“I Look at Them Like My Execution”

by TJ Johnston

“This is not the same city I can remember,” Elaine, a self-styled preacher, told a crowd of around 100 people at an April 21 press conference in the Mission District. “The way I was kicked out was terrible. I paid my rent on time. I was evicted when I was in the hospital.”

To say that San Francisco has changed in her lifetime would be an understatement. Recently displaced from the Division Street encampment in March, Elaine told the crowd — with a mural reading “Housing Is a Human Right” as a backdrop — about City officials confiscating her medication, makeup, clothes, and instructional materials during the sweeps.

Elaine, an African-American elder who moves in a wheelchair, has been on the streets since 2010. She recently relocated elsewhere in the South of Market neighborhood, ministering to her fellow camp residents and holding Bible study sessions over coffee at a nearby Peet’s. She spends $100 out of her disability check on whatever her neighbors might need.

Homeless camp dwellers had already seen enough disruption before April 7, when San Francisco police officers shot Luis Góngora to death in a 30-second barrage near his encampment on Shotwell and 18th streets. In response, Mayor Ed Lee ordered the camp’s disbandment. Elaine said that her son knew Góngora, and that the shooting was unnecessary.

The Coalition on Homelessness, which publishes the Street Sheet, organized the press event in front of a mural at Clarion Alley, just four blocks away from where the shooting happened.

The police narrative, so far, maintains that Góngora brandished a knife that day, although at least eight witnesses dispute the police account.

People living in encampments are almost guaranteed to have some sort of police interaction, according to the Coalition’s 2015 report Punishing the Poorest. Compared with homeless people in other living arrangements, campers are forced to move from public space most often and are most likely to receive multiple citations for status offenses: the act of setting up a tent on the sidewalk is a misdemeanor. More than half of homeless people surveyed report being searched.

Two days after the press conference, Elaine told the Street Sheet about the profound impact Luis Góngora’s shooting had on her family: Her son, who was living at the Shotwell camp, knew Góngora. To her, the police gunning him down upon arrival at the scene was unnecessary, and it incensed her husband, Emmett.

“My husband can’t forget or forgive what they have done,” she said.

Because she worries about theft, Elaine carries Mace for her own protection. Also, Stephanie Grant, who lived in the Shotwell camp, told the San Francisco Chronicle, “Everyone carries something for safety.”

After she lost her housing, Elaine’s once-favorable attitude toward police changed. Before, she could call on police if she she was endangered. “Now I look at them like my execution,” she said.

Also, more seasoned officers might cut her fellow campers some slack, but Elaine said that she can’t count on newly minted officers to do the same. “The new ones treat us like garbage,” she said. “They’re like barbarians. They have no compassion.”

She added that police are more respectful to housed people, such as the ones who live in market-rate condos in the Fillmore District. “Nobody gets beaten down. Here, they come out in full force.”

In addition to the heavy police scrutiny placed on them, Elaine said, homeless people are also maligned in the media. She cited as an example the Department of Public Health order used as a pretext to break up the camps on Division.

“They said it’s a health hazard, but it’s a lie,” she said, adding that camp residents are blamed for others’ garbage that is dumped near their tents.

Despite pressure from City officials and her assorted health issues, Elaine remains undaunted in asserting the human rights of herself and all homeless San Francisco residents.

“They treat us like we don’t exist, we don’t have a voice or have a right to say this and be a people,” she said. “We will not give up. Be prepared, stay strong and hear our voice.”

Originally published in Street Sheet, May 1, 2016