Socialist Action /January 1999
Homeless Die on the Streets of San Francisco
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER
SAN FRANCISCO-On the night before Christmas the newspapers reported that
yet another homeless person had been found dead in the streets.
The body of a 47-year-old man was discovered on a parkbench in Chinatown.
The coroner was unable to say as yet whether the man had died of exposure
to the cold. But that was not unlikely, given that temperatures had plunged
to record lows.
For homeless people in San Francisco, one of the wealthiest of American
big cities, the December 1998 cold snap was becoming a life-threatening
catastrophe. There are fewer than 3000 shelter beds for the homeless in
this city-leaving some 8000 to 11,000 additional homeless individuals and
families with no warm place to spend the night.
A half dozen homeless people died in San Francisco in the week before
Christmas. And at least 164 homeless deaths were reported during the year-a
record number since 1987, when the statistics first began to be recorded.
Most of the deaths were related to the abuse of alcohol or drugs; a few
were from AIDS and other diseases; five were suicides. But almost all of
the deaths were hastened by exposure to the harsh winters of this year and
last. The average age of the deceased was 42.
The city has done little to help stem the emergency. Just before Christmas,
more than 1200 people were still on the city's waiting list for alcohol
or drug treatment. And 111 families were on the waiting list for temporary
shelter.
Early in his administration, Mayor Willie Brown declared the city's homeless
problem unsolvable and canceled a summit on the issue. Recently, Brown has
gone to the point of promoting police sweeps against people living on the
streets, in order to attract more tourism and business.
Police have issued more than 16,000 citations this year for offenses
such as "aggressive panhandling" and drinking in public, according
to homeless advocates.
As the temperature dipped into the 30s before Christmas-in a particularly
cold-hearted move-police confiscated blankets and sleeping bags that homeless
people had left on the sidewalks. This was supposedly in response to the
complaints of some merchants that the sleeping gear was interfering with
their Christmas trade.
"I don't understand why they're doing this right now, especially
when it's so cold," said Mara Raider, civil rights coordinator for
the Coalition on Homelessness. "Merchants' rights are more important
than homeless rights."
Why doesn't the city do more to provide decent housing for the homeless
and poor?
It's not that the money isn't available; there is plenty for projects
such as gold-plating the dome of City Hall and tax cuts for businesses.
Booz-Allen and Hamilton, a fancy consulting firm, has just been handed a
$14.8 million Christmas gift by the city to manage the decrepit MUNI rail
system. Critics call this the first step in the "creeping privatization"
of public transit.
Mayor Brown recently told homeless protesters that his administration
was stymied in its efforts to provide more low-cost housing because "land
in this city doesn't exist." He claimed that "whenever I see vacant
land, a vacant place, "I ask Marsha Rosen [the mayor's director of
housing] to see if we can get an option on it."
It is curious, however, that the big developers in this city are finding
little difficulty in buying enough land (at the right price) to construct
dozens of new luxury hotels and office towers.
Why can't the city and the federal government do the same to construct
low-cost housing for the poor and homeless? For government in this country,
and for the big corporations it serves, low-cost housing and other social
programs are simply not a priority. Money is spent not for human needs,
but for private profit.
We need a workers' government, one that really represents the oppressed
and downtrodden, and one that will recognize that decent affordable housing
is a right of all the people!
Socialist Action /January 1999 |