Walking stories

Guilt

February 16, 2024

Crumple plastic bag and shove it into pocket, drape treat sack around neck and across chest, harness Greenberg and then it’s down the steps and onto the sidewalk, time after time after time.  If at the moment I open the front door he sees another dog across the street, he’s whimpering and shrieking,  a dog who puts the bark in embarking.  And I have been wondering if the noise is disturbing  the people who for ten days or so have been living in a lopsided tent on a patch of sidewalk in front of our house.

When they first set up there, my husband talked with the lady of the house and asked her if she was okay or if she needed him to call for help.  She was fine, she told him.  He called 3-1-1 to find out what was likely to ensue.  They asked if the couple was blocking anything vital – not really – and was told that someone would be coming around to check out the situation.   Would he be willing to talk with that someone?  Yes, he said.   But no one ever rang our front bell to talk about it, and we have no knowledge of anyone ever coming.  

Days went by, and as I walked Greenberg around the ‘hood, several neighbors weighed in about the situation.  All of them were bemoaning the sidewalk presence, some sympathetic to the needs of the newcomers,  others angry about the state of the city.

On the other side of Oak Street, in front of the DMV between Fell and Oak, tents have come and gone and come again.  In recent weeks, there has been a line of them set up, a temporary village on Baker Street. .

This is not the first time this area has become a campsite.  Eventually, it always seems that  someone in DPW, or perhaps the SFPD or Recology or a state trooper (the DMV’s on state-owned land)  gets them to leave.   A few months ago, during the APAC conferences, the block-long tent city  got more congested, when the unhoused were swept westward so their visual blight wouldn’t mar downtown settings. When that series of events ended,  the street-dwellers vanished from Baker Street, perhaps once again allowed to be closer to downtown once the guests were gone.  

But a few weeks ago, they had returned, only disappearing in a political magic trick when our Mayor was having some kind of campaign event at that eastern edge of the Panhandle.  It sure wouldn’t have been good optics to have those tents on camera, so they were temporarily relocated.   A couple of hours later, when the cameras were gone, the tents were back.

I have never been threatened or bothered by an unhoused person, and I do think that those of us with houses have to allow that we share the streets with those of us without shelter.    We are not irate Karens and we treasure our friendships with neighbors, a category that should be big enough to include these people.  We sure don’t  want to sic authorities on them,  so while they are there, we more or less pretend to each other that neither of us is bothered by sidewalk settlers. 

But if I’m walking after dark, I prefer to walk on the opposite  side of the street, at the rim of the Panhandle.  And when the two of us – sometimes accompanied by Greenberg – leave the house together, we leave with the uncomfortable knowledge that there are  people living in front of it who could be observing our movements. Nearly every day, while we  two are dragging groceries up the front steps to our nearly empty nest, I think about those two people are sharing a tent on the street.  On trash collection day, my husband maneuvers the cans to a new place on the sidewalk, so as not to disturb the tent; he worries that Recology wouldn’t find the cans in their new spot.   

But people sure have a clearer right to occupancy than trash cans, and neither of us will make a formal complaint.  When storms are forecast, we say to each other that the rain will probably force them to move elsewhere, to a place more protected from the elements.

But they don’t move.  Pelted  by rain, they stay, their tent lit at night by a small electric lamp, probably battery-operated.  I can’t leave the house without casting a glance at the tent, remembering that we have a roll of plastic sheeting in the attic, and wondering if they could use it to cover themselves.   But the plastic is thin, imprinted with warnings about its dangers; if they wrapped it around themselves, there’s a chance they might suffocate. The tent-dwellers are quiet, scattering only a small amount of trash around the periphery of the tent.

Early this week, I make an expedition to Target to make a few household purchases.  I can’t remember how long we’ve had our old pillows, but under the pillowcases, they are lumpy and yellowed with wear and age.    Arriving home carrying fluffy white replacements,  it occurs to me that I could give the old pillows to the couple in front of my house.   But no, I think, it would be an insulting gesture.  Who wants someone else’s old pillows? There’s a bowl of oranges on our dining room table.  I could give them a few oranges.  But they’ve said they are okay, and they haven’t been begging.  

As I pull on my clothes this morning, I hear some voices on the sidewalk in front of the house.  Lifting a corner of the curtain, I see three police officers talking to someone in the tent.  I can’t make out who that is.  I am comfortable, warm, dry.  I wonder if someone else on the block has called the authorities.  

I finish dressing and then harness up Greenberg to walk to a neighborhood cafe, where I am meeting a friend for coffee.  I’m relieved that looking out the window,  I can’t see either one of the tent residents on the scene; maybe they’re still inside the tent.  But as we hit the bottom step,  I don’t want to be a rubber-necker eating up the drama of what’s going on, but as I pull a discarded juice carton out of the jade plants around our trees  I can’t resist  glancing over at the sidewalk scene.  The officers are standing there quietly; there are a few single blue  rubber gloves rumpled on the sidewalk. 

My eyes meet those of one of the officers. surely there to oversee the dismantling of the tent.  This must be hard for you, I say to the officer. I have felt sympathy, I said, for law officers who signed up thinking they would spend their working lives protecting the lives and rights of the good people.  From what I have seen around the neighborhood – officers gently rousing people from sidewalks in commercial districts, or moving people who have collapsed overnight on benches in the Panhandle – a good portion of their professional duties have become those of social workers.  This terrible homeless situation has completely changed the focus of their duties. The officer nods in agreement, but hastens to add some information: 

 “The arrest we’re making,” he says, and I’m surprised to hear that it is an arrest, “has nothing to do with homelessness.”  I look at him quizzically.  He tells me that they're making an arrest of the guy who’s been living in the tent on charges that he beat someone up the other day in Union Square.

 I leap to speculation:  Was this guy, who’s been living so close to us, a danger?  Calm down, Leah, and forget all the police procedurals you’ve watched.  There’s been no trial or finding in the case; maybe they’ve got the wrong guy.

Then I think the un-original thought of the everyday neighbor, interviewed on the TV news after some horrific incident: , “But he seemed like such a quiet guy.” Also, totally irrationally, I am for some reason shocked that the guy was downtown, commuting from his tent/home in the Haight to Union Square.  

In a completely self-centered way, I am also wondering if the arrest of this guy will leave his lady on the sidewalk in front of our house.  So I ask the officer whether the tent will remain. I am careful to  keep my voice low.  If anyone’s still  in the tent, I don’t want him or her to think that I am a bourgeois home-owner ready to kick him or her down the street.  In answer to my question, the officer shakes his head no.  He and the other two officers are waiting for some kind of DPW truck to come by, pack everything up in plastic bags, tag it, and take it to some center where the owners can retrieve it some time in the future.

By the time I return home after meeting my friend, the tent is gone. In a way, finding out that the police removed this person because he was charged with a violent crime has absolved me of my guilty feelings.  I’m off my own hook.  If he is a danger, then I feel less blame for being a member of  the cozy but cold-hearted club of San Franciscans who have failed to find a remedy for this guy living through the rainy season on the street.

My sidewalk is clear.  But I can’t quite say the same thing about my conscience.