Last night, on San Francisco’’s freezing streets, blond, fresh-faced Shaun Fausz rested aching knees after trudging the piers all day seeking work on boats.

52-year-old Robert, a witty, intelligent African-American, lay under open sky.

Disarmingly intelligent Shalako Brooks curled on hard concrete fighting insomnia with only vodka to help him sleep. He can’’t return home. A crack addict lit his single-room occupancy hotel room on fire. At 8:00 a.m., he had to use the Department of Public Health bathroom “when people were shooting up and passed out in toilets.”

Wheelchair-bound elders waited for dawn sitting in the frigid dark. Women walked all night evading predators.

These and 160 other unhoused men and women were victims of a cruel April Fool’’s joke. The safe haven refuge where they sat all night in chairs was locked and dark.

At midnight March 31, Mayor Gavin Newsom closed for good Buster’s Place, San Francisco’’s only 24-hour non-medical drop-in center.

“A third of the clients who utilized Buster’’s Place were seniors with nowhere else to go,” according to Jennifer Friedenbach, Coalition on Homelessness Executive Director. ““They will be put outside on the cold concrete for the first time in their lives. For many of them it will be, in my opinion, a death sentence” [for people for whom] “the City has failed to find any place to go due to lack of space.”

Supervisors budgeted to keep Buster’’s Place open at its 211 13^th Street location for the balance of the fiscal year. However, a behind-closed-doors decision by the Mayor bypassed the normal budget process. Newsom forced the center to close its doors by March’’s end when he stopped the funding. “The Mayor did a run-around on the legislative process which had already allocated money for Buster’’s Place through the end of the year. “[This] means there is no legislative process,”” said Friedenbach.

The City plans to replace only 40 of the chairs temporarily across the street at 150 Otis and only for men. The reason: 150 Otis has no Ladies Room.

$240,000, the amount needed to run Buster’’s Place for the remainder of this fiscal year, represents less than one one-thousandth of the $338 million in cuts needed to redress the 2007-2008 budget shortfall.

Activists, advocates, and homeless people, questioning the agenda behind the closure, fought hard to keep Buster’’s Place open. On Friday, March 29, 2008, they held a protest sit-in outside the Mayor’’s office. Present was Bobbie Bogan of Seniors Organizing Seniors, Julie Leadbetter of Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, Jackie Jenks of Hospitality House, Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition on Homelessness, James Chionsini of Planning for Elders in the Central City, Alana Greer and Elisa Della-Piana of the Lawyer’s Committee on Civil Rights, James Keyes of the Senior Action Network, many unhoused people, and many others.

The group waited for Mayor Newsom to emerge from his office, explaining his rationale for this drop-in center closure to the homeless people present.

Instead, a heavy presence of Sheriff’’s Deputies in front of the Mayor’’s office barred entrance to anyone but staff or those with appointments.

Shortly, Homelessness Policy Director, Dariush Kayhan appeared in Newsom’’s place, further blocking the group’’s access to the Mayor and attempting to divert the crowd outside to the City Center lawn.

Homeless Coalition members confirmed that Kayhan had “popped into the office” two weeks earlier and “had given his word to try his best to maintain a reasonable drop-in alternative for the many who depended on Buster’s Place.” “Instead, Kayhan “came up with this ridiculous plan” to replace Buster’’s Place with 40 chairs at 150 Otis,” which we all knew wasn’’t going to work. We had nothing further to talk to him about. We needed to talk to the Mayor, the only person who had the ability to remove that cut.””

It appeared to Coalition staff and others not to be Kayhan’’s job, “to “get access to what we need —more drop-in centers. We don’t need things closing down.””

They felt that Kayhan’’s role was “to silence” them, get them away from media attention and “out of the Mayor’’s face.”

One advocate described Kayhan’’s use of “a pseudo-progressive language designed to placate people. “‘Let’’s get together. Let’’s dialogue. Let’’s sit in a circle. Let’’s talk on the lawn. Let’’s do these progressive things you people do.’”’ It is a tactic that’’s “just got a different, greener, more progressive face on it.””

Since before he was elected Mayor on the platform of solving homelessness, Gavin Newsom had a history of running away from or avoiding homeless people and their supporters.

One homeless advocate noted that Newsom ran for Mayor promising San Franciscans he would solve the “homeless problem.” He appears to be accomplishing this several ways:

1. Running the homeless out of town. The Homeward Bound Program, for example, provides a one-way bus ticket to a destination of the exile’s choosing.

2. Limiting homeless services.

   An activist who declined to be identified cited the drop-in center closure as Mayor Newsom’’s continuing defiance of the wishes of homeless advocates and the Board of Supervisors with a pattern and practice of progressively defunding the Department of Public Health with severe budget cuts to the biggest 50 to 60 non-profits.

   James Chionsini called this City’’s closing of vital human services, ““disrespectful, low-intensity warfare against poor people to force them out [by attrition], keeping services from being too comfortable, accommodating, or accessible. That’’s why the shelters are [so bad].” Shelters that treat people well close from lack of funding. “They are trying to make it so uncomfortable [that] they kick the chairs [at Buster'’s Place] right out from under them.”

3. Making it easier for people without homes, chairs, or beds to be ticketed for “quality of life crimes,” like the essential human activities of sitting and sleeping.

4. Progressively reducing homeless shelter capacity. The reduction of 160 chairs at Buster’’s Place to 40 at 150 Otis is just one example.

In a game of musical chairs, the purpose of 150 Otis has already been redefined four times in the last year…

First, this shelter with beds was closed for renovation.

Second, it became a shelter for Golden Gate Park evictees.

Third, HOT, the Homeless Outreach Team maintained a few beds there.

Finally, budget cuts sliced the pie providing fewer and fewer spaces. Buster’’s would relocate across the street to 150 Otis as a men’s-only facility, reduced from 160 chairs (an average of 90 attendees per night) to 40. Amenities like beds have now become chairs.

40 men would be forced to sit in these 150 Otis chairs, while women would be provided “transitional housing.” Based on past experience, however, taking on faith the promised women’’s housing is considered unwise.

On Friday, the Lawyer’s’ Committee on Civil Rights made one desperate last-ditch attempt: They filed a Temporary Restraining Order barring the City from closing Buster’’s Place.

However, on Monday, March 31, the restraining order was dropped. Feeling the other party needed two day’s’ notice, the Judge would not hear the case before Wednesday, April 2. By that time, Buster’’s Place would be gone.

The Coalition’’s Gioioa von Disterlo summarized the feelings of the sit-in attendees:

““If you’’re a woman in crisis in the middle of the night trying to escape an abusive husband or family, there is nowhere for you to go.

“We are pushing more and more people into this situation every day.

“There is a housing crisis out there. People are losing their housing en masse.

“This is a City prone to natural disasters, and people need a place to go.

“This is a City housing some of the most amazing women’’s rights organizations in the country. Why aren’t we looking out for women?

“[What about] our youth, and our people with disabilities and mental health issues going into crisis who need a place to go in the middle of the night?

““I can’t understand how we are stuck in this little argument about keeping this one center open.

““How we are acting like we need to be in a dialogue about Buster’’s being closed?

““How are we not saying, ‘We’re opening more drop-in centers?

“That drop-in center “needs to be open, [with] fifteen more opening right behind it!””

• 

Carol

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