{"id":4031,"date":"2022-02-07T20:18:47","date_gmt":"2022-02-07T20:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/?page_id=4031"},"modified":"2022-02-13T04:48:08","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T04:48:08","slug":"gay-shame-podcast-episode-8-from-comptons-to-cop-city-london-breeds-war-on-the-tenderloin","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/gay-shame-podcast-episode-8-from-comptons-to-cop-city-london-breeds-war-on-the-tenderloin\/","title":{"rendered":"Gay Shame Podcast \u2013 Episode 8: From Compton’s to Cop City: London Breed’s War on the Tenderloin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

TRANSCRIPT BELOW<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Marys are begging to know why SF mayor London Breed is so obsessed with killing houseless people, especially in the Tenderloin district (also known as the TL). 

In late December 2021, Breed declared a “State of Emergency” in the TL: her Xmas gift to her funders in the Real Estate and Tech industries.

Joining us is a special investigator and longtime organizer against the city\u2019s escalating killing spree in the TL. She helps us unravel the Mayor’s bloodlust, as we dive deep into Breed’s unquenchable thirst to please her wealthy donors, and create a safe haven for billionaires who collect luxury condos just to leave them empty.

Along the way, you\u2019ll hear about Breed\u2019s bootlicking operation and its sordid details. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thousands of hours in overtime for cops guarding a beloved Louis Vuitton store! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reopening of a decrepit jail! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her ex-boyfriend’s legion of private cops who work for the shadow agency “Urban Alchemy”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And who can forget the super-spreader premiere at the soon-to-be-history Castro Theater, to celebrate Breed\u2019s no-line cameo in the locally shot, long forgotten film \u201cMatrix 4Ever: The Revenge of Lana\u2019s Cornrows\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:
“Tents and Cash Not Cops that Bash”
Gay Shame declares more CASH NOT CONSERVATORSHIP
https:\/\/www.indybay.org\/newsitems\/2022\/01\/26\/18847606.php<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I am a mother in the Tenderloin. I fear and oppose the mayor\u2019s plan: More police will make life less safe and secure for my daughter and me.” By Tracey Mixon in 48Hills.
https:\/\/48hills.org\/2021\/12\/i-am-a-mother-in-the-tenderloin-i-fear-and-oppose-the-mayors-plan\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recorded January 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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TRANSCRIPT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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PERSON 1: When you were mayor, it was the homeless. Now it appears that most of these are drug addicts and mentally ill people. And they\u2019re compounding in the Tenderloin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSON 2: Phil, San Francisco has a reputation of being so humane. Well, but that\u2019s about to all change. London Breed\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSON 1: You think so?

PERSON 2: I do think so. I think London Breed is genuinely committed to the idea that\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON BREED THEME SONG: If you listen real close to the voices, they tell you who the choice is. Her initials are LB and there\u2019s nothing else that you can tell me about who should be mayor. Ask anybody and they will say her\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON BREED: And it has been very difficult when you see what you see. With what happened to George Floyd and others, it is hard not to feel the pain.

LONDON BREED: Today we are announcing a public safety initiatives. We are a city that prides ourselves on second chances and rehabilitation. But to be clear, we are not giving people a choice anymore. The final phase of this intervention focuses on securing long-term funding for ambassador programs, but it also means coordinating with the police and the sheriff\u2019s office on felony warrant sweeps. It\u2019s gonna to require more overtime funding, and it\u2019s gonna require more police officers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON BREED THEME SONG: So join the campaign, we don\u2019t stop \u2018till we pop the champagne. She\u2019s who we need so vote for London Breed (x2)

LONDON BREED: We have worked very hard in this city to turn things around with the challenges that have existed historically in the police department of San Francisco. Part of that is, accountability. Part of that is, making sure that we are consistent. But the other part is\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: San Francisco Mayor London Breed has agreed to pay more than $22,000 in fines for several ethics violations she committed while in office\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON BREED: At no time have any of the things related to this stipulation had any impact on the decisions that I\u2019ve made as mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


LONDON BREED: Here they\u2019re happy to see Urban Alchemy here. I get so many compliments out here in the community about the work Urban Alchemy is doing to help to keep people safe and Department of Public Works, they\u2019re out here power washing the streets, cleaning up the Tenderloin\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Gay Shame is a virus in the system. We are committed to a trans queer extravaganza that brings direct action to spectacular levels of confrontation. We work collectively outside of boring, deceptive nonprofit models to fight white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, cops, settler colonialism, and all forms of domination. Liberals think we are frivolous decorations and mainstream gays want us gone. Against them and with each other we instigate, irritate, and agitate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: Hi. I\u2019m MARY BETTER ON PAPER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS : I\u2019m Mary Daggers.

MARY ON MY WAY: I\u2019m Mary On My Way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary Crisis: I\u2019m Mary Crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: And today we\u2019re talking about the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin is sort of an anti-Castro, where traditionally people who didn\u2019t fit into the Castro, people who were trans, gender-non-conforming, queer, and it\u2019s also newsworthy because our mayor here in San Francisco recently declared a State of Emergency that has been kind of all over national news. It will further criminalize houseless people who live here in the Tenderloin, which, is where a lot of houseless people in the city have lived for the past few decades. Realizing her agenda to profit and the profit of developers, and techies who want to gentrify one of the last parts of San Francisco where houseless people, where queer people, where Black people, have lived and still live, to increase resources and just the number of bodies in law enforcement and she along with other local government officials, their funders, who are coming from real estate, and coming from tech, they\u2019re using privatized police forces in ways that I would say it\u2019s similar to contractors in U.S. wars overseas, which is a little new to me. All to help her career, so London Breed\u2019s fake excuse for calling this, \u201cState of Emergency\u201d that made headlines, is that the area has a problem with fentanyl overdoses and it\u2019s really a rouse to show that she\u2019s tough on, I guess, overdoses, which is, quite the opposite. She\u2019s basically increasing state-sponsored murder, and evictions, and disappearing houseless people.

