Viewpoints on SF's Sit/Lie Proposal

Residents split over controversial measure likely to be on November ballot
By: Scott James

This week’s column tells the story of Thomas, a San Francisco man who says his eyes were nearly gouged out by a homeless “street punk” during a fight on Haight Street. The incident outraged the neighborhood, and many consider it the tipping point that led to a grass-roots movement, which has culminated in a proposed sit/lie ordinance.

Sit/lie will most likely be on the ballot in November. The measure would make it illegal in many circumstances to sit or lie on sidewalks. Advocates say it will be a new way for police to remove troublemaking homeless people from public areas. Critics say it criminalizes poverty and will encourage the harassment of people who are down on their luck.

Thomas, in spite of his experience, doesn’t support the proposed ordinance. Here are some other views to consider:

Arthur Evans

Resident of the Haight

Having lived at the corner of Haight and Ashbury for 35 years, Arthur Evans has witnessed more of the neighborhood’s evolution than most people. A dapper, eloquent author of books that grasp big ideas like philosophy, religion and countercultures, Evans, 67, explained the problem succinctly: “I don’t feel safe walking down Haight Street at night.”

It wasn’t always this way. He said in the past year and a half, the streets have witnessed an influx of young homeless men and women who migrate along the West Coast. They sleep in Golden Gate Park at night and bully passersby on the sidewalks by day.

“These are not the flower children,” Evans said. “I call them skinheads with long hair.”

He said he has watched them prey upon women, the elderly and men they think are gay. They intimidate with pit bulls, demand money and spit in the faces of those who won’t pay.

“It’s the geography of incivility. This is a turf struggle.”

Evans believes sit/lie will make it difficult for the street denizens to claim the sidewalks of the Haight as their turf. He does not expect it to lead to arrests or clog the courts. To the contrary, he thinks the troublemakers will move out, rather than risk confrontation with police.

A sit/lie ordinance is “not a panacea – it’s just a little bit of help,” Evans said.

He chided those who oppose sit/lie and spin it as a reversal of San Francisco values. Evans said he doesn’t think the proposed law indicates a political shift to the right or a growing antipathy toward the homeless.

“This is a progressive issue. We are trying to save a neighborhood.”

Violet Blue

Writer and Former Homeless Teen

From age 13 to 16, Violet Blue lived on the streets – she was one of those homeless punk kids on Haight Street. At night, to protect herself from predators, she’d climb up fire escapes and catch a few hours of sleep on people’s roofs.

“No one three years old says they want to grow up and be homeless,” she said.

Fleeing a drug-addicted mother, Blue said the Haight was a safe haven for homeless girls, different from the Mission or the Tenderloin where the young homeless often end up in prostitution. “If you’re a girl, there’s little pretense for sex work in this neighborhood,” she said over coffee at the Blue Front Cafe on Haight.

“There’s a lot of shame in being homeless.” She said living on the streets is exhausting because you can’t stay in one place for too long. And you become painfully aware that you are one of the have-nots, surrounded by those with normal lives and possessions. “You get really angry that people have these things,” she said.

With the help of a couple in Santa Cruz, Blue got a job and eventually made it off the streets. She became a successful author – her first book was published in 2001 – and a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She has even appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Blue believes sit/lie won’t work, and might even make the situation worse.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s going to do anything to solve the random acts of violence,” she said. “Sit/lie is basically making people go elsewhere.”

Neighbors “want the problem to go away. I think people are just tired of the problem not being solved,” she said. “But something like this is going to backfire. You’re chasing people out into the suburbs – into [Golden Gate Park], into the Sunset, into South Beach, into Potrero. The longer-term cost to this will be greater.”

Ted Loewenberg

President of the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association

A retired IBM employee, Ted Loewenberg, 62, has lived in the Haight for 22 years. He’s always seen homeless people in the neighborhood, but he said the young drifters who have arrived in recent years are different.

“These guys colonize the street corners” to block people from passing, Loewenberg said. “It’s a tactic to give them an excuse to get in your face.”

He said police have been told they can’t intervene unless a formal complaint is filed. But filing a complaint involves being identified, which residents are hesitant to do for fear of retaliation from what Loewenberg calls “street thugs.”

“This has nothing to do with homelessness – it has to do with threatening behavior,” he said.

Loewenberg had hoped that city leaders would act on the problem, but when they failed to do so, a grass-roots movement was born. “Unfortunately, the people had to step in.”

But he has no delusions about what happens next. If sit/lie ends up on the November ballot, the divisive issue will set San Franciscans against each other.

“It’s going to be an ugly campaign,” he said.

Police Capt. Teresa Barrett

Park Station

When the district attorney’s office decided not to file charges against Thomas’ alleged attacker, the police did not give up.

Instead, they set up a sting to see if the alleged assailant would strike again. Thomas said he agreed to be the bait and walked down Haight Street while undercover police officers waited nearby, ready to make an arrest if another incident occurred. But the investigation was scuttled when the undercover police were apparently identified by a group of street kids, according to Thomas.

You can hear the frustration in her voice when police Capt. Teresa Barrett, whose jurisdiction includes much of the Haight neighborhood, talks about this issue.

“I don’t like seeing anyone getting victimized in my district,” she said.

Barrett believes the proposed sit/lie ordinance would make a difference. She said the young homeless people causing the problems are not locals who are down on their luck. “These people that come to the Haight are transients.”

She said the new law would send them a message: move on.

“Jennifer”

Mother, Resident of the Haight

Jennifer – not her real name – asked to use the pseudonym because she was concerned about the consequences if her identity were to be widely publicized.

A 30-something new mother who has lived in San Francisco for 11 years, Jennifer was pushing her 1-year-old son in a stroller to go shopping at the Haight Street Market when she was confronted on the sidewalk by someone she said appeared to be a homeless street kid. He asked her for money.

She said, “Sorry, not today,” in the chipper voice that is her nature. The teen turned to the stroller and spit on the child’s chin and chest.

In shock, not knowing what to say, Jennifer quickly walked away. As soon as she could, she cleaned off her son.

“When a baby gets spit on for no reason – or for any reason, for that matter! – I think it represents a real loss of human spirit,” she said.

Her story is one of the anecdotes repeatedly shared as evidence of the need for a sit/lie law. Had that teenager not been allowed to loiter on the sidewalk, proponents reason, the confrontation would not have happened.

Jennifer says she can’t understand politicians who oppose sit/lie. The Board of Supervisors rejected the proposed law this week, which is why there’s a move to put it to a public vote this fall.

“We have gotten to the point where we have public officials defending the ‘right’ of people to intimidate, harass, assault, trip and spit on people and to leave behind a trail of human waste in their wake,” Jennifer said.

“I personally believe that tolerance, in the philosophical sense, is about ensuring that people of different backgrounds and opinions can coexist peacefully with each other. But somewhere along the way, tolerance has been reinterpreted by some to mean that people have the right to do whatever they want, even if it is harmful to others,” she said.