by Jordan Wasilewski
On Saturday, December 20, as I was preparing to go to punk and black metal shows in the East Bay, my power went out, along with about 130,000 of my fellow San Franciscans’. PG&E’s substation at Eighth and Mission streets had a huge fire thanks to the utility company’s deferred maintenance. While we technically have public power, PG&E still owns the infrastructure, and public power advocates have long demanded that the City take it over. I was one of the unlucky people who lived without power for three days. I stumbled home with my cell phone out of juice, thinking the outage would be minutes long or, at most, hours long, but no. This shutdown affected thousands of residents as well as at least three permanent supportive housing sites. The next few days taught a hard lesson on how the City just doesn’t give a rat’s ass about us.
Thankfully, I had a separate and rarely used phone through the Lifeline program, so I was not totally incommunicado. However, as it was Sunday, I would have to wait until the afternoon to go to a library to charge my device. I went to the Jose Sarria branch near Noe and Market streets where I charged my phone for several hours. However, the charging wasn’t that efficient, and I still didn’t have enough to make it through the night. That day, it became clear that the lower Tenderloin and Civic Center areas, parts of South of Market (represented by moderate Supervisors Bilal Mahmood and Matt Dorsey), and the Richmond District (represented by progressive Supervisor Connie Chan) bore the brunt of the outage. Significantly, those battle lines showed in their responses.
During the 3 o’clock hour, Mayor Daniel Lurie and Chan released a video promoting the charging/resource center at the Richmond District Recreation Center, as well as hotel vouchers for those impacted by the outage. I have to give props to Chan for, frankly, not being lazy and marshalling material resources for her district. However, Mahmood, who represents my district, was missing in action. His social media communicated only information about the outage but nothing else. Where were the similar resources for the poor and working class people in the greater Civic Center area? In fact, Mahmood never publicized the Richmond resource center as a place where his constituents could go.
I went home to verify that the power was still out at my place, and then called 211 for a hotel voucher, but I couldn’t get through. I went to the Western Addition library branch, but they were already closing. Finally, I make the long slog to the Richmond Rec Center, hoping I won’t get turned away for not being a Richmond resident.
Spoiler alert: I wasn’t turned away, and I was provided with a power bank, a blanket, snacks, and water, as well as kits to survive the outage. I would spend the next six hours, music blasting through my earbuds, sitting down and charging up my phone and power banks. Chan actually showed up and made sure the center was running smoothly, and I got to thank her for it. Also, I learned that the number of available hotel vouchers were actually very limited, and didn’t cover the whole cost.
I departed the charging center around 11 p.m. and took the bus home with some supplies. It was then I started to realize that PSH tenants were really left in the dark here and needed a lot of extra help. Many of us aren’t heavily resourced for disasters. If this were a dress rehearsal for the big one, we failed hard. I know that we have emergency trainings in our building, but the City needs to do better in providing us comprehensive stay boxes and go bags.
Most of Monday was a blur, but one subconscious and prescient wardrobe decision I made was that I wore a T-shirt of the thrash band Municipal Waste, which became appropriate because that was what I experienced during the outage.The food in my fridge had spoiled. I heard from tenants in my building about how much the City neglected them. The only help we got were blankets.
I heard about a charging station at the Boedekker Park clubhouse. While walking over, I started a 20-minute reel on my private Instagram ranting about how much the City hates poor and working-class people. But then I discovered that promise, like that of the hotel vouchers, was an empty one. Nothing was at Boedekker. Dejected, I continued my walk and rant to Geary Street to catch the 38 bus to the Richmond. The City decided to keep the community resource center going another night.
Well into my bus ride, I found an announcement from Mahmood on social media that a charging station for the Civic Center neighborhood was being mobilized at the food stamps office. It took them this long for them to help the neighborhood. Still, I decided to go to the Richmond Rec Center to recharge.
The fact that the Richmond District kept its charging center open and still had material resources to give people, even as a lot of the Richmond had gotten power restored, is something else. I then wrote an angry letter to the City government, including to Shirleen McSpadden, the director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH). I decided to stay until around 9 p.m., got a go bag with some extra (and better) power banks, headed home to drop off my haul, and then went to the food stamps office. While we did get a place to charge, our neighborhood got none of the material aid that was provided in the Richmond. The only upside is that I was able to apply for replacement food stamps for the spoiled food.
I then went home and during one of my attempts to get a better cell signal from my lobby, I happened to see an HSH employee at my door; after two days, they had just heard about the outage’s impact on my building. They asked if they could bring in a power bank, but I had to tell them that I wasn’t authorized to make that decision as I’m not building management, and they should come back in the morning. He complimented me on my Municipal Waste T-shirt and went on his way.
A few hours later, I was awakened by my lights being on. The long nightmare was coming to an end, but I was still not satisfied, even though I got approved for my replacement food stamps. Supervisors Mahmood and Alan Wong said they plan to call a hearing on what happened with PG&E and formally requested one last month. This inquiry is much needed, and I hope it will strengthen the City’s will to municipalize PG&E’s infrastructure, but I think the supervisors should also request a hearing on why Civic Center residents and PSH tenants were left out. Somehow, I don’t think Mahmood, who is backed by billionaires, will do anything about it.
So, what can be done about this? First off, I think that every current and future PSH tenant should be provided with a stay box/go bag, as described on the city’s earthquake preparedness website (including all the materials that can be provided). Second, I’d like to see HSH be more proactive in getting resources marshalled to PSH sites, and we should have been given not only given hotel vouchers, but been able to charge PG&E with room service fees instead of sitting home alone in the dark, because it doesn’t seem like they have a plan.
Frankly, this was a test of our city’s ability to respond to human needs after a disaster, and they failed miserably. PSH tenants, working-class/low-income individuals and homeless people need to be given priority and a little more TLC when disaster strikes.