MARY DAGGERS: We have a special guest coming on to the particulars to talk about why the Tenderloin has been a safer haven for houseless people and people who aren\u2019t beneficiaries of tech or real estate money. Also, how it\u2019s increasing the number of jails after Gay Shame and others pushed to close 850 Bryant, the most decrepit of SF\u2019s six jails. Conservatorship and medicalization of jails kind of parlaying into the city\u2019s language of mental health justice centers are on their way. Our guest MARY ON MY WAY will address why we can\u2019t talk about what\u2019s happening with the State of Emergency without talking about harm reduction and drug use, and how the city and politicians and their tech and real estate funders are making people\u2019s lives more unstable everyday. And even though we don\u2019t tend to focus on offering positive solutions, cop watching, mutual aid via Tent and Cash Not Conservatorship and how projects like these are replicable to any city where you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[MUSIC]<\/p>\n\n\n\n


PERSON 1: Every great city of the world seems to have an area given over to the fleshly needs men. In San Francisco, this are is called the Tenderloin. It is a marketplace of vice, degradation, and human misery\u2026

PERSON 2: I looked up the word Tenderloin in the dictionary, and the first was familiar: a prime cut of meat. But the second definition surprised me: \u201cA vice-ridden district controlled by corrupt policeman.\u201d That\u2019s exactly how it was in San Francisco. The Tenderloin looked lawless and out of control, but the police actually ran the place. They allowed the prostitution, the drug dealing, and gambling. And then demanded pay-offs from people involved in those activities.

PERSON 3: The Ambassador Hotel is located in the San Francisco\u2019s tough Tenderloin district, it\u2019s a residential hotel, open to anyone. Some people here have jobs, others are on welfare. And some have lived here since the late \u201870s.

PERSON 4: It\u2019s a mixed building, young and old, men and women, ex-cons, ex-professors, gays and straights, for a while a young couple lived here with a baby. For a few, this hotel is a jumping-off point to something better. But for many others, it\u2019s nothing more than a revolving door\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSON 5: \u2026The Tenderloin, when I was first moved here, was very vibrant and busy. There was like maybe 15 or 20 bars all down there within that vicinity, and Charlie\u2019s. And now it\u2019s like, nothing. Just, and Charlie\u2019s is basically the only bar around there. It\u2019s not as vibrant as it was anymore\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY CRISIS: London Breed is not the first mayor to destroy the Tenderloin. Formerly known as St. Ann\u2019s Valley, the Tenderloin has been a residential area since at least the 1850\u2019s and has been referred to the Tenderloin since the 1890\u2019s\/early 1900\u2019s. Right before the 1906 earthquake, the name comes from the over policing of sex workers in the neighborhood which only increased as the SFPD, founded in 1849, increased their police force each decade. Being queer was a criminal act into and beyond the 1850s. Laws against dressing in multiple garments belonging to, \u201cthe wrong gender,\u201d were already placed by 1963. By the end of the 1906 earthquake, most buildings in the area were destroyed, apartments and hotels built in their place, the remaining now ran by evil landlords and lacking city supervisors. The city\u2019s war on sex workers, queers, and drugs can be traced back through the entire history of the Tenderloin. But we can immediately point to these, \u201canti-prostitution groups,\u201d ran entirely by religious leaders and cops in the 1910s as the catalyst for it encouraged police violence from city officials. By 1917\/1918, literal Mayor Roche was easily persuaded by these groups into pushing new laws against sex workers. London Breed is definitely not the first mayor to try to destroy the Tenderloin and allowed police to raid any location in the neighborhood that sex workers and queers could exist or do their job, to of course, bash and arrest them, shutting down their place of work immediately after. This continued into the 1960s, and now, obviously, with the traumatizing Tay-Bush Inn Raid, a caf\u00e9 that existed on Taylor and Bush. It was raided with 106 queer people inside, the history eventually being buried over by a large set of condos. Following that, only a few years later, a police raid occurred at a Mardi Gras Ball on New Years Day in 1965. In August of 1966, 20 months later, the Compton\u2019s Cafeteria Riot broke out. Compton\u2019s, which no longer exists, was a 24-hour diner frequented by trans women, all of whom were targeted by the SFPD. After endless regular harassment, arrests, and sexual abuse from the SFPD, these women fought back in the cafeteria and into the streets. This riot wasn\u2019t acknowledged by SFPD until 2019. In the 1970s, into the conservative government\u2019s dismay, the Tenderloin became a place for refugees. The SROs, apartments, and hotels being used by nonwhite families. This time also brought in the city\u2019s attempts at, \u201cservices,\u201d for the people suffering at the hands of the city not too dissimilar from the services we see in the Tenderloin today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: The Tenderloin, area-wise, is very central. It\u2019s right in the center of San Francisco, right down the hill from fancy Nob Hill, and we have the Main Drag of San Francisco Market Street. We\u2019re very close to the touristy Union Square area downtown, beyond that it\u2019s the Financial District where a bunch of banks replaced what used to be the Filipinx area, Manilatown. During COVID, there\u2019s been a lot of techies who, ya know, can work form home now, indefinitely, so they\u2019re sitting in their condos looking out over houseless people, getting on their apps like NextDoor and Citizen, using the 311 apps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[IPHONE NOTIFICATION NOISE]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: Or calling cops and the Department of Public Works, which does the sweeps of tents and people\u2019s possessions, takes them away, if they\u2019re houseless\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: London Breed is now being criticized for her texts with the police chief, regarding clearing homeless people from certain areas in the city. Now according to Mission Local, texts messages from July and August of last year between Mayor Breed and police chief Bill Scott, show the mayor telling the police chief to roust homeless people from their camps despite her repeated denials. Now one text reads, \u201cPlease deal with the 500 block of Market, it\u2019s terrible right now, thanks.\u201d The texts were requested by an anonymous source through the police department\u2019s public records portal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[POLICE SIREN]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[LONDON BREED THEME SONG]: This woman is the fairest, just ask Kamala Harris\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: I\u2019d like to introduce our guest MARY ON MY WAY, and shoot a question which is, what is your relationship to the Tenderloin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Hi, yeah I work in the Tenderloin. And not only that, but I work with a group that serves unhoused people. So we are located in the Tenderloin, I have a lot of presence on the streets there, with the unhoused community in the Tenderloin, and then obviously, the TL is a high concentration of unhoused folks. So a lot of our work and advocacy work revolves around folks living in the TL and the shitty things the city does to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Totally. Do you care to elaborate on what your work is around houselessness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah so I organize with unhoused folks, specifically folks who are living on the street, and their human rights. I do a lot of outreach to folks who live on the streets, in the encampments, I do a lot of responding to sweeps, being there, videotaping, advocating for folks who are being swept, as well as a lot of policy work trying to change policies around sweeps and displacement, around policing, around the shelter system, access to water, all these human rights that are continuously violated for our unhoused folks, kind of what I\u2019m working on a day-to-day basis. Including the mayor\u2019s TL plan, it\u2019s been kind of my biggest project since that was announced, that I work on everyday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Thank you so much for your work. Do you wanna tell us more about what is harm reduction and why it is necessary in this conversation about the Tenderloin?

