Houseless folks and advocates march to take back a vacant building and protest recent eviction
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by Christina Heatherton/Community Journalist Dividing lines come in all sizes: long as a baton, wide as a man, lean enough to sign on, or brief as a breath. Saturday the line stood thin and blue and seven officers long. It stretched across a vacant Pacific Heights house that 30 people have called home for the past six months. Thirty demonstrators from the Autonomous Collective, Homes Not Jails (HNJ), Right To A Roof, Coalition on Homelessness, Food Not Bombs, and POOR Magazine convened in front of the house to protest the recent eviction by United Dominion Realty Trust, the agency that owns the property. Clenching banners and signs, and chanting into bullhorns, we threatened to stretch the thin blue line to its limits. As one protester declared, “If you think we’ll run out of people then you are wrong! There are thousands of us who would rather risk arrest than sleep on the street.” The building at 2161 Sutter Street had sat empty in the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood for one year before squatters made it into a cooperative self-managed home. After six months the building was occupied, converted into a fully functioning home with plumbing and heating that sheltered thirty people, and then emptied again. On Monday, January 27th, the squatters were forcibly evicted by the police. Later that week, two of the squatters were arrested for defying the eviction and re-entering the building. United Dominion Realty plans to redevelop the space into a pricy apartment complex that would be inaccessible for San Francisco’s poor. The move is consistent with the ongoing gentrification and displacement trends in the city. The scene Saturday was symbolic of the city’s housing crisis. As police guarded a starkly vacant building, the people demanding housing were detained in the streets. The building is one of many in the city that remains unoccupied in face of an ever growing homeless population. As Sam, an HNJ activist described it to me, the situation is disgusting since “there’s enough there to share”. Before the police barricade, protesters took turns giving speeches and leading chants. Some enraged demonstrators roared into bullhorn about their lack of options between the dangerous SROs, the unsafe prison-like conditions of the shelter systems, and the streets. “Housing is a right!” they declared. “We shouldn’t have to be out here doing this in order to live like human beings!” We soon left the house and took off into the streets of Pacific Heights chanting “Homes Not Jails! Food Not Bombs!” Saturday afternoon shoppers browsing the blocks of upscale boutiques and bistros were thoroughly confused with the march. We headed up the hill to the busy intersection of Sacramento and Fillmore. There, three demonstrators locked arms through specially rigged PVC piping while others unfurled signs saying “People Over Profit” and “End the War Against the Poor”. Fifteen demonstrators occupied the middle of the intersection stopping all kinds of traffic and attracting a lot of attention. After 20 minutes, there were around 150 people poking their heads out of coffee shops and standing on the corners, watching in curious disbelief. Those of us present for Saturday’s action presented an ultimatum to the city. We will continue protesting and demonstrating until the price of guarding outweighs the cost of giving the housing. As one protester announced, “They are either going to have to give us housing or they’ll have to guard every vacant house in the city! Give it or Guard it!” How you can help: |