As San Francisco cracks down on homeless encampments, unhoused people say they are afraid of losing their property — and getting arrested.
“They’re gonna get worse, be barbaric,” said 59-year-old Jeff “Tex” Connick, sitting in front of his tent on Treat Avenue, behind Best Buy. “They’re gonna throw our things away, arrest people.”
Homeless people are voicing their fears as the city moves forward with “very aggressive” sweeps promised by Mayor London Breed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision. The ruling gives cities broader authority to punish people for sleeping or camping outdoors, even if there is no available shelter space.
Emboldened by the decision, Breed has said the city will clear tents from sidewalks and underpasses without warning people first, as has been the norm for years. On Thursday, the mayor went further, issuing an executive order directing city workers to offer bus tickets to homeless people before offering them shelter beds.
Tracy Oxsen, 53, called the crackdown “cruel” and said Breed is abusing the homeless population for “political gain.”
“It’s inhumane,” said Oxsen, who sleeps under the Central Freeway. “They made us this way.”
She said the last time she was notified of a sweep was about two weeks ago. Workers posted a notice, so she was able to pack up before the trucks came. Now, that’s out the window.
“I’ll take whatever I can carry,” Oxsen said. “I’m gonna let them have what they want. I don’t wanna get arrested over it, but that’s probably what’s next.”
According to the San Francisco Police Department, nine people have been arrested during sweeps since Monday. Some were cited for illegal lodging, while others were taken into custody for other arrest warrants. No one has been booked into jail for illegal lodging, the department said, noting that people who are arrested on suspicion of illegal lodging are released at the scene. News of the arrests was first reported by 48Hills.
Connick said he too is worried about the city carrying out sweeps without notice. He claimed that in one such sweep about a year and a half ago, city workers threw his tent into a trash compactor and seized a $6,000 diesel generator his father had purchased for him. When he protested, they threatened him with jail time, he said.
“I tried to grab it back, and one of them said, ‘If you don’t stop, I’m gonna put you in jail,’ ” Connick said. “If you do anything they’ll put you in cuffs and take all your stuff. They should give you a receipt and say here’s what we took and when.”
The city’s official policy, known as “bag and tag,” states that any unclaimed property is placed in a garbage bag with a label saying what’s inside and where and when the department bagged it. Any property deemed abandoned or soiled is disposed of immediately.
But when Connick has gone to the Department of Public Works yard at 2323 Cesar Chavez St., workers hadn’t sorted property taken from encampments, making it impossible to find, he said.
“They just pile it up like it’s in a junkyard, and they say, ‘You see your stuff? You see your stuff?'” Connick said. “It’s pathetic, how they keep it.”
A DPW spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations but said workers do not have the authority to jail people and that the department is committed to abiding by its bag and tag policy.
Advocacy groups have claimed for years that the department doesn’t follow its own policy.
Bus tickets
The city has framed the mayor’s executive order as a way to connect homeless people with friends and loved ones elsewhere, but Oxsen derided the idea to bus homeless people elsewhere as a “cop-out.”
“If people’s families wanted them there, they’d be there,” Oxsen said.
Connick said he wouldn’t have anywhere to go with a bus ticket, because his friends and family are in San Francisco.
Breed has said the number of homeless people moving to the city from other states and California counties increased from 28% in 2019 to 40% of the total homeless population this year, according to data from her office.
A spokesperson for her office said bus tickets, referred to as “relocation assistance,” are offered along with shelter beds and are provided only to those who can demonstrate they have a connection elsewhere. The spokesperson added that the intent behind offering bus tickets is to provide options to unhoused people.
“We’re not going to put people on a bus and send them away,” the spokesperson said. “Our work still centers around helping every person living on our streets find their way indoors to shelter and services or to a better opportunity with friends or family, if that resource is available to them.”