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah, I\u2019ll do the second part first if that\u2019s okay. So, it\u2019s, as was stated earlier, the emergency ordinance specifically for this plan was really framed around the overdose crisis that is facing the whole city of San Francisco, but specifically the TL, pretty hard. And, although it\u2019s framed in that it\u2019s an attempt to, it\u2019s being sold to the rest of the city as a way to reduce the overdose deaths and to protect folks who are dying on the streets which is a real crisis and a real emergency. We\u2019re losing a lot of people. The tactics and the specific things mentioned in the mayor\u2019s plan of how they are going to address this crisis, aren\u2019t actually mostly all that helpful to doing so. It\u2019s a lot more about criminalization, and engaging folks who use drugs with the police, or trying to shepherd folks out of sight rather than actually look at what\u2019s going to reduce the harm of drug overdoses. To talk a little more about harm reduction, I do want to preface this that I am not a harm reduction expert, I work with harm reduction workers, but I am not one myself. So I will do my best relaying all of the information they have passed onto me over my time. But harm reduction, the way I think about it, is that rather than treat substance use as a crime inherently and like something that should be reduced or cracked down upon because it\u2019s a crime, it looks at the folks who are using substances, and all kind of substances, and the harms that can come from that, and how we can reduce those harms. So specifically, in this context, we talk about a lot folks who use drugs and especially folks who use opioids, and right now, very specifically, folks use fentanyl. One like really negative outcome from that, obviously, is overdose deaths. So then rather than saying, \u201cOh someone is using fentanyl, let\u2019s arrest them all,\u201d or \u201cFentanyl is a bad thing, let\u2019s throw everyone in jail,\u201d or \u201cLet\u2019s arrest all the fentanyl dealers,\u201d it\u2019s we have this community of people who is using opioids or fentanyl and is facing a lot of overdose deaths, what can we do to reduce those harms, reduce those deaths, and keep more of our people safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Cool, so things like Narcan distribution and stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah, so like on a practical level that looks like, a lot of things like, training people how to reverse overdoses, get Narcan out to folks who are using drugs, folks who are around folks who are using drugs. Most overdoses are actually reversed, not by a paramedic or by the cops, but by other drug users or folks who are around in the community, right? A lot of education about how and when to be safe while using substances. It looks like having harm reduction workers who can pass out equipment, things like safe needles for folks who use injectable substances, or having just general survival gear for folks who are use substances an are unhoused, to stay warm and safe. Also, a big point of advocacy in recent years, has been around safe injection and safe consumption sites. Places where folks can use while supervised by harm reduction workers, in case there is an overdose it can be reversed and taken care of, or maybe connected to services or treatment programs that they\u2019d like. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Thank you. Can you speak to the ways that politicians like London Breed and developers who fund politicians, use the reputation of the Tenderloin to advance their goals?

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah, that\u2019s a really interesting one. It\u2019s a thing we see with homelessness in general, but with San Francisco it\u2019s really specifically used to the TL. Which is, a bit two-fold. The TL, historically, has been referred to as a containment zone, meaning that folks from the other surrounding neighborhoods, the richer neighborhoods, Nob Hill, Union Square, the Castro, what have you, are pushed out systematically through sweeps and policing and kind of funneled into the TL and the city tries to keep them there as a way to keep the other neighborhoods cleaner and you know, more friendly to the rich people who live there or visit there. And so while that\u2019s happening, there\u2019s this other side of people who live in the TL, especially a lot of the gentrifiers and folks who are coming into the TL, part of the landowners, and the business districts, the Tenderloin CPD, Community Betterment District, who don\u2019t want those unhoused people in their neighborhood, want to be treated like the rest of the neighborhoods are and have unhoused folks scraped off of their streets and pressure washed out away. And so, just as unhoused people are used by all politicians in California they have been for decades, as a way to give themselves a name, they release a bill or a legislation about homelessness, they\u2019re doing something, they\u2019re solving the problem. Whether it\u2019s Scott Weiner\u2019s conservatorship shit, or Gavin Newsome\u2019s Care Not Cash, or Raphael Mandelmann\u2019s Safe Place for All shit last year, just looking like you\u2019re fighting for a solution whether the solution is actually is good or not, is great political capital in California. So the TL, specifically, it\u2019s is kind of seen, it\u2019s a really interesting dynamic because San Francisco and the TL specifically are seen as like this hell hole walking city by a lot of outside media forces. They use a lot of political capital in like talking shit about the Tenderloin to national audiences and as a failed model of progressive politics. And so, folks like London Breed can enter themselves into those national conversation by appearing to be doing something about it. By cracking down, being tough on crime, or what have you. Nationally, that\u2019s a really good political move. And then locally, it can be dicey, which is why they I think some of the messaging has been like mixed. But for folks, for the landlords, and the business districts, and the travel agencies who operate out of the Tenderloin or who have stakes in that mid-Market area, they have been pushing really hard on the mayor to do this. What\u2019s interesting about this one politically is, on the one hand, the mayor is seceding to those interests right, and saying, \u201cOkay, I hear you business districts, I hear you tourist district, we\u2019ll\u2014we\u2019ll crack down on them, we\u2019ll send cops in, we\u2019ll make their lives hell,\u201d and like that makes them happy. And then on the other side of her mouth, she\u2019s talking to the Board of Supervisors, she\u2019s talking to harm reduction organizations, \u201cNo this is about reducing drug overdoses and we\u2019re going to get more safe consumption sites and we\u2019re going to get more services and hire more DPH workers.\u201d And trying to make them happy and have them on board. So she\u2019s walking this tight line where someone is being lied to but everyone has enough plausible deniability to be on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Damn, thank you. This may speak to some of your experiences talking about doing cop watch for sweeps and stuff, but can you speak to some of the ways the city is using police and also non police institutions to promote this agenda that you\u2019re talking about?

