Trashed lot post HOT team illegal eviction and fencing of unused parking lot @ 750 Golden Gate Ave SF, CA 94102. Along with henchmen DPW, and for some reason The California Highway Patrol...???
Well... To begin, a lot, or not much. Depending upon your point of view, your actual and literal view, your bank balance, or even your job or lack of one...Its a mess. Ones that are in the know(ish) whatsoever can't make much sense of any of it much either.
To recap... There's been a sort of roving group of us. About 3-5 cars with one or two people inside, and around 10 tents with 1 to 3 people inside. These various people are your average everyday vagabonds. They have been slowly shifting around the Margaret Hayward Park area. All in the vicinity of the 800-900 block of Golden Gate Ave loosely grouped or connected. At least by their shared use of probably the nicest bathrooms in San Francisco (for the time being anyways) at said park. This being most likely the reason that we all are even together now in this narrative. Those shiny new bathrooms. Best in all SF.
My partner Jen and I had been parking around this same area off and on over our 2+ years here in San Francisco together. But as of this last experience here since arriving just slightly post covid lockdown, we've been mostly in this area. And so have most of the others I've mentioned, if ever so briefly.
Now, what seems to truly have grouped us together is the CITY'S policy of sending out these roving clean up crews, whose purposes are to clean us out. Move us along at least. And the various vagabonds mentioned so far all got tired of the pathetic promises of housing if we just made nice and moved along. If we just made it easier on them, we'd be on their magical list to housing. But somehow this list never materialized into that. Not for everyone. Certainly not those that my partner and I had witnessed sign right up and move along so many times before.
The Homeless Outta-here Team that forced their way onto our space.
Now I write this from a room. One of the exact ones they'd promised everyone so many times. And only because we must've seemed like more trouble than they were willing to gamble we could have been as they were later trying to clear us from a privately owned vacant lot we'd occupied. I'm getting way ahead of myself. Let me back up and explain this mess if I can. Around Gay Pride weekend several of the aforementioned vagabonds were noticed beginning to post up camp in the back corner of this Lot. And as we loosely knew each other, we spoke a bit and slowly started to migrate there more and more. Not thinking we'd be left alone very long to settle in even close to as much as we usually could get away with just right on the regular sidewalks. Then we started seeing that it was so much better for us together like this. So many, most actually had experienced violence out in our cars tents and doorways. Yet together, somewhat separated from the street, even if just by a quarter centimeter of chainlink fencing. And we started talking. That's all most of it was. Except I started really thinking and researching. And when I put myself to a task, I actually can get going and accomplish significant goals. And I, for a moment, was focused and set in finding a way to stay. Now, there are always the ones in these groups that love to talk, and they usually even know something, but will not actually DO anything that takes more than speaking. I wanted to be inclusive, seeing that as the only way to keep us together. Though never truly believing it factually possible that this very loosely and delicately grouped people could really keep much of anything together for long. The saying, too many chiefs and not enough Indians, definitely comes to mind. I never wanted to ascert myself onto everyone really. Didn't want to force myself onto all these people. Many whom I didn't really know or want to know. And probably couldn't force myself anyways. Part of the issue with all this coming together, was that we were all doing what we'd always done. We'd done whatever was necessary for ourselves to thrive or at least survive. Now we were in a situation that required us to band together much more closely. Requiring us to care about a common cause. This being almost completely foreign to most. Myself and partner Jen, and our closest confederates in this all tried to bring all in somewhat. But the reality was, it required someone that wasn't in our group. Probably that someone would've been very charismatic, a great speaker, appealing to look at, or interesting to look at in some way. Or just have something that drew people in. I'd wished it was me, I even thought how I could make myself into this being. But the voices in my head screamed NO louder and louder each time I contemplated it. Jen, as usual believed in me, and tried to coax me into trying for it at least. But they naysaying voices won as usual. Always keeping me from straying outside my comfort zone. Now, I'm certainly not saying I could have even done much more than I did, but I'm proud of what I did accomplish thus far. Jen and I are in a room. We're settling in. My back is killing me. I'm just still getting used to laying flat after sleeping sitting up in our car for the last 2 plus years. Our comrade Sam ended up in the hospital almost immediately after moving inside. We're still unsure what to do to remedy it. As the medical community here, is of the shuffle ideology as well. They get ya in and get ya out as cheaply and quickly as possible. They were so quick he's still sick. We are all pulling for him. The couple with our youngest group member was culled from within our midst faster than immediately. They got a hotel voucher and as they checked in their car was towed. The timing of this seemingly suspicious to say the least. They'd had to pass the muster of CPS surprisingly unknowingly to the majority of us. I'd seen an interaction with CPS as inevitable, and briefly broached the subject with comrade Richard. But he seemed intelligent and versed in the matter enough, and I didn't really want the task of that all being ok. Didn't want that in my shoulders. I just wanted to make sure they weren't hiding from anything like the Law or whatever. Going so far as to enunciate my intentions to go head to head with authorities and attempt to include the media. They never flinched. So I put it aside as settled. Richard actually was at the forefront of some of the biggest moments of interactions with police and city service officials. He did what was our goal, deflect them all till I could be the mouthpiece to confront them. He and comrade Sam, let's say, have a softer verbal conversation tone than I sometimes come out with initially. I'd spent all my time working on this, all our money we had left on this effort, and all my physical activity went into constantly cleaning and keeping watch over the grounds. It was a learning experience. It was never going to go far. Not without more consensus minded hippie type people's in the group. Again, too many chiefs and not enough Indians. And the chiefs are all high as fuck on crack, meth, and opiates...I guess the failure of this overall effort was that I couldn't be awake 24/7, and wasn't parked in the back corner closest to where the authorities first come physically close enough to make verbal and physical contact. And these people just so happened to be on a different page, and loved to talk. Let's just say, this got them nowhere. They're still outside. They were COUNTER productive in all we tried to do. All I've really got to say about them is, FUCK THEM!, hope they are pleasantly miserable.