A friend of mine died 24 hours ago. His name is Ian. It was through my role at Homeless Youth Alliance that I met Ian. Because of his past, his history, the circumstances in which he lived, his appearance, and his challenges, many people would say his death was inevitable. But it wasn’t. It was entirely — and infuriatingly — preventable. It’s with him in mind — his life, his dreams, his family, his uniqueness, his struggles, his potential — that I write this today, in a spirit of grief, of devastation, and of rage. I’ll share more about Ian later. But I feel the need to situate his death in a kind of context. And that means I need to say a few other things, first.
Cause and effect: it’s as simple as that. We — our government, our policies, our apathy — created mass homelessness and poverty. This was by design, not happenstance: a consequence of America’s foundational rootedness in race and class inequity. There’s a collective reluctance to admit that America is anything but a level playing field, a land of dreams and opportunity; and since we can’t admit its fundamental flaws, we can’t change them. Generation after generation, we’ve allowed income inequality, stratification, and racial injustice to become the status quo. Although the circumstances that create these conditions are completely avoidable, their codified ubiquity makes them feel inevitable, and even natural. The media contributes to this illusion by perpetuating a false narrative, one I’ve heard ad nauseum, from citizens and policymakers, over the past twenty years of my career working with unhoused and poor people: homelessness is the fault of those who experience it. From the former San Francisco Chronicle columnist who infamously referred to HYA’s syringe access program — a program that saves thousands from fatal overdose, HIV, and hepatitis annually — as “the march of the junkies;” to the newspapers that allow politicians to parrot, unchallenged, the debunked myth that unhoused people flock here from all over the country to take advantage of San Francisco’s (minimal) shelters and food programs; to the policymakers who’ve told me that the people I work with remain unhoused because they’re “resistant to services,” there’s a lot of blame thrown around, and most of it lands on people who are poor themselves. Very little blame lands on the entrenched systems that continue to perpetuate inequality, or the people in power who refuse to consider any solution beyond criminalization and fear-mongering.
Since this pandemic began, I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about how it’s exposing long-buried contrasts between society’s haves and have-nots. I agree, but take issue with the “long-buried” part. It’s always been under our noses; we’ve just refused to acknowledge and address it. What this pandemic has exposed is nothing new; it has simply reiterated what those of us who work with marginalized people have always known: some people’s lives and well-being matter much more than others’. The lives of people who are poor and homeless are not as valued. The lives of people of color, who are always disproportionately affected by public health crises, are not as valued. Back in 2010, a proposition passed that made it illegal to sit on public sidewalks in San Francisco; this ordinance was, of course, selectively and solely enforced- — and still is — against people who look a certain way, and who don’t have the option of sitting inside for one simple reason: for them, there is no “inside.” The illogical nature of this ordinance bears a striking parallel to the Catch-22 unhoused people face now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: they’re being told to shelter in place, even though there is no shelter and they have no “place.” They’re being told to socially distance, even though — until very recently, when a coronavirus outbreak at a shelter caused a scandal — the City was still trying to warehouse them in congregate settings. When it comes to unhoused people, the City follows a predictable pattern: deem certain behaviors (sitting, congregating, camping) illegal or unacceptable, while doing nothing to fix the structural inequities that make these behaviors unavoidable for its most vulnerable residents.
This is the situation many of HYA’s participants find themselves in. For many years, HYA has worked with unhoused youth to meet them where they are, accept them, support them, and bear witness to their lives at every turn: actions that lay the groundwork for youth to shift their trajectories away from long-term homelessness. While on the street, these young people experience regular traumas and high levels of violence; we give them food, hygiene supplies, sleeping bags, tents, Narcan, and the tools to protect themselves and stay safer. After counseling sessions, medical appointments, and encounters with us, they walk away feeling seen, validated, and valued — only to re-enter the world at large, where their belongings are confiscated by police, park rangers and DPW, their lives are threatened, their dogs are shot, and their every move, breath, and bodily function is rendered, by default, illegal. That’s why those of us at HYA watch, with very little surprise, as our political leaders seize the current moment to once again scapegoat people who they wrongly claim are “not from here,” or are “a bunch of drug dealers and criminals,’’ or are “opportunists seeking hotel rooms.” This scapegoating provides a convenient justification for the increased militarization and utilization of our police force to terrorize the unhoused during a global pandemic. Again, our City is choosing to treat homelessness as a criminal-justice issue, not a public health issue. Again, our City is prioritizing enforcement over basic care for those who are most vulnerable.