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah. So something I think is interesting is the extent to which the mayor is announcing this plan and the emergency ordinance, actually mean anything at all. The reason I say that is because we\u2019ve seen over the last 365 days, long before this emergency thing, an increase of police and non police entities in the TL doing this work. Last summer, the mayor had her mid-Market improvisation plan that placed a bunch of cops in Civic Center, or not Civic Center, UN Plaza, which is at the bottom of the Tenderloin, as well as Urban Alchemy workers, who are like a, basically, in this context, a private security firm who contracts with the city in the business improvement district there. And they use that to push all the, not just unhoused, but kind of all poor folks out of UN Plaza. They but barricades up to block the normal pathways into UN Plaza, they pressure washed it everyday, like twice a day, to keep folks off and harass the elderly street vendors who are selling peanut butter and shit for a dollar, kick them all out of the neighborhood. So that\u2019s like already was what was happening. Basically what\u2019s happening now is two-fold. One, they\u2019ve really increased their HSOC operations. For folks who aren\u2019t aware, HSOC is the Healthy Streets Operating Center. I could like talk for hours about what that is. Basically, a simple way of talking about it is, HSOC is a coordination of several city departments aimed at like getting rid of tents. And, what\u2019s not said is, the people in them. And so, HSOC was given a lot of power under this emergency ordinance, as well as extra resources, so there was hotel rooms that could have gone to anyone in the city, but were specifically like given to HSOC for the Tenderloin. And they\u2019ve used that to just do sweeps on every block everyday, just getting as many people, some of them get hotel rooms that\u2019s great, but otherwise just getting people cleared out. Or when they run out of hotel rooms, which they already have, just clearing people out. And then what they do is, they call it re-encampment prevention, so HSOC will come through, wipe out an encampment, and then after that, they\u2019ll place more cops there, or they\u2019ll place an Urban Alchemy worker there, and not allow anyone to come back. And that\u2019s the kind of the strategy they are using to clear out the Tenderloin. And on the other hand, they are having a lot more police operations targeting drug dealers and users. I don\u2019t think we have clear data on who all is being arrested, I don\u2019t have a way to tell you if a bunch of drug users are being arrested or if a bunch of drug dealers are being arrested, but they are arresting a lot of people and making a bit in public about arresting people and doing a good thing. So those are like the two ways I\u2019ve seen it change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Thank you. It\u2019s so fucked up what they are doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: You spoke about the TL plan and how it\u2019s been years in the making, and then more recently with this State of Emergency that gives the mayor all of these new powers to lord over people here, and it kind of came at a time when people are dealing with the Omicron variant, and it was right around the holidays when the politicians love to make big changes and hoping that nobody is going to be paying attention. And it often works. As I understand, like a lot of the politicians who are supposed to be representing neighborhoods like the TL, they got handed like a one-pager one day that was like, \u201cThese are the terms of the State of Emergency.\u201d Do you know who is consulted in, and I have some guesses, but who is consulted in creating the documents that called for the State of Emergency?

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah. This is a really good question, I\u2019m glad you asked it. I think the timing is really interesting. So something that has made this complicated, this issue around the emergency ordinance specifically, is that harm reduction organizations, front line folks, people who have seen the effects of this overdose crisis over the couple of years have watched our community members die and pass away over drug overdoses, as well as some of, like leaders, at city hall, have been asking the mayor to declare a State of Emergency around this. To streamline getting new DPH workers, to streamline spending more behavioral health dollars, to get new beds, to streamline things like safe consumption sites. And the mayor had told them no, consistently. Said basically that this crisis was not large enough to warrant an emergency ordinance, this was not a crisis to the scale of COVID, and that we didn\u2019t need this in order to do what needed to be done. Which is obviously not true, because none of that shit got done. But, the mayor declaring the emergency ordinance, and with a lot of urgency in talking about things like, \u201cThere\u2019s two people dying of overdoses everyday, we need to act now. If you delay this one second to ask what the plan is, you\u2019re stalling, letting many people die.\u201d This urgency came out of nowhere, to the outsider, I think. But what we saw is, people begging the mayor to do something to save people\u2019s lives forever, and her saying no, and then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Stunning video, this is going viral in San Francisco. Brazen thieves emptied out the Louis Vuitton store in Union Square. In one video, you see the immediate aftermath of the robbery, in another you see a suspect wearing multiple COVID masks, walking out with as much merchandise as he can carry. Then, San Francisco police officers descend on the getaway car, they use their batons to smash its windows and windshield. One officer can be seen with his firearm drawn at a person inside the vehicle. All six suspects under arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: \u2026And then, Louis Vuitton gets robbed, the Tenderloin CBD [Community Betterment District] starts doing organizing people to tell the mayor we need more cops. All this national backlash to the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the failures of defunding police, like all that shit never happened. And all of these right-winged forces came together at this perfect time and you see, I mean, if you listen to the mayor\u2019s press conference and stuff when she\u2019s announcing this, it\u2019s so directly tied to Louis Vuitton robbery and tied to that big stories of crime in the TL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: Right. The\u2026 Oh, sorry. No please, go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: So that\u2019s kind of the timing of it, you can see. That\u2019s reflected what you asked, who was consulted in this? I work in the TL in around homelessness, with a lot of other organizations who work around homelessness, around harm reduction\u2014None of us were consulted. And not in a salty way, like I personally don\u2019t need to be consulted in my organization, but other organizations have stakes here and who\u2019ve known this was an issue that was needed and have been fighting them for years but not consulted. The people who were consulted were the business districts, the Tenderloin CBD [Community Betterment District] specifically, Urban Alchemy who like stands to gain so much from this contract and from security because of this plan, and a lot of other groups like business districts, neighborhood councils, and tourist agencies were the ones who were consulted and pieced together some sort of community consulting in closed-door meetings that the rest of us were not invited to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: It seems pretty clear that the police were also directly consulted in terms of, I mean there were these texts that were released under our local Freedom of Information Act, the Sunshine Ordinance, that showed that the police and the mayor were speaking about the optics of shooting an announcement in front of the Louis Vuitton store, which was, of course, insured. It was reopened like two days later, but the mayor was really concerned about handbags and San Francisco\u2019s access to handbags for that week. Oh sorry\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: What happened at the Louis Vuitton store?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah, so there was a pretty high-profile smash-and-grab at Louis Vuitton. It was pretty rad, there was like several cars folks jumped out and broke in and grabbed a bunch of shit\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: We begin with that breaking news in San Francisco, it\u2019s the first Friday night of the holiday season and it is chaotic, take a look. People running in all directions, police officers and security guards also chasing down suspects. We have several videos sent to us by terrified eye witnesses\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: What\u2019s interesting is, it didn\u2019t just happen in San Francisco. It happened in several cities in the same day. And it was, but of course, it was San Francisco, in San Francisco, so it got a lot of national coverage for it and we were Gotham City for the day. And the mayor came out really hard against it, saying that the city\u2019s falling apart and we need to piece it together and sent a bunch of cops into Union Square right around the holidays, which was, I don\u2019t know if any of y\u2019all have time to go to Union Square during Christmas, but I like went one night and there was just pigs everywhere and a big van. I think the national backlash and the national response to that Louis Vuitton store really was directed at the mayor and she was really upset about that, that people made her look bad for robbing Louis Vuitton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: [Laughs] Yeah, no I read something in the Chronicle that admitted that over 8,000 overtime hours were clocked after the Louis Vuitton massacre of 2021 happened, overtime hours for cops. And San Francisco already has a huge glut of overtime that we offer up to the Boys in Blue. They are the top users of overtime in the city, and often times overtime is actually, it amounts to more money than their regular salary, which is already in the hundreds of thousands just starting out. So San Francisco\u2019s mayor London Breed created a one-pager that declared the State of Emergency. And what is the TL plan more broadly and what are the terms of this State of Emergency?

