Homeless Smackdown in Golden Gate Park

Published in Street Spirit, September, 2007

San Francisco’s current contretemps regarding homeless camps in Golden Gate Park is exposing important shortcomings in the city’s effort to eliminate chronic homelessness. The basic problem is that municipal officials have never really come to terms with the magnitude and complexity of the overall problem.

The Golden Gate Park fiasco, which has produced additional stress and suffering for the homeless people immediately involved, clearly illustrates the point.

The current upsurge of critical municipal attention was focused on the park’s numerous, chaotic encampments by a series of irate articles printed this August in the normally somnolent San Francisco Chronicle. The somewhat sensational articles, which were characterized by a tone of astonished indignation, decried the squalid conditions in the chaotic camps.

The prominently featured articles devoted particular attention to the size of the camps, their rumpled residents and the haphazard circumstances of their lives. The articles also provided long, detailed commentary on the alleged dangers posed by the camps by highlighting the presence of discarded hypodermic needles, and other refuse dangerous to unwary park visitors.

Unsurprisingly, the articles generated a minor firestorm of critical commentary by residents and municipal officials. The majority of the respondents expressed disgust with conditions in the park, and many called for the use of harsh measures intended to make life in San Francisco so miserable for homeless people that they will slink from town in search of less hostile places of refuge.

The articles also generated a flood of letters to the Chronicle’s editorial pages. The majority of those who chose to provide their opinions on the matter via this particular bully pulpit were hostile to homeless people in general, and those residing in the park in particular.

Few of the letter writers acknowledged the logic and anguish expressed by the homeless man who plaintively asked: “What do they expect us to do, float in the air?”

None of the Chronicle articles responded to the question in any manner that might reasonably be considered fair, balanced or socially responsible.

Regarding homeless people, Chronicle staff members apparently believe their function is to serve as journalistic attack dogs for the city’s “beautiful people.”

The fact that homeless people have to sleep somewhere does not appear to be a dimension of reality that disturbs them.

Unsurprisingly, the sensational articles provided abundant cover for city officials to pull out their tough-love truncheons and descend on the unprotected and undefended homeless squatter camps.

As has been the case on numerous occasions in the past when the local news media have focused sensational reportage on homeless squatters in Golden Gate Park, and other iconic municipal locations beloved by the local gentry, municipal officials announced their intention to eliminate the squatters camps, clean up the areas where they congregate, and re-evaluate the city’s needle exchange.

Crews of workers were assigned the task of dismantling the camps, and dispersing their destitute residents.

Unfortunately, we have been treated to the same scenario on many previous occasions. Those with socially responsible memories can easily recall several similar episodes during the mayoral administrations of Art Agnos, Frank Jordan and Willie Brown.

Mayor Agnos left office under a cloud of criticism because his administration proved incapable of dealing effectively with the problem of chronic homelessness.

Mayor Jordan used aggressive police tactics to roust the homeless people in Golden Gate Park and other sections of the city. But he proved little more effective in dealing with the homeless than his predecessor.

Mayor Willie Brown took office promising to definitively improve the city’s handling of homelessness. But his promises proved to be little more than empty words, and the problem grew larger during each of his years in office.

As a matter of fact, Mayor Brown lost significant credibility and support in the aftermath of comments that indicated he was blissfully unaware that thousands of people resided in Golden Gate Park squatters camps and other secluded locations.

Brown’s successor, Gavin Newsom, assumed office amid much fanfare regarding his claim to be in possession of a plan to fundamentally reform San Francisco’s approach to its burgeoning homeless populace. The less-cash-more-tough-love approach of the Newsom administration was based on the dubious notion that the back of homelessness in San Francisco could be broken by intensively focusing on a core group of approximately 3,000 chronically homeless individuals.

Crews of city workers were assigned the task of ridding the city’s public spaces of homeless people. Particular attention was devoted to the downtown commercial district, including the Market Street corridor, the Tenderloin, the Embarcadero, Fisherman’s Wharf, and other prominent locations frequented by tourists and well-heeled residents.

Mayor Newsom’s plan has included draconian cuts in the amount of financial assistance provided to homeless persons, and the promise of counseling and subsidized housing in decrepit residential hotels located in the seediest sections of town.

Sympathetic press coverage by the Chronicle, and other organs of the local press, routinely focus on the Newsom administration’s monthly photo ops, during which homeless people are assembled to have their ails documented while their feet are massaged and washed by community volunteers.

Meanwhile, hundreds of homeless people have been given one-way bus tickets out of town. Thousands of others have been removed from the streets and ensconced in decrepit facilities located in nether regions of the city where few mainstream municipal residents ever venture.

Unfortunately, there is little reason to believe that the current tactics of the Newsom administration regarding the city’s thousands of homeless residents will have any more long-term positive impact than those of his immediate predecessors.

This is primarily due to two facts. The first is that there is no municipal solution to the nationwide problem of chronic homelessness.

The second fundamental shortcoming in the Newsom administration’s approach to chronic homelessness is that it does not devote sufficient attention and resources to the reasons people become homeless in the first place.

Until these two shortcomings are addressed in a responsible, comprehensive fashion, the problem will not only continue to exist, it will grow more serious.

Moreover, destitute, homeless San Francisco residents will continue to furtively establish camps in Golden Gate Park — because they are unable to float in air.
The Chronicle Sinks to a New Low on Homeless Coverage ›