Police Violence Doesn’t Stop Homes Not Jails Takeover in San Francisco

San Francisco, July 4-Today some celebrate the birth of this nation, and the freedoms they believe it stands for.

Few know that the famous words of the Declaration of Independence, touting the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ were originally “life, liberty and the pursuit of property.”

The contradictions between some peoples’ property and other peoples’ happiness, along with state sponsored violence that has been employed to keep one from the other, were once again illustrated by today’ takeover of a long vacant residential hotel by Homes Not Jails.

Homes Not Jails has been occupying empty buildings with homeless people in San Francisco and beyond since 1992.

30k Empty Homes – 10 K Homeless = Homeless SOLUTION

The Hotel Sierra at 20th and Mission streets in San Francisco’s Mission District has been vacant for nearly 20 years. Almost 50 rooms have been empty on the building’s second floor The current owner of record, Ed Litke, made his money as a slumlord, according to Homes Not Jails.

According to the US Census Bureau, San Francisco recently had over 30,000 empty housing units. The city’s estimated homeless population currently is 10,000. When, theoretically, there are 3 vacant housing units for every homeless person here, why not make them available for those who most need them?

Turing that theory into practice is what Homes Not Jails is all about.

Vacancies Are Social Toxic Waste

Today’s action began this afternoon with a rally in Dolores Park, following a performance by the San Francisco Mime Troupe of its latest revolutionary musical comedy.

The rally began with about 50 people, according to one organizer. “That quickly doubled and then tripled after the Brass Liberation Orchestra arrived,” said organizer said. The Brass Liberation Orchestra blasts out irresistible sounds to inspire radical social actions.

“We marched right up 19th to Mission,” this source told me, “taking the whole street.”
Finally they marched right into the Hotel Sierra, which conveniently had its doors wide open. Festivities continued therein and around, music, food, sunbathing on the roof, dancing in the streets shout outs on the sidewalks.

Our Lives Are Precious

When I arrived at the hotel around 6:30 this afternoon, the party was still in full swing. Dozens of occupiers were appreciating the delights of liberation and spectacular 360 views atop the storied old hotel. The front entrance was still open and inviting. So I stepped in.

I’d first been there earlier this year, when the dead old building was brought back to life by Stop the Cuts, a sister group to Homes Not Jails.

Everything looked just the same inside. Not a thing had been done to fix up the place. But it was pretty habitable, with running water, working toilets and even showers. All it needed was some TLC. And now it was in Homes Not Jails' intensive care.

I went up to the roof to enjoy the view and sunny optimism. I asked if the cops had been around. “They’ve been cruising by, but that’s all,” someone told me.

As if on cue, some minutes later at 6:45, word quickly spread like a recurrent bad dream: “The cops are here, the cops are in the building.”

I started down the stairs to the second story’s neglected rooms. At the bottom of the steps I met up with two cops coming up. “We just want to see who’s in charge here,” they said. “You don’t have to leave yet. Excuse us." Up they went.

By law the authorities are supposed to solicit a trespassing complaint from the owner of record before they can force people to leave an abandoned building. But these cops seemed to have other ideas.

I decided to take an alternative exit from the building. But before I reached it, I heard disturbed shouts and screams outside. I stepped out carefully to see cops dragging a man away to a police cruiser as the crowd on the sidewalk recoiled in disgust.

Sirens screamed in the near distance and black and whites roared up with cops leaping out. They quickly closed off the block with their signature yellow plastic tape and cleared the sidewalk in front of the Sierra.

The situation was fast growing more tense and threatening. Then one cop called out, “Mike, take the tapes down and open the street.”

HOME

Subsequently I learned more about what had been going on.

One eyewitness told me, “The guy the cops took away was helping me hold the door shut so more cops couldn’t get in The cops just walked into the group on the sidewalk, pushing their way through. Another guy said to them, ‘Do you have the authority to interfere with this investigation?’

“The cops pushed the guy holding the door and he acted like anyone would who was being pushed around. Then the cops pushed him over a bike and he fell down. They pushed him into a gate [over another entrance to the building] and assaulted him. They kept saying, ‘Don’t resist,’ but he wasn’t doing anything.”

As we spoke the cops were disappearing, first from the street, then from the street, until all that was left was one guy in a cruiser on the other side of Mission Street.

Note: Subtitles in this report were taken from signs and banners at today’s action.

Update; As of 10:30 tonight Homes Not Jails still occupied the Hotel Sierra. One current resident informed me, “We’re hanging out on the roof watching the fireworks. Some people are playing guitars, and there’s other music playing too. It’s pretty chill.”