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah. So that\u2019s an interesting question that took a while to really find all the answers to. Well, unless you were looking with any kind of critical eye. So the mayor started this whole project with some really fiery press conferences and a Medium article talking about taking back the Tenderloin, cracking down with tough love, making drug users\u2019 and drug dealers\u2019 lives hell, cleaning up the streets, what have you. And it seemed really clear from those speeches and that Medium article, that the plan was to send a bunch of cops in and fuck everyone over. Then there was like a two week walking-back period where the mayor disappeared and her cronies, one of her staffers, and then the head of the Department of Emergency Management, Mary Ellen Carroll, they kind of when on this apology tour and trying to reframe it like it was just about curbing drug overdoses and getting services to people, and that was the plan, the whole plan. As a part of the mayor\u2019s plan, she announced this agenda and then said that she would have to pass an emergency ordinance to give her the power to do her plan. So what we all saw, that the emergency ordinance was giving a pass to the mayor to over police and crack down on people, the Board of Supervisors voted yes on it, kind of buying the lie, or maybe buying the lie, that it was to curb drug overdoses. About a week after that, the plan actually came out of what they were going to do, what the city was going to do, released by the Department of Emergency Management. Basically, the only new service attached to it was the idea of a linkage center, which kind of confused most of us in this space, especially because we have through Prop C a lot of money for behavioral health beds, and that has already itemized in the budget and has not been released by the mayor. And like none of that money, none of those beds fit into what the linkage center is described as. It is described as either indoor or outdoor, but some kind of big room where people folks who are high can like go stand around and maybe be linked to services, but like with no new services to link them to. Other than that, there was talk about taking some of the existing resources and specifically dedicating them to the Tenderloin, and then increasing a lot of language about critical engagement, targeted engagement, targeted outreach, which can sound really good to folks from the outside, I think. What it means in practice is like, one, if there\u2019s no new resources, then outreach and engagement doesn\u2019t actually mean connecting anyone to anything, right?. It just means they\u2019re telling them, \u201cHey, sorry we have no resources for you.\u201d But, two, when we talk about HSOC and the police, critical engagement, or efficient outreach, means bringing services and bringing their outreach teams to the places that they want to have clear. So it\u2019s like, looking at the TL and saying, \u201cWe want this street to have no more tents on it, let\u2019s send our cops and our HSOC team there to get rid of it.\u201d Other than that, the plan is pretty low on details. The other thing it mentions is hiring a bunch of new DPH and HSH workers, which is important because, it\u2019s this kind of continual pattern when folks fight for solutions that we need and they\u2019re routed through the Departments of Public Health, or the Department of Homeless and Supportive Housing, DPH and HSH, those departments who are really acting at the will of mayor Breed to stop those solutions from happening, will tell us, \u201cOh we can\u2019t do those because we don\u2019t have funding, we don\u2019t have capacity,\u201d and when we do get them the funding it\u2019s, \u201cWe don\u2019t have capacity, we don\u2019t have staffing to do this. We\u2019re working really hard, we\u2019re just so low on staffing.\u201d And so, as part of this emergency ordinance, they made all these promises that they were going to hire a bunch of new staffers, for Department of Public Health and Homeless and Supportive Housing. Which is a thing that has yet to be seen or if it could actually happen. It\u2019s a thing that could have happened already, we\u2019ve been under an emergency ordinance because of COVID for two years now. But it\u2019s like a weaponized incompetence where these departments, they say that they are on board with our solutions but they\u2019re like, either not competent or not enough capacity to do them, and so that\u2019s a reason we\u2019re told we can\u2019t have anything good. And then when they need shit like this to go through, they obviously, it\u2019s a really big emergency to hire a bunch of new people and put shit through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: Yeah, no, that is super helpful and it\u2019s enraging like you said, they\u2019re hiring Public Works workers, who, in my mind, are acting as just this further layer of cops. We know that they\u2019re taking people\u2019s possessions, in many cases, selling them, and they work in collaboration with the police and the local neighborhood groups, community business districts or CBDs, to clear places of houseless people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: MARY ON MY WAY, I think a lot of people might now know what Urban Alchemy is, and so I was hoping you could elaborate on just the particular, the way\u2026 [Laughs] Wait, yeah, sorry, let me try that again. MARY ON MY WAY, what is Urban Alchemy?

