Displacement is not a Solution
When you are tired and need to sit down, you may notice that there is no place to sit on Haight Street other than the Municipal bus stop. At times on a hectic day, these seats are occupied and the only other place to rest your weary bones is the sidewalk. With no other place to call home, many homeless people find sanctuary sitting on these public walkways, minding their own business, occasionally lighting a cigarette.
Despite SFPD Captain O’Leary’s admission that, “police can’t arrest or harass people simply for looking and smelling bad,” there has recently been heavy police and Park Patrol activity in the area, with officers directing homeless people to move on.
By orders coming directly from Mayor Gavin Newsom, homeless people who live in Golden Gate Park have become displaced by local law enforcement, and their property confiscated by the Department of Public Works. This is a clear violation of the law, prohibiting people from having their personal possessions within the Park. Does this mean that a family on a picnic isn’t allowed to have a blanket or backpacks? How about a college student who comes to the Park for some quiet study time? Will DPW and Park Rangers confiscate his or her backpack? Or are our law enforcement organizations “profiling” the people whose belongings they confiscate?
When I was in the Park, I witnessed DPW and Park Patrol illegally remove a homeless man’s possessions. Mayor Newsom claims that he is providing services to homeless people in Golden Gate Park. But what kinds of services are being provided-health, mental, drug counseling, housing? Does this mean that there is finally enough affordable housing available for homeless people?
According to DPW, when your possessions are confiscated, they are tagged and stored at a facility located behind Kezar Pavilion with limited operating hours. Trying to get your stuff back is a long process of tracking down the person who has a key, and identifying your belongings.
But wait: If and when you manage to reclaim your property, DPW starts the process all over if they find you in the Park again. It is humiliating, illegal, and exhausting to be subjected to this continuing cycle of dispossession.
Those few displaced people who have been able to obtain shelter beds have been turned out of a place of security and refuge into a shelter system in which they are treated poorly and occasionally even assaulted by paid shelter staff. Some have expressed their outrage at the lack of security. One individual even told me that he had witnessed someone get stabbed in front of staff who did nothing until someone shouted, “Call 911!”
The right to security of property is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Seventeenth Article of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Freedom from arbitrary arrest is guaranteed by the Ninth Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by the Eight Amendment to the Constitution. When will these violations of our fundamental rights cease? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year?
I say enough is enough. With the help of the community, everyone can get involved. This is the time to raise our voices. There is a message to be heard and a voice which must speak. I urge each and every one of us to write to the Mayor as citizens of San Francisco, California, USA, and practice our First Amendment right of freedom of speech.
Elihu is the Organizer of the Civil Rights Project at the Coalition
Elihu