[HPN] Christmas Homeless Takeover in San Francisco

[Coalition on Homelessness, SF]

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As promised, Tom.

peace,
chance
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Christmas Homeless Takeover in San Francisco

By Michael Steinberg

2000 years later, the average monthly rent is $1100, a house in the 
Haight costs a very uncool million, and there’s still no room at the 
inn in San Francisco. There are over 15,000 homeless people wandering 
the city, and only 1500 shelter beds available. On the last December 
21st of the decade, one hundred some of us gathered in Civic Center 
Park, directly across from City Hall, to remember homeless people who 
had died on the mean streets of San Francisco during the final year 
of the century. A mournful bell tolled after each of their 169 names 
was read. When someone asked if we knew of others who had suffered 
such deaths over the year, 8 more names were called out into the 
gathering darkness. These were the largest annual number of such 
deaths in San Francisco since people began keeping track in the late 
‘80s. In 1998 157 homeless people died on the streets, in the alleys, 
under the freeway overpasses, sprawled in front of opulent doorways 
across the city. In the wee hours of the last Christmas of the old 
millennium, 7 people gathered on Haight Street in San Francisco. 
Armed with bolt cutters and a burning desire to escape the cold 
hearted dot com attitudes that have invaded the city of Saint Francis 
in recent years, they made their way to a vacant 2 unit building at 
715 Page Street in the lower Haight. There they cut the chain baring 
the homeless from entry, went in and made themselves at home. Santa 
woulda been proud. These significant 7 were homeless folks and 
activists in Homes Not Jails (HNJ), which has been opening up vacant 
buildings all over the city with and for homeless people since 1992. 
The building at 715 Page Street has been abandoned since its owner 
died 10 years ago. After sitting empty for 3 years, Homes Not Jails 
discovered and opened it up. Homeless folks moved in, cleaned up and 
secured it, and maintained a continuous household for over 5 years. 
Under an obscure provision in California law, people who occupy an 
abandoned property for 5 years and pay off property taxes owed can 
then claim the property as their own. This is called adverse 
possession. After that 5 year period had passed, Homes Not Jails paid 
the delinquent taxes and then filed a lawsuit claiming legal title to 
the property. To celebrate this milestone, HNJ held an open house at 
715 Page on New Year’s Day of 1999. Police responded by raiding the 
house, arresting 7 people inside, and chaining it shut. The seven 
revelers were charged with felony conspiracy to trespass and held in 
jail for several days, but were never prosecuted. Homes Not Jails is 
suing the San Francisco Police Department for false arrest over this 
incident. The adverse possession lawsuit was scheduled for trial in 
early December ’99. But the City Attorney’s office, which is opposing 
the lawsuit, requested and was granted a postponement of the trial 
until August 2000. This move in effect legally mandated that the 
building at 715 Page Street be kept locked up and empty while more 
people than ever were dying on the streets of San Francisco. So Homes 
Not Jails decided to take direct action to open the building back up 
on Christmas. At an afternoon press conference, alternative media and 
all the major TV stations showed and were given a tour of the 
building. KCBS radio sent a reporter as well, and subsequently ran 
the action as their top story all that day and into the next. The 
city’s daily newspapers, the Chronicle and Examiner, were conspicuous 
by their absence. During the press conference, a few yuppie neighbors 
hurled verbal abuse at Homes Not Jails and then called the cops. When 
the cops showed HNJ locked the front gate, baring the cops from 
entry, and showed the head cop legal papers from the adverse 
possession suit claiming ownership of the building. The cops were 
taken aback and withdrew, but returned 2 days later, after the 
holiday weekend ,when the City Attorney’s office unleashed them. But 
when they broke into the building this time, Homes Not Jails had 
already gone. Not, however, before demonstrating that vacant 
buildings around the city in general, and the one at 715 Page Street 
in particular, should and will belong to the ones on the streets, in 
the alleys, under the freeway overpasses, sprawled in doorways across 
the city.

Michael Steinberg has been active in Homes Not Jails since 1992. 
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				Michael Steinberg
					1009 Burch Ave
					Durham, NC 27701
					919-489-8956
					blackrainpress@hotmail.com

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