MARY ON MY WAY: Good question. Urban Alchemy is a nonprofit based in San Francisco. It started as a jobs programs for ex-cons basically, to hire them, and get them nonprofit jobs. It\u2019s, for a lot of reasons has to do with corruption and who do you know? They\u2019ve become the mayor\u2019s favorite contractor for any and all jobs in the city. And they\u2019ve really just kind of grown exponentially during the pandemic and taken on a bunch of contracts. And specifically, to the Tenderloin and to this plan, they\u2019ve taken on a lot of contracts related to, one is related to service provisions, so they operate a lot of shelters and SIP [Shelter-In-Place] Hotels that serve unhoused folks, and two, in the TL especially, they\u2019ve taken on these safety ambassador contracts. To talk about the first one first, it\u2019s been problematic, to say the least, for unhoused folks because Urban Alchemy is not equipped to run a shelter in the same way some other service providers are. And two, to be fair, there\u2019s a lot of shitty service providers and shelters are kind of a nightmare for unhoused people. Urban Alchemy has been taking all these shelters and hotels and not running them particularly well, from the folks I\u2019ve talked to who\u2019ve stayed there. They tend to treat people like shit. The other, more I think insidious contracts, are the safety ambassador ones. Originally, I think this is not too as much anymore, but originally they were really framed as this kind of defunding and kind of anti-police language that, \u201cWe\u2019re getting rid of police and bringing in community policing, and safety ambassadors. Instead of a cop on every corner with a stick to beat you with, we have a nice, friendly ambassador who is going to say, \u2018hi\u2019 and send you on your way.\u201d There\u2019s like a big range of what safety ambassadors do in the city and there\u2019s some really shitty ones and some really good ones, I think. What Urban Alchemy does in the TL is really similar to what a lot of other business improvement districts in the city, and across the state honestly, have their safety ambassadors do. Which is like, be private police. And what that means is like, you\u2019ll pay a guy to stand on a corner all day. Your corner is Turk and Leavenworth, and you keep people moving along. And if someone tries to set up a tent there, you tell them to go away. If someone leans against the wall to take a break real quick, you yell at \u2018em. If someone\u2019s trying to use drugs near you, you get them out of there. A lot of times, unfortunately, Urban Alchemy does so, threats of violence, or a lot of aggression I\u2019ve seen. Ultimately, even the best version of it, if they tell you to move and you don\u2019t move, it ends with a cop coming. Which is like one step removed. But so they\u2019ve taken these contracts, it started really small with UC Hastings, this law school in the Tenderloin who sued the city basically because there\u2019s too many poor people near their campus. So then the city brought in Urban Alchemy to keep the poor people away from the campus. And then they expanded it to UN Plaza, expanded it up north to the mid-Market improvisation plan last summer, and with this TL emergency plan, it\u2019s the completion of this long strategy that the Tenderloin community business district has had for a long time to get Urban Alchemy through the whole district. Matt Haney has been a big supporter of, too. Because he resides through the Tenderloin, so that\u2019s kind of why you\u2019ve seen Urban Alchemy expand through the Tenderloin. Which, as an interesting side note, the Tenderloin community business district, when they formed, it was like they had to fight really hard to pass their vote to exist and one of the promises they made to the community in order to exist, was that they would never have private security, security ambassadors, as part of the CBD, and they\u2019ve like broken that with Urban Alchemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: You mentioned earlier the Shelter-In-Place Hotels that were put into place during the pandemic early on, can you talk about where we\u2019re at with those and what they are?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah. So, I\u2019ll try to keep it quick, but the Shelter-In-Place Hotels were opened up at the beginning of the pandemic, like you said, and the Board of Supervisors basically told the mayor we\u2019re going to lease these hotels, a lot of like tourist hotels and the SROs that aren\u2019t open, or were fully empty because of the pandemic, and that we should lease those all and fill them with unhoused folks basically as a way to de-congregate the shelters, which were like COVID death traps, and to get folks off the street to be safe in the pandemic. And the mayor kind of stalled it as much as she could the entire time, said, \u201cWe didn\u2019t have enough money for it, it would break up the city,\u201d and then the federal government came in and said, \u201cNo actually, we\u2019ll pay you 100%, like it\u2019s free for you. Just do it.\u201d And mayor Breed did to an extent. She put about 2,000 people in the hotels, but there\u2019s like 8,000 unhoused people in San Francisco. So, much less than she could have. Then, what was horrifying for us, is around the beginning of 2021, we started seeing it really slow down in terms of new entries to the hotels. And by the end of May they were basically like, \u201cWe\u2019re done putting people in the hotels.\u201d And the reason they gave is that, even though it\u2019s free for them to put more people in hotels, they won\u2019t do it, because it costs them a lot of money to find housing for those people after the hotels. And they\u2019re worried about being able to do so before the hotels close, before they stop getting money back from the federal government. Which again, is like weaponized incompetence. Their job is to always house unhoused people, and they should have been doing this anyway. What the truth is, is that we don\u2019t have enough housing for everyone that\u2019s unhoused in San Francisco. It would have been impossible to house everyone in that way. And they normally are not forced to admit that. They can usually just call people service resistant or whatever. But because  the SIP hotels have an end-date on them, they would have had to mass-evict thousands of people out of the hotels and then that\u2019d look bad for them. So what they\u2019ve been doing instead is slowly getting the people they can house out of it, getting people into shelters and closing the hotels one by one. So there\u2019s less places for people to stay. And that\u2019s been happening all year, even when the federal government extended the funding deadline for them April of 2022, they kept closing the hotels down. Then, as part of this emergency plan, well although not directly connected, everyone knows is like what they did is they open up the hotels to fill them back up again as temporary winter shelters, and they are using that as a way to do more sweeps so they can take those hotel rooms and take them out of the Tenderloin and shove people into them who will and anyone who denies a hotel room or doesn\u2019t get offered one will get pushed out of the way. And so it\u2019s this really cynical weaponization of shelter, of hotel resources, that folks have desperately wanted all year, but then only being brought around to serve a specific purpose of clearing up the streets of the Tenderloin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: When you say there isn\u2019t enough housing for people who are coming out of the SIP Hotels, you mean because those hotels themselves, which could just be converted to permanent housing, like is that what you mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Voters decide whether large companies should pay a new tax to help fight the city\u2019s chronic homeless problem. The measure is Proposition C, and while San Francisco\u2019s mayor just announced her opposition, the proposition received a big endorsement today.

