Pushing Homeless People Away
Once a week for the past six months 44-year old Francisco, who didn’t want to give his last name, has been coming to the UN Plaza from his one bedroom Mission district apartment to sell items he gets from his family to make money to pay the rent.
“I’m broke, I don’t have any money,” he said. “I need money to pay my rent.” But lately, it has been harder for him and the other homeless and low income people who sell items at the Plaza because police officers from the Tenderloin Police Station and the Federal Protective Service have been increasing their patrols in the area, stopping street vendors from selling and making money.
“Sometimes they give you a tickets, sometimes they don’t,” he said about the police. “It depends on the officer.” For Francisco it is very hard even though he works five days a week to pay the $290 needed to keep his one bedroom apartment, so on Sundays the father of two sells items to make up the difference. But selling at the Plaza is becoming a hardship.
Francisco say he needs to clear at least $40 to take home, so when he gets a ticket he has to use some of that money to pay it off. He said that he gets the things he sells from three other family members, who don’t want any of the cloths, shoes, and other items he sells.
42 year old Lucien, selling women’s wear, has been a street vendor for two years, and he still doesn’t understand why the police come out and tell them to stop selling. To him, “It’s a waste of their time.” He continues to say that on days when the cops come there he’s lucky if he makes $10 a day for something to eat. “I’ve never made enough to get a room,” he replies when asked. “You might make five, ten dollars — then the police run you off, then ten more. Some times you don’t make that.”
Like Francisco he hasn’t been cited that day, but he said he doesn’t pay them and has gone to jail for not paying them, “I rather do the two days.” While STREET SHEET was talking to Lucien a Federal patrol car with two officers it drove up and over the loud speaker one of them said, “OK, people… let’s pack it up!”
Everyone who had sale items on the ground picked up their stuff and put then in bags, boxes, and shopping carts, but none of them left the area. “They need a permit to sell stuff in this city, and they don’t have a permit,” said the officer. When asked if he know that some of the people were trying to pay rent and get some food he said, “We don’t care,” and sped off before STREET SHEET was able get his name or badge number.
It was fifteen minutes later when the vendors started returning items to the pavement for sale. Selling his stuff out of a shopping cart out in front of Carl’s Jr., Ismaeo Baca, 42, said that he is homeless and has been for over six years. He gets the stuff that he sells from people who try to help, and from the dumpsters that SRO hotels use to dispose of former tenant’s abandoned property.
“They say that its illegal (to sell on the street), but what choice do we have? We’re dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t,” observed Baca. He said that he makes $30 to $50 a day, depending on what he’s selling.
Last year he got 13 tickets from the police. “I don’t try to get rich,” Baca insists. “I don’t get lot from doing this.” Like every vendor STREET SHEET interviewed for this story, he told us “Sometimes they [the police] are real buttheads.” For Baca, selling items on the street is the safest way to make money that he can think of without getting into much trouble. Baca said he has done time in prison for selling drugs and although he feels he still could, “I don’t want to do that. I can’t get GA because I have a felony conviction, so I sell stuff. It’s not hurting anybody.”
While speaking with him three SFPD officers on bikes rolled up, ordering the vendors to “pack it up.”
“They are not allowed to sell. If they do, we have to cite them for park and police code violations,” said SFPD officer J. Conway, who declined to give his first name. “Or they could take their stuff and leave, which is just fine because it solves the same problem.”
Officer Conway wouldn’t answer any more questions, and finally rode away. The officers rode around and around for two minutes in the Plaza before leaving the area.
“It seems the police selectively enforce the law to move the homeless people out, when homeless people should have the right to vend without a permit.” remarked John Viola, staff attorney for the Coalition on Homelessness. “It’s not like people who have garage sales need to get a permit.”
“I don’t think that’s the smartest use of the City’s resources,” says Supervisor Chris Daly. “I’m OK with it as long as they’re not blocking the sidewalks.” But the District Six Supervisor didn’t have any answers on how to end the stalemate between the police and the homeless and low income vendors at the Plaza.
Adrian