Earlier this week, just beyond the fence of the former McDonald’s site at Haight and Stanyan Streets, Jeff stood beside his red tent, straightening up his belongings inside. His campsite was marked by an orange traffic cone, a bike, and a white wooden stool.
On the other side of the fence, recently installed portable toilets and water stations stood ready to host San Francisco’s second safe camping site, an emergency response to deteriorating street conditions during the COVID-19 crisis.
Jeff, who declined to give his last name, said, “I’m going to camp there when it opens.”
His plans to get off the sidewalk and into a secure site with food and services might hit a snag. This week, a group called Concerned Citizens of the Haight, led by Amoeba Music owner Joe Goldmark, sued to stop the site.
In a turn of events Friday afternoon, though, Amoeba Music issued a statement, in which it said “mistakes were made” and that the Concerned Citizens of the Haight was no longer being represented by the attorney bringing the case, Harmeet Dhillon.
Barring a reversal from the city or some other court order, as many as 50 campers could join Jeff in coming weeks. The city-owned site, which one day will be turned into 100%-affordable housing, is supposed to be open for three to six months, officials said at a public meeting Thursday night.
That San Francisco is opening safe camping sites at all is a testament to the crushing blow the coronavirus has dealt the city’s homelessness services. To create social distance, officials have shut down 1,400 shelter beds, moving many former residents to hotel rooms. With shelters no longer accepting new clients, street camping has exploded. Tents have increased from 400 to more than 1,100 citywide, according to an official count.
“This is reversing years of work in outreach to get people into shelters,” said former SF Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing chief Jeff Kositsky said at the meeting. Kositsky is now manager of the city’s Healthy Streets Operations Center.
In early May, a group of Tenderloin businesses, residents, and the Hastings School of Law filed suit against the city over rapidly deteriorating conditions, charging that officials were treating the neighborhood as a “de facto containment zone” for homelessness and drug dealing. They wanted the city to do something; a day later, Mayor Breed and Kositsky announced a first safe camping site, now open and operating between the Asian Art Museum and the SF Public Library.
The Haight-Ashbury lawsuit appeared to be different, not least because the plaintiffs hired a top local Republican, who openly supports Donald Trump and has filed multiple shelter-in-place lawsuits against the state of California, to represent them. Amoeba now says the lawyer, Dhillon, “was recommended to us in haste and we took the recommendation without a thorough vetting” and that the Concerned Citizens of the Haight has “parted ways” with her.
Unlike the Hastings suit, the neighborhood group sought to stop the city from addressing a problem, because it doesn’t believe San Francisco will provide adequate services and will not enforce safety standards, including one person per tent.
“Something better than nothing”
The neighborhood’s main merchant association is enthusiastically supporting the tent site. Longtime neighborhood grocer Falletti Foods is supplying food to campers at the site. (One of the largest current encampments, bordering the Department of Motor Vehicles, is across the street from Falletti’s.)
But what of the Haight’s rank and file businesses, some of which are just now emerging from closure? The Frisc went door to door on Haight Street from Masonic to Clayton to find out how they feel about the sanctioned camp site. Reactions were mixed.
They’re already reeling from the pandemic’s economic fallout. Now that restrictions are easing, they are nervous about what comes next.
Wake Cup owner Terry Lee had only been in business since January when she closed down. Her cafe next to Ben and Jerry’s under the Haight and Ashbury street signs reopened six weeks ago; business has dropped 80 percent from its original opening.
Lee said the nearby cluster of campers at Masonic Ave. has been “pretty OK — most of them just stay outside.” The biggest issue for Lee is garbage thrown in her doorway. She’s unsure if the camp site will make a difference.
Naomi Silverman of Mendel’s, a venerable crafts store, motioned toward Clayton St. where roughly 10 people have gathered benches, sleeping bags, chairs, and more. On a recent afternoon, The Frisc witnessed two people there engaged in a nearly incoherent screaming match that brought the intersection to a halt for 10 minutes. Scenes like this are going to be bad for her shop and others as businesses reclaim Haight Street, said Silverman.
The sanctioned tent site is worth a try, Silverman said. “I’m in the camp that doing something is better than doing nothing.”
Cliff Murray, manager of Nice Kicks on Haight between Masonic and Ashbury, supports the safe site because it would be several blocks away, and he thinks his part of Haight would be cleaner. “I don’t mind giving them that designated area, they’ve always sort of had that,” he said, referring to their traditional presence at the entrance to Golden Gate Park. (Murray says his sneaker business is going well thanks to a big online customer base.)
Resolution and power washing
Those more skeptical, like the Pork Store Cafe’s Lynn Fischer, are convinced more campers will come, not just for the sanctioned site but also to replace those who pull up stakes. Fischer, who said she has worked with homeless youth programs in the past, feels conditions are worse now than ever, and that the sanctioned site won’t lure the worst offenders currently on the street.
“I spoke with a person living on the corner at Masonic,” Fischer said. “He says he won’t be going to the camping site. Others probably won’t either.”
The Haight is no Tenderloin, but encampments now dominate a few locations: the intersections of Haight and Masonic (about 12 tents, counted earlier this week) and Haight and Clayton (no tents but a variety of mattresses and chairs); Waller Street near Golden Gate Park (four tents); and two of the sidewalks bordering the Department of Motor Vehicles (about 18 tents).
Once in a while someone will walk in and lie down on the couch at Coffee to the People. “They won’t leave until I call the police,” according to owner Booie Chan.
The plan is to give people at these encampments first dibs at the McDonald’s site, which is under the management of the Homeless Youth Alliance and Larkin Street Youth Services. They’ve been out promoting the site as a place to get off the streets with security, showers, as well as access to health screenings and other services.
The city is barred by law from moving people off the streets without offering a place to go. At Thursday night’s public meeting, Mary Howe, who runs the Homeless Youth Alliance, said “a majority of those folks will be relocating into the camp.”
Healthy Streets Operations Center manager Kositsky, who drafted the plans for these areas, said people will not be forced, but the city will “resolve” the ad-hoc encampments, and after some power washing, put up barriers to keep more people from camping in those spots.
Fights and shouting matches
At Haight and Masonic, Booie Chan has had quite an initiation. She took over the café Coffee to the People in January. She said she always has to move people from her doorway when she arrives at 6:30 am. Once in a while someone will walk in and lie down on her couches. “They won’t leave until I call the police,” she said.
Most people in the new encampment across the street are nice, she said, but in the morning a few of them sometimes get into fights and shouting matches. When asked if a sanctioned site will ease the pressure and reduce the camp from her block, she wasn’t convinced. “It will just bring more people to the Haight,” she said.
Just as they’ve done with their specialized shelters called Navigation Centers, city officials hope the sanctioned camp sites can help move people from the street to better services and supportive housing, said Kositsky on Thursday. He also pledged that the site would be closed by October.
Until then, Silverman of Mendel’s wants San Francisco to live up to its promise. “I’m taking the city at its word that this will be temporary,” she said.
Kristi Coale (@unazurda) is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and radio producer for various outlets, including KALW’s Crosscurrents and the National Radio Project’s Making Contact.