In national media outlets, our City is being praised for its response to the pandemic: how we issued a shelter-in-place order early, how we refused to take unnecessary chances with our residents’ health. What this laudatory coverage leaves out are the 9,000 people unable to stay home, because they have no home to stay in. These people were left to languish on San Francisco’s streets or in dangerous congregate settings like shelters and SROs. Apparently, there is one standard for the health and well-being of housed people, and another for those who are poor and homeless.
I have to admit my own naivete here. Initially, when I saw how quickly and decisively the City was responding to the threat, I had a brief, misguided delusion — some refer to it as hope — that San Francisco would do the right thing. In short, that the City would do something it should have — and could have — done a long time ago. Something that shouldn’t be seen as radical, but as right: provide shelter for every person who needs it. I am shocked that I actually allowed myself to believe, after decades of witnessing the continued systematic oppression of poor people, that this situation would be any different.
Housing solves homelessness. Period. Demonizing and criminalizing folks does not. We can make excuses — we don’t have enough staff, we don’t have enough support to put people in tens of thousands of vacant hotel rooms, including the empty ones we’re currently paying for — but the truth is this: we don’t have adequate staffing or support for people who are living on the street. So what exactly is the difference? Nothing worse can happen in a hotel that isn’t happening outside of it. If you have the privilege of living inside, you know the feeling of power, safety, and relief that comes from shutting and locking a door behind you. It’s a moment I am grateful for every day. This is not a complicated thing. Overwhelmingly, people do better — mentally, physically, emotionally — when they have a bed, a door, a bathroom, and food. If you have those things, you do not need the same intensive level of services and support, barring serious health issues. You do not need security guards. You just need a physical space of safety and reprieve.
Frontline workers, many struggling to survive on low wages in the most expensive city in the country, are risking our safety and our families’ safety every day, because we are hoping it will get better. We are the ones telling people: the help you heard may exist — the hotel rooms, the stimulus checks, the healthcare, the testing — those things are not available to you. To the City: we are tired of waiting, we are tired of hearing how hard you’re working, we are tired and have been tired, for a very long time, of watching our people die. We are tired of the posts and emails complaining about seeing poverty and the suffering of humans on our streets, and we are tired of your refusal to support any action, short of sweeps and criminal enforcement, to change it. You can’t support any solution that isn’t punitive; you don’t want to be “too welcoming” to the poor. As I’ve heard countless times, from residents and politicians and police, you want more sticks, not more carrots. What I’m asking is this: what is so wrong with supporting all of our people? How is helping people get off the streets not a win-win for everyone’s quality of life? And for those of you concerned about the money this may cost: it’s been definitively proven, over and over again, that housing people is far cheaper than leaving them on the street.
I’ve been told, in the past, that I need to be polite about this. That I shouldn’t alienate the powers-that-be. That I need to advocate for my people, but demurely, and in a way that won’t ruffle any feathers. Well, I can no longer be polite. As a community, we can no longer pretend that these injustices are acceptable, or be fooled into thinking that this is what “progress” looks like. Right now, people are dying, because of the same old broken and stalled system that has been in place for generations- — except now, they’re dying faster, and in even greater numbers. People are literally dying outside of vacant hotels. We should be ashamed.
Which brings me back to Ian.
The heartbreak and rage that the last 24 hours have ignited in me are hard to sit with. The despair and frustration I feel towards the actions and inaction of the City have shifted to a place that feels deeply broken, a place that I’m not sure I can find my way back from. And I am not alone. Other colleagues have already reached breaking points, and others will soon. If you are not seeing this, and if you’re not feeling this, you are not paying attention.
Last night, as I was sitting across the room from a dear friend I had not been able to see since shelter in place began, I received a text. It was 9:13 pm. The text was informing me that Ian “was gone”. I was literally talking about Ian to my friend when I received this text. I know that Ian would have no problem with my sharing with you who he was and what he meant to me. I had the honor of knowing him well over 15 years. I met him so long ago that it was before we used computers to write our case notes. He became one of my greatest teachers in a very profound and unexplainable way. He was a brilliant, generous and incredibly quick-witted and hilarious young person who had come to San Francisco, like people of all economic backgrounds and circumstances do, to seek community, acceptance, adventure, and friendship, as well as refuge from the traumas that some people experience, and others do not. And although I run a program called Homeless Youth Alliance, I continued to work with Ian consistently, until his death, despite the fact that he was 36 when he died. We were both young once, just 4 years apart in age. My life was once quite similar to his. I probably spent more time with Ian than any other participant I have had the honor to work with. I saw him more regularly than any of my closest friends. Over the years, he has been a constant in my life.