NEWSPERSON: \u2026Pretty much the poster child for Prop C, Marc Benioff here, the CEO of course, of Salesforce. Marc, thanks for being with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARC BENIOFF: Great to see you, thanks for having me again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: For me, it was binary, and that\u2019s because I walk around San Francisco everyday and, so do you, and you can see, we are in a horrible situation\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: You\u2019ve probably guessed by now, that mayor Breed, State Senator Scott Weiner, and Jack Dorsey, are on the no side. They\u2019ve gotten big donations from Stripe, Visa, Lyft, Macy\u2019s, and a handful of venture capitalists, adding up to about 1.6 million dollars. Benioff, Friedenbach, and Sysco COO Chuck Robbins are all on the yes side. Most of money their is from Salesforce and Benioff himself, totaling 8.5 million dollars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u2026We had a lot of momentum and a lot of folks that were really kind of, had a lot of negativity about the issue, were moved and moved in a positive way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Homeless advocates like Friedenbach, won the battle of Prop C, which imposes an average 0.5% in gross receipt taxes on corporate revenue above 50 million. 300 to 400 of San Francisco\u2019s largest businesses would be effected, the majority in the tech and financial sector. Now there\u2019s 300 million in the coffers to fight the growing homeless problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u2026Half of it has to go to housing, we are anticipating in about 4,000 housing units through that, or about 6,000 people, because a lot of those are families. About 4,500 substance abuse and mental health treatment slots, a quarter of the funding has to go there\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: San Francisco mayor London Breed opposed the measure\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u2026From the very beginning, they begged her and the city to get as many people into hotels as they possibly can to create social distance, instead that did not happen, that it was business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u2026The plan is to try and clear some people from the shelters so they can keep a safe distance apart. They have set up about 400 cots in Moscone West for the homeless\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Hi everybody, I am at Urban Alchemy Safe Sleeping Village, the first state-sanctioned tent camp in San Francisco\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MOHAMMED NURU: Hi I\u2019m Mohammed Nuru, the Director of Public Works in the county of San Francisco, and my guest today is Lena Miller, from the Hunter\u2019s Point Family. Welcome Lena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LENA MILLER: Thank you, Muhammad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Lena Miller, the CEO, gave me a wonderful tour\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LENA MILLER: So first, what I would like to show you, is our bathrooms. Now this is how Urban Alchemy got its start, and its what we do, and we care about it a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u2026We report out of San Francisco, that the city set up tent sites for homeless people and ended up spending 61,000 dollars a year for each tent, or more than 5,000 dollars a month per tent\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u2026Both under\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: This is the Safe Sleeping Village that we\u2019re talking about. This is the Safe Sleeping Village that Urban Alchemy is running at a cost of 2,600 dollars per white square of asphalt\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: That white square\u2026 this is fucked up\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Look at how each one of these squares cost 2,600 dollars and there\u2019s your Urban Alchemy people, like painting them on. 2,600 per person a month for a similar arrangement for a tent site in San Francisco, the San Francisco Chronicle noted the city was paying 5,100 per tent per month, twice the rate of a 1-bedroom apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Insane\u2026 This is corruption\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Urban Alchemy CEO Miller has been criticized for her lavishly adorned public appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: New data from the Governor\u2019s office on Project Roomkey, aimed at securing hotels for the homeless, shows San Francisco lagging behind the East Bay and South Bay in terms of how many hotel rooms its secured versus how many homeless are actually in those rooms, with fewer than half filled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SPEAKER: Over 55% of the unhoused in San Francisco are Black and Brown or American, African American-identified. That\u2019s a problem. And we had an opportunity to house 8,500 unhoused people in San Francisco, and only 2,500 got used, over 600 rooms are vacant right now, and they\u2019re trying to close more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: A corruption bombshell is rocking city government\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Supervisor Peskin wants a full investigation by the city attorney\u2019s office into how Mohammed Nuru, San Francisco\u2019s long-time Public Works director, conducted himself in office. This after the feds announced Nuru was arrested, along with restaurant tour Nick Bovis, the owner of Lefty O\u2019Doul\u2019s for a variety of so-called schemes.

NEWSPERSON: The complaint alleges five schemes, four schemes. In 2018, as described a complaint there was a public process for new public restrooms, new homeless shelters. As alleged in the complaint behind the scenes, Nuru was providing Bovis with inside information and manipulating the specifications to give Bovis an unfair advantage in the awarding of the contract for those public restrooms and homeless shelters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: They\u2019re doing it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: They\u2019re franchising this shit out everywhere I bet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: And this is how you make it like, you make it like, Liberals will be like, \u201cYou say they\u2019re coming with love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: It\u2019s such a grift, it\u2019s such a grift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: \u201cWe\u2019re removing the unhoused with a crystal healing ceremony.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PERSON: Okay, don\u2019t diss crystals\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Well today the mayor tried to distance herself from this scandal, but to do so, she put herself increasingly close to the man at the middle of it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON BREED: I reflected on my own personal relationship with Mohammed over the years, and felt in the spirit of transparency, it was important that I disclose\u2026

NEWSPERSON: On Valentine\u2019s Day, of all days, a record number of couple got married here at San Francisco City Hall because of the holiday, with no idea the political bombshell that was sending shockwaves throughout City Hall\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Mayor Breed also admitted that she accepted a nearly 6,000 dollar gift from Nuru\u2026

NEWSPERSON: Supervisor Hillary Ronen, \u201cIt was an illegal gift.\u201d We are going to play again for you how mayor described Nuru superior at City Hall.

