Dialogue Dreams

I have been writing a lot, but posting little.  My emotions have been stirred up by so many things that are happening in the media around populations that I care about, and I don’t want them to cloud my ability to have a conversation.

The media craze over the homeless issue in San Francisco is huge and complex.  Over the next several weeks, I hope to examine and dissect some of the arguments being thrown around…

I really hope there can be constructive discussion, and careful analysis, and I really hope that we can all be willing to work.

Senior and Disabled Tenants Defend Their Mission Home

(This was written several weeks ago, but I found it floating around in my drafts. )

It was several months too soon for the sidewalks to be wet from a morning rainstorm. Despite unseasonal wetness, there was a crowd in front of a building just off of 26th Street and Treat Street in the Mission District.
In the window of one of the buildings was a hand-made sign saying, “Stop our Ellis Act Eviction,” while a couple of people pinned a much larger sign to the outside of the building. The sign was made of brown felt cloth, and in pink and orange lettering said, “Comite de Vivienda San Pedro, Sirviendo a la Communidad Hispana de San Francisco. (St. Peter’s Housing Committee, Serving the Spanish-Speaking Community of San Francisco).
Two elderly women appear on the front doorstep to the buildings at 1268-1298 Avenue to face the crowd of supporters. One woman, Luz Moran, 76, in a brown leopard print jacket over cream-colored shirt and brown pants, and simple shoes, stands in front of Maria Moran, 92. Maria Moran, wearing a white polyester dress with red polka dots, and a green button-down sweater vest supports herself against the rail of the front steps. Both Luz Moran and Maria Moran have lived in this building for over 35 years.
Another woman helps Consuello Orellana into a folding chair next to Luz and Maria and hands her blue oxygen tubes to hook into her nose. Orellana has lived in this building for over 38 years.
Lupe Arreola, 29, of the St. Peter’s Housing Committe, spoke and translated for the crowd in front of their homes. “Thank you for supporting these women who are strong, and fighting their eviction.”
By December of this year, the women standing on the steps, are supposed to be gone from the building that has been their homes for the past several decades .
According to a press release put out by the Mission Anti-Displacemnet Coalition, the owner of 1286-1298 Treat Street, Gregory McDowell, bought the building three years ago. When he applied to subdivide the building into three lots, the tenants fought and won.
This victory as short-lived, as their Ellis Act Eviction came in December of 2006. According the the San Francisco Tenant Union’s website (www.sftu.org) the Ellis Act is “a state law which says that landlords have the unconditional right to evict tenants to ‘go out of business’…While there are restrictions on ever re-renting units, there are no such restrictions on converting them to ownership units.”
Is McDowell going out of business?
It seems to be quite the opposite.
Momentarily pulling the oxygen tubes from her nose, so that she could speak into the megaphone, Orrellana said, “We have suffered a lot of violence in this community, but the worse violence is for [McDowell] to come in and say,’I want your building because I can make some money off of it.’”
Frank Romero, 32 grew up in this building. Pointing to the freshly painted sage green and cream front of the building he said, “The landlord has cosmetically cleaned up the building on the outside but has neglected the inside.”
Luz Moran grabbed the megaphone. “What is going to happen if one of us dies? Who is going to be responsible for us?” said Moran, holding back tears with a tight, angry face.
The San Francisco Rent Board’s Annual Eviction Report showed 246 of 1,476 reported evictions to be due to the Ellis Act in 2006. Under the Ellis Act, people who are seniors (age 62 or over) or disabled have 1 year prior notice to their eviction. The residents of 1286-1298 Treat Avenue plan to stay and fight their eviction.
People gathered today in support of their fight to stay, carried signs saying, “Stop Evictions,” “Silence = Consent.” and “Landlords: would you throw your own parents or grandparents out in the streets?”
Why won’t they comply with these legal evictions?
Romero stated, “Our building is composed of low-income tenants, seniors and disabled people, most of whom have lived there over 30 years. We have lived through poverty in our neighborhood and we have bonded with our neighbors and have made this building on Treat Avenue our home and community.”

For more information, visit:

ttp://techforpeople.net/~housingcommittee/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=39

Poop Privilege

 

Its easy to complain about poop on the sidewalk if you have someplace where YOU can go to poop.

Recently, during an outreach shift, a woman living in the streets started crying about the conditions with which she lives. She pointed to a public toilet less than a block away and said it hadn’t been working properly for a month. If someone tried to use it, the cleaning system would come on and the person would get sprayed. She hated the fact that she was forced to use the alleyways as a toilet. Its so humiliating, the conditions under which she lived, and the daily humiliation which comes in so many forms –from cops, and home-owners, to public toilets that don’t work, was also depriving her of any hope for a better existence.

 

The Chronicle has been rallying against homeless people with an onslaught of articles targeting syringe exchanges, while supporting street sweeps and the victims of ‘quality of life crimes.’

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/09/MN9RSMAJ9.DTL

 

Liberals are angry because the people they have effectively ignored when walking down the sidewalks of the Mission, SoMa and Tenderloin are getting to be too much for them.

 

They are complaining about the poop on the sidewalks, and the fact that they have to contribute to organizations who serve the homeless. People are angry because they can afford to buy the high-priced homes which often formerly housed working class families, and though they don’t have to see the people who were forced out by real estate, they still are forced to see that their actions still have consequences on people –the people in the streets who have been failed by the very system that allows for some people to buy those expensive San Francisco homes.

 

The new residents of San Francisco are tired of being faced by their consciences. Instead of contributing to organizations that do some small amount of something about the homeless, they would rather have laws that require people on the streets to go somewhere else.

 

When someone does not have a home, and shelter conditions are far from ideal, and they are not allowed to rest any one place for very long, how do you think this is going to affect that person? And then if you take away funding from the places who are giving them some options- giving them a place to go for a while, a little bit of health care, warm meals, safer methods of living their lives – you are going to make things much worse for that individual.

 

And if you don’t want to think about the individuals living in the streets, at least think of how that affects the community. Creating more tension between the privileged and the less privileged will create more violence, more disease, and more general social unrest.

 

 

The city is not offering great options either. Services are great, but are service providers respectful? Maybe there are reasons why people would not want to go with street-sweeping outreach workers. Maybe these are not respectful, safe options for people living in the streets. Who would willingly want to go to jail? Who would willingly work with the police, if they get harassed by the police on a daily basis. And can city service providers provide solutions for the huge problems which lead up to someone living in the streets?

 

There are larger social justice issues at stake. And they are not easily remedied by jails, or by rounding people up and moving them somewhere else. There are huge societal factors that lead up to the problems of homeless. Perhaps if there was sufficient, quality, housing available for everyone, perhaps if there were respectable, living wages and work available to everyone, perhaps if everyone were fortunate to live a life in a world free of racism, classism, homophobia, and transphobia there would not be people puking on themselves outside of your home, or pooping behind your car.