I called the person who texted me, and when they confirmed what they’d alluded to via text- — that Ian was dead- — I immediately broke down sobbing. Crying, I called the City’s Medical Examiner- — a number I sadly know by heart- — to confirm what was unfolding. I called Ian’s parents, who I’ve become incredibly close to over the years, and who loved Ian fiercely and with abandon, and broke the news every parent dreads. I apologized for the fact that this was the best San Francisco could do. Then I got in my car and drove over the Bay Bridge, to the corner of Hyde and Eddy. In a tragically beautiful moment, two of my coworkers were also back over the bridge (because technically we are “not from here” as 90% of our staff live in Oakland) for another work crisis, and I asked them to come and support me. I am grateful for the fact that, despite the hard and grueling workday- — and week, and month, and year- — we’d had, they came to meet me without hesitation. My co-workers stood with me as I ID’d Ian’s body, as I cried looking at him for the last time, as I watched him look truly at peace and not in pain for the first time in many years, as they zipped up the body bag and took him away, leaving behind his one possession: a wheelchair. The hospital he’d been discharged from had lost his belongings.
In Ian’s chair, I noticed some papers he had been sitting on. They were his discharge papers from 3:20 pm on the previous afternoon. Ian was incredibly ill, requiring regular dialysis. He’d been hospitalized for three out of the last four months. He had been in a hospital, a place he has received excellent care previously, for the past week. I was his medical by proxy, his social worker, but the hospital “planned” his discharge without consulting me. He called me, sounding incredibly unwell and unable to hold a conversation as we usually do when he is on the mend. He told me they were letting him go in a few hours, but he needed clothing and to see me. He asked if we could meet after my Haight shift in the late evening.
I was alarmed, because he sounded so unstable. I asked him if he’d been offered a hotel room. He had not, so I asked if he wanted one, when he said yes I told him I would get him one and call him back. I had had some minor success getting hotel rooms for a few unhoused 65-year-old Haight Ashbury residents the week prior, and I figured that Ian, given his serious health problems, and his willingness to accept shelter, would fit the limited medical criteria for FEMA-related reimbursement or whatever horrendous justification we’re currently using to deem people worthy of temporary housing. As it turned out, I was wrong, and not for the first time in my work. There were no rooms available, I was told; but more were going to be coming online “soon.”
The hospital had arranged for Ian to be dropped off at a new makeshift encampment downtown. No more than 30 hours later — I suspect it was fewer — he was dead in his wheelchair, on the street, 2 blocks away from where he was dropped off. During a pandemic, during a shelter in place order, during the blinding display of the epic failure of a city to respond to its most vulnerable people.
Ian was deeply loved and supported by his family, who had been by his side for nearly 2 months this year nonstop, who live abroad but were planning on coming back as soon as the Shelter In Place was lifted, and who, even now, are trying to get here but cannot because of travel restrictions. Ian’s life had value. He deserved better. At the very least, he deserved to die with dignity, indoors. His death is not the fault of any one person or any one system, but the culmination of many broken systems, systems that should help, not harm. Ian was not the first person I have known to die on our streets during this crisis, and will most likely not be the last. But his death should challenge all of us to do more, to demand change. The City has the unique power to house every single person in vacant hotel rooms NOW; yet our Mayor has chosen not to. It’s too hard, she says. It’ll require too much security. It’s fiscally imprudent. It will, and already has, set off a mass influx of people from all over the country, clamoring for San Francisco’s free hotel rooms.
Every single one of these excuses is just that: an excuse flimsy, easily disproved, and untrue. Where does my certainty come from? It comes from actually doing this work, on the front lines, against all odds, for over twenty years. It comes from real conversations rooted in dignity and respect with real people experiencing homelessness, every day of my life.
Please, let us shift our focus from blame and excuses to action. Let us do something different. Now is the time to stand up, scream louder, and demand that all unsheltered San Franciscans are placed in empty hotel rooms, so that we can have a fighting chance to stop the suffering and death that we all witness daily. It benefits us all.
We must do better. Together, in honor of Ian, and in honor of every human life that deserves the same dignity and respect and chance to survive, we can do better.
- Mary Howe 4/28/2020
