Tents, fireworks and a city on edge

Homeless encampments are targets. But where are they supposed to go?

A play about the San Francisco homeless community in two acts:

ACT 1: This week Tenderloin residents announced with great ballyhoo, that the tent encampment near Civic Center had decreased from 420 tents to 172. Now, they say, they can walk on the sidewalk in front of where they live.

ACT 2: (one night later) KPIX-TV reporter Betty Yu talks to Mission Bay residents, who complain about a disturbing increase in tent encampments next to Caltrain. They are, the residents say, frightened.

And scene.

As you are probably saying, this looks suspiciously like another day in San Francisco. A homeless encampment pops up in a neighborhood, and grows in size until it frightens the neighbors. City workers arrive, the encampment is closed down and the tent dwellers go to another open space in another neighborhood.

And that’s not to say that the Tenderloin improvement should not be saluted. The TL always feels it is ignored by the city. Leaving crowds of tents on the sidewalk — it really was an almost surreal scene — only reinforced the idea that nobody cares what happens in the Tenderloin.

But geez, it took a law suit to get something done? Hastings Law School, alma mater of Kamala Harris and Willie Brown, had to sue the city to get some action on hundreds of tents blocking the sidewalk. Seriously?

It is true, we have been having the same discussion for decades. The fundamental question continues to be the one homeless campers always ask when they are told to pack up and move on: “Where am I supposed to go?”

To this day, after all this time, San Francisco has not come up with an answer. Where are they supposed to go?

And, for lots of reasons, this is the worst of times for housing the homeless. For starters, back in April the largest homeless shelter in San Francisco, on Bryant and Fifth, experienced an outbreak of over 70 cases of COVID-19. The New York Times called the “largest in a single center in the United States.”

That freaked everybody out. Shelters were told to provide social spacing. And when shelters weren’t big enough to provide six feet of space for everyone, they had to admit fewer people. The overflow ended up on the street.

But there’s also another factor. People are on edge. The pandemic is not just scary, it is unsettling. People are worried about their jobs and their future. And the political landscape, with Trump trolling us, just gets more upsetting.

The point is, I am hearing things that surprise me. A neighbor hinted the other day that the nearby homeless encampment might be responsible for the loud fireworks we have been hearing for weeks.

First of all, the fireworks are a coast-to-coast nuisance, from New York to Los Angeles and beyond. And second, if a homeless person had the money to buy a huge firecracker, I bet you it would be way down the list of their potential purchases.

But it is part of what is creating a stew of outrage, grievance and paranoia. With every nighttime M-80 blast, making us all jump, it seems like the world is getting less civilized and more lawless.

In this atmosphere, it would be easy to see neighborhood residents getting fed up with the homeless. Not blaming them, but maybe being less sympathetic. It’s a bad vibe for everybody.

So, one thing that make us feel we were making some progress is a plan to help get the homeless off the streets.

Two points: First this is not a San Francisco problem. It is in Los Angeles, Seattle and Santa Cruz. It is all over the country.

That’s why Marc Benioff’s well-intentioned tax raising $200 million a year, to “end homelessness” is unrealistic. What about Oakland? Or San Jose? Or Berkeley. We’ve got ours, so you are on your own?

At the very least this needs a state-wide response, and ideally it would be a federal program. I’ll just sit here and hold my breath until that happens.

Second point. The city can’t send the homeless campers out to free range, finding spots to set up, only to be told to move again. There has to be a place where they can either move in or set up a tent. My preference would be one of the big piers down the Embarcadero, as was tried several years ago.

But that’s not getting much traction. Supervisors keep saying all we have to do is move thousands of people into vacant hotel rooms. And you know why the city doesn’t want to do that — it would mean creating a huge public housing complex that will need to be supported, policed and maintained.

But at this point, I think you’ve got to try it. There’s been a lot of talk about setting up more tent spaces, like the orderly and well-run one at Civic Center, but movement has been painfully slow.

The encampments grow on the street. And advocates say the solution is putting campers in hotel rooms.

So OK, let’s try that. I have grave doubts, but housing the campers and getting them off the street is worth a try.

Because it may be summer, but enough with the reruns.

Subscribe to this newsletter for the great price — free. And stay for the content — mildly interesting. Just hit the button.

Yay, sports are back. Wait, is that good?

Barring something unexpected, professional sports will be restarted in this country by August 1. Major League Baseball will be playing in their home ballparks, the NBA will be in its Orlando biosphere and the NFL should be well into training camp.

But as I wrote in my Sunday Santa Rosa Press Democrat column when we said we were going to start back up in August, it seems certain that the pandemic would be winding down.

Actually, it isn’t. In fact, cases are setting records. And athletes are taking notice. Pro golfers have dropped out of tournaments, Megan Rapinoe and other women are skipping a soccer tournament.

The NBA tested all 302 players and want us to be relieved that “only” 16 tested positive. This is the league, you recall, that shut down the season in March when one player, Rudy Gobert, tested positive.

Baseball has announced 40 cases including players and staff, but they don’t really do their full roster testing until later this week.

I’m as eager as anyone to see games. But you look at those states that opened up too fast and now, after spikes in virus infections, need to shut down again.

I’d hate to see that happen in sports.

You know that person that constantly agrees with you? Where you say something and they are like, “exactly.” Well, you know what they’d like? This newsletter.

Now we have to talk about Jimmie Garoppolo. Again. Sorry, it is in the contract.

Here’s a 49er insider blog post I wrote for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. The comments section of this blog is off the charts. It is not unusual to get 400 responses.

Of course, a lot of the comments are argumentative responses to each other, but it is still pretty entertaining.

Garoppolo is a sure fire hot button. To be clear, I’m a Jimmie G guy. But also, I’m not saying there aren’t things he can improve. Using a story from The Athletic (and giving full credit to the author) we find some interesting stats and trends.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@gmail.com. Suggestions and comments welcomed. Criticism not so much. Twitter: @cwnevius