeless crisis facing our communities?
Lastly, I also leave you with two provocative quotes. The first is from California Attorney General Rob Bonta from an article published on June 11, 2024 in the Davis Vanguard entitled,
AG Bonta Supports Biden Administration Efforts to Reduce Barriers to Affordable Housing for Justice-Involved Individuals”
AG Bonta said, “Reducing barriers to affordable housing is critical, particularly for those in our communities who have experienced interactions with the criminal justice system. Current research shows that these justice-involved individuals — who are disproportionately Californians of color — struggle to find housing, and too often, end up homeless.”
And finally, a quote Adolph Reed, Jr., who wrote an opinion piece in The Nation entitled, “The Liberal Consensus on Homelessness Got Us Here.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/homelessness-grants-pass-liberal-real-estate-market/
This is what he said, “This demonization of homeless people is textbook scapegoating politics. We’ve seen it many times before, directed at other populations, and each time they’re presented as posing a uniquely perilous threat—so no lessons are ever learned. As reprehensible as this assault on the most vulnerable people in our society is, what’s even more disturbing is that it’s now part of a campaign by Trumpists and other reactionary elements to create an appearance of chaos in society, setting the stage for the intended imposition of authoritarian rule and the elimination of all the social protections we’ve won in the past century. Our only hope for avoiding that nightmarish outcome is to expose this for what it is—a right-wing capitalist-class plot—and try to organize among the broad mass of working people to counter it.
Please stay tuned. There will be more to discuss in our follow-up article which will flush out the pros, the cons, and complexities of Proposition 1.
