photos by David Elliot Lewis and Zoey Laird
“Our city is brushing people under the rug like we don’t exist. We exist and we belong somewhere, but not in a shitty place.”
Couper Orona, street medic and advocate
“We have a pattern of preventing things and shutting down things that work. Some would say, ‘why would they do that?’ The goal is not to connect to services, but make the city inhospitable to those that have been victimized and have fewer folks that are low income in the city.”
Dean Preston, former District 5 Supervisor
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase of people policed. The ‘good neighbor policy’ has turned services into a police state. I didn’t go to school to call the police on my clients.”
Maurice Byrd, clinical training director, Harm Reduction Therapy Center
“After Grants Pass, that shift our attorneys have seen is a lot of cases of ‘loitering with intent to commit a health a safety violation.’”
Carolyn Goosen, local policy director, SF Public Defender’s Office
“I’m not seeing enough service workers like registered health clinicians or interpreters engaged with unhoused people at sweeps, or people being transported to shelters, I’m not seeing people being offered or transported to shelters. What I’ve heard from folks is increasing arrests, more police- and sheriff-led interactions.”
Hannah Beazley, investigator, ACLU-NorCal
