…Is It Still One of America’s Meanest Cities?
Everyone loves San Francisco—even homeless people. Why else would we tolerate the way it treats us? To whatever extent we love San Francisco, our city does not love homeless people back. A recent study by the National Coalition for the Homeless has determined that our fair city of romance, beauty, art, culture, refined decadence, and above all tolerance is outright hostile to many of us. Those of us with any brain cells left don’t need a national research report to know we are catching hell here.
The National Coalition for the Homeless, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a national network of current and formerly homeless people, advocates, service providers, activists, and others committed to the common struggle of ending homelessness in America. Working in conjunction with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty—a collective of lawyers, law students, clerks, and volunteers—they have jointly and in collaboration with others published a series of articles on the criminalization of homelessness. The latest article published this year, “A Dream Denied: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities,” lists the 20 meanest cities to the homeless in America. Our fair San Francisco is on that list.
The criteria used in the formation and rating of cities on the list include the following: “…The number of anti homeless laws in the city, the enforcement of those laws and severity of the penalties, …political climate toward the homeless, …local homeless advocates support for or opposition to the designation, …the city’s history of criminalization measures and the existence of pending or recently enacted criminalization legislation in the city…”
The factors mentioned that earned San Francisco a spot on the mean cities list were several, including a one-way bus fare out of town program that has been quietly promoted and the failure of Care Not Cash to provide adequate housing in exchange for emergency funds, as promised. For many, this political measure, instead of providing housing, has only provided shelter beds, panhandling citations, and jail cells, in exchange for former emergency cash stipends.
The report, which I refer to as the “meanest report” cited local increases in panhandling citations and arrests in 2004 and 2005. These offenses do not directly expose people to arrest, but it is noteworthy that many of these tickets go to warrant, and eventually result in incarceration. The report cites lots of jail time served for multiple infractions. Worse, excessive criminal citations complicate the issuance of numerous benefits and services later.
Persons suffering from addictions or other illnesses were to be diverted from jail to health facilities, according to legislative terms and past promises made to homeless advocates. This is not happening. Research indicates that people with addictive disorders and other ailments are jailed in record numbers despite legislative promises. According to the Department of Public Health, since the inception of the diversion program there has been only one referral of an infirm or addicted arrestee to a health provider.
Finally the report cites the joint efforts of the City and downtown businesses to sweep homeless people out of the downtown area while at the same time purging outlaying parks and remote locations of homeless campers, cruelly and inhumanly leaving many homeless with nowhere to go, to be left alone or to lay down to rest or sleep.
For over twenty years, I have personally experienced homelessness and had to manage all of its dehumanizing consequences. It has been and continues to be an extraordinary journey of expressing humanity and dignity in a society that considers the homeless without either.
I have experienced arrest for the most innocuous offenses that regular citizens take for granted daily: sponge bathing in a public restroom at Cal Train, merely being in Union Square or Cow Hollow, and passively and peaceably communicating with the public from the curbside have all earned me arrest, handcuffs, and trips to the Hall of Justice as an alleged criminal. These are mean acts, to which homeless people are subjected daily.
Despite being subjected to many such mean acts over the last 20 years of homelessness, I keep making excuses for my abuser, like an old fool addicted to love. I still am conflicted by San Francisco’s designation as “mean,” for I know that I could not have survived 20 years on the streets of an inherently mean city. On the other hand, over the past two decades a lot of homeless folks did not survive. God bless them and their sacrifice.
I have received assistance from many wonderful residents and voters who are fully implicated by these findings that San Francisco is dominated by a culture of mean-spiritedness. Therefore, San Franciscans must correct this perception. Decide every time you are asked for your vote: What kind of city do I want San Francisco to be? What am I the gatekeeper of—a flawless, tolerant jewel by the Bay, or one of Americas meanest?
C
