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by Chance Martin-Coalition on Homelessness
4/7/01 -- 12:15 p.m.
I just got off the phone with Anita (not her real name), who called us
collect from jail.
When you receive a collect call from jail here in SF, you get one of those
female robot (fembot?) voices: "THIS IS A COLLECT CALL FROM
*** (real voice)
'Anita' *** AN INMATE AT THE SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY JAIL. TO ACCEPT
THE CALL
PRESS '0' NOW. TO BLOCK FURTHER CALLS FROM THIS FACILITY PRESS '1' NOW"
(which blocks your phone from EVER receiving a collect call from the jail
facility).
Being mostly human (even five minutes after walking into the office on a
Saturday, and I hadn't had any coffee yet), I press '0'.
Then the voice comes on and says: "YOU HAVE JUST ACCEPTED A CALL FROM AN INMATE AT THE SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY JAIL."
The caller gets to hear all of this too.
We know Anita. She's struggling with homelessness along with her partner
Brian (not his real name). We had helped them help themselves to the point
where they were going to move into an SRO hotel room, which is a pretty
sorry accomplishment, but the rains have been cold and regular lately. They
were supposed to move in last Friday, but then Anita got picked up by SFPD
on an old petty theft beef she walked away from five or six years ago.
Because she never took care of the charge, she can't be "cited out" or
released on her own recognizance. We were trying to help by getting her
mom's number so her mom could bail her out, then she could find her Brian
somewhere on these fabled streets of San Francisco, and they could see if
their room was still available. Not too hard, right? Well hang on, 'cause
here's where it gets difficult.
Anita has Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Not exactly what one
might consider to be the kind of disability that lends itself easily to
enforced confinement. Exercise and cannabis are what she usually uses to
manage this situation, having successfully kicked drugs and alcohol for some
years now. But there's no room to run or play hacky-sack with a paper wad in
the new jail, and pot is pretty much out of the question. You can't even
smoke cigarettes in the state-of the-art facility behind 850 Bryant Street
in San Francisco.
When Anita comes on the phone, she's ping-ponging between panic and
hysteria. Seems a few days ago she was so feeling so frustrated and defeated
and alone she was sitting on the floor of her cell, weeping uncontrollably.
But here in San Francisco, this shining beacon of enlightenment, our jails
are equipped to accommodate prisoners with disabilities. She was placed in a
suicide watch "tank" or cell, better known to the City and County of San
Francisco's women prisoners as the "naked cell." It's called that because
they strip you of your clothing and then place you in five-point restraints
in a cell with a window behind which a guard sits to watch you and whoever
else has merited such special attention 24 unending hours a day.
While Anita was there, one guard, a white male guard named Allen (his real
name), became so moved (or aroused) by Anita's helpless state that he became
especially interested in her. He stood inside the naked cell with Anita for
some considerable length of time and teased her about her remarkable lack of
body hair (Anita is Native American).
Anita was finally released from the naked cell, and placed in a tank where
all the other women are detoxing cold-turkey from heroin. This is only a
very small step down from the naked cell -- the women in this tank are all
sick and miserable as hell, and there is not one scrap of anything that
isn't a bare wall or mattress: no sheets, no books or magazines, no cards or
checkerboard, no paper or pencils, no tv, no toiletries, not even
toothbrushes. The toilet is starkly exposed to any guard who happens by, and
dirt and garbage accumulates in the filthy cell’s corners.
Rita (not her real name), one of the other women in the "kick tank" with
Anita, has diabetes and epilepsy, and no medication. She's been suffering
seizures with hellish regularity, but her pleas for medical treatment are
ignored by the guards. The condition the jail staff places on Anita if she
doesn't want to return to the naked cell is that she is to do nothing
without a guard's permission except sit still on her mattress.
Here’s the inevitable dilemma: while I'm trying to support Anita’s effort to
regain some precious little bit of composure so I can give her mom's phone
number to her, she realizes she has nothing to write it down with. She has
nothing she can even use to scratch it on the surface of the walls or floor.
She has come so close to getting the seven digits that represent her ticket
out of the beast's belly (she's been there since before last Friday) and now
she's stymied once more. She starts getting really shaky again; the little
voice in the back of my head is telling me if she gets too animated behind
her frustration the guard is going to put her back in the naked cell and she
won't have another opportunity to arrange bail until next week.
I listen to Anita. I tell her that we're going to stay on the line together
until the panic passes, no matter how long that takes. I tell her I think we
can figure this one out between us. The storm begins to ebb -- I know we're
making real progress when Anita manages a rueful, shaky laugh at the insane
irony of this inhumane, screwed-up situation. We talk about Brian: had we
seen him? We talk about how she's going to find him when she's finally
released.
We talk about preparing a deposition about what happened in the naked cell.
Then Anita says: "Hey! There's a metal mirror here, and I think I can smear
the number in the soap scum on it!" (I knew you had it in ya, sis!) We share
a hearty, victorious laugh. I give her the number. I ask her to repeat it
back to me. That's correct! We share a few words of relieved, relaxed,
normal conversation. I ask her to read the number back to me again. She's
got it. Anita won.
I tell Anita that she'd better call her mom before they finally clean the
metal mirror in the women's detox tank (yeah, fat chance). We laugh about
that for a moment. I ask her to come to the Coalition's office after she
gets out so we can document the many violations she has been victim to --
let's fight these guys, ok?
More words of encouragement, then Anita and I disconnect.
Now I'm sitting here trying to figure out why I'm setting all this down,
other than for documentation purposes. It's because this is a very real look
into San Francisco's "homeless policy" that is rarely considered by anyone
who hasn't been homeless. It describes a very small part of the terrible and
relentless violation of the civil and human rights of poor people that is
standard operational procedure in this city.
It's because Anita would have been off the streets and safe with her partner
this past week if the "status crime" of her homelessness didn't give some
zealous "quality of life" enforcer probable cause to detain her and imprison
her because of a five year old bench warrant.
It's because if we are ever going to organize together for justice, then we
must organize with people like Anita, and me, and every other luckless soul
who ever got drafted into America's War on the Poor.
It's because an injury to one is an injury to all.
--
Not to know is bad.
Not to want to know is worse.
Not to hope is unthinkable.
Not to care is unforgivable.
-Nigerian saying
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