LONDON BREED: You know, Mohammed reported to the city administrator\u2026

NEWSPERSON: The mayor has, under the chart of the power, to hire and fire the director of Public Works, and if that\u2019s not her subordinate, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: Nuru consented to plead guilty to wire fraud. In his plea agreement, Nuru admits to public corruption. While authorities say today\u2019s announcement is significant, they say it does not end the FBI\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: There are many advantages to both the city and homeless people for implementing a sanctioned tent camp. For the city, instead of just having encampments wherever sprouting up and with evictions coming, mass evictions because of Corona Virus, you\u2019re going to see huge encampments like we\u2019ve never seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEWSPERSON: It\u2019s an eerie feeling, standing at the corner of Folsom and Beale, staring at an empty office building that sits across from an empty row of brand new luxury condos. One pocket hit the hardest, South Beach. 147 luxury condos are on the market. According to ABC 7 Analysis of real estate data, they are moving out of their San Francisco condos, citing everything from work from home, high costs, to there\u2019s nothing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: We know that there are thousands of empty homes, like especially condos that have continued to open during the pandemic that are very expensive, butcould be opened tonight for people who are unhoused.

MARY DAGGERS: We\u2019ve talked a lot about how politicians are using emergencies as they\u2019ve declared them, to advance their own agendas. I don\u2019t want to just flip it to be positive at the end, but I do want to hear, I feel like you\u2019ve suggested that there are so many ways that, instead of being mismanaged, and instead of attacking homeless people, that this could be actually addressing the crises that are taking place and the impacts that are happening that are harming people. Can you elaborate on solutions or the ideas of how you could see these things allocated better, or, in your mind, what is the actual emergency at hand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah. So I think there\u2019s several emergencies going on. The very devastating and scary crisis the emergency the politicians are responding to is that their rich constituents and business districts are complaining to them about having to see poor people in their neighborhoods. The actual emergency faced in the TL facing our communities is that the TL is a neighborhood that systematically impoverished, it\u2019s home to thousands of people, I think, who are unhoused, living on the street, forced to find refuge in tents and tarps and blankets on the ground, who are over policed and over harassed and the compounding crisis that a lot of those folks use substances that\u2019s resulted in a lot of overdose deaths unfortunately. What sucks is that, we know how to solve those actual emergencies. We know how to get people into housing, we know how to get people to get to a place so they can use substances more safely, or use less substances, or practice whatever they need to practice in a safer way that results in less deaths. But what politicians are doing is harming all those projects, and doubling down on more police and law enforcement instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: It\u2019s so punishing, like it\u2019s so wild how the things that are actually would improve quality of life for more people are being withheld because of judgments and like just like horrible discrimination against houseless folks and folks who use drugs. It\u2019s fucked up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: We have San Francisco Chronicle journalist coming into the TL to purchase drugs, Heather Knight. I would say, mascot journalist of this podcast, for her popularization of the term, \u201copen-air drug markets.\u201d Why does Heather insist on using this terminology to specifically talk about the TL? Without fail?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: Yeah, that\u2019s a really great question and it pops up constantly. Basically, any time you treat, you see people trying to justify they are harmed by seeing unhoused people. Inevitably, this terminology would be brought out but they have to say, \u201copen-air drug use,\u201d \u201copen-air drug dealing, drug selling,\u201d and really, like the term sounds very scary. But what it means is that people who use and or sell drugs don\u2019t have an indoor place to do that. Or, otherwise, are not able to do so indoors. And so, a lot of it has to do with, in the TL you hear a lot of people talking about seeing folks smoke fentanyl on the street, or inject heroin, or smoking out of pipes or tinfoil right out on the street, so everyone can see how horrible. But really, what we\u2019re talking about is folks using drugs, just like most people use drugs, to get through their days or their lives, but folks who are poor enough that they have to sleep on the street outside, do that where everyone can see them and judge them and to make a fuss about it. Kind of same with open-air drug market or open-air drug dealing, most of the folks complaining about it like go to the dispensary and buy their weed, or go to the liquor store and buy a bottle of whatever. And because it\u2019s not open-air, it\u2019s less harmful, I suppose. But there\u2019s kind of this conflation of, we have to, poor people are outside and that\u2019s bad, and we need a legitimate reason to say why that\u2019s bad, and so the folks that their drug use and drug selling is exposed to the public is a reason they can demonize them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[MUSIC]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: So even though the city is fucked and there\u2019s this huge conspiracy against houseless people, we see people continuing to survive and help each other out. Some things maybe folks can do to help support houseless neighbors include mostly, it\u2019s just like giving people money if you have it to spare. Like, hook it up. It does a whole lot, and it also helps to counteract some of these ways poverty is being weaponized against people. Also Gay Shame has done a tent drive where we are able to fundraise to money to be able to give money directly to houseless neighbors and also tents and you can do something like that wherever you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: Yeah, I\u2019d get to know your neighbors who are unhoused, see what they need and do something about it when you see whatever your city\u2019s version of a Public Works person or the cops are messing with houseless people and their shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: Yeah that\u2019s a great idea, to film the cops if you see the cops fucking with houseless people or trying to sweep folks. If you have a cellphone camera, and you wanna turn it on and stay at a safe distance that feels safe to you and record what\u2019s going on, that can really help. So yeah, we encourage cop watching for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: Cops hate being videotaped for some reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY ON MY WAY: This is MARY ON MY WAY, thank you for having me, and I\u2019m signing off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY BETTER ON PAPER: This is MARY BETTER ON PAPER, and I\u2019m signing off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY DAGGERS: This is MARY DAGGERS, signing off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MARY CRISIS: This is MARY CRISIS, signing off.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TRANSCRIPT BELOW The Marys are begging to know why SF mayor London Breed is so obsessed with killing houseless people, especially in the Tenderloin district (also known as the TL).  In late December 2021, Breed declared a “State of Emergency” in the TL: her Xmas gift to her funders in the Real Estate and Tech […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4025,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4031","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4043,"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4031\/revisions\/4043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gayshame.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}