The supporters of the Super Bowl want San Francisco to look like a nice, clean city where all is gold and diamonds and special “50” sculptures and rich people can spend freely without guilt or concern.
But it’s not going to work out that way.
Starting February 3, advocates for the homeless are going to be holding what I think could turn out to be a massive demonstration right on the edge of Super Bowl City.
I like to think of it as Occupy the Super Bowl.
The Coalition on Homelessness and Broke-Ass Stuart are promoting the event, which will feature a tent city right next to the glitz. Already, 800 people have RSVPd on the Facebook page, and that’s probably a fraction of the folks who will actually show up.
“We’ll be making a homeless Super Bowl City,” Stuart told me. “We’re planning to be there a while.”
This will happen right in the middle of the big week of events, and the national news media will be on hand, and if enough people show up it will be a glorious mess.
Are the SF cops going to forcibly remove protesters? Or will there be an alternative city right next to where the billionaires are holding their party?
Right now, homeless people are being driven out of the downtown area, which is one reason there’s a huge tent city on Division. (The other reason: It’s comparatively dry under the freeway, and El Nino is a public health issue.)
The SFPD has said it will not interfere with peaceful protests, and I have every reason to believe that the Homeless Super Bowl City will be peaceful, just as Occupy SF was peaceful.
But the mayor has insisted that homeless people will have to leave the downtown area. So what is he going to do?
Better to have the cops drag away thousands of protesters in front of the national TV cameras (and trust me, they are all looking for this story) or accept the fact that the failures of the city’s housing policies will be right there for all to see?
Protesters are meeting at 4:30 pm in front of Sinbads on the Embarcadero, right next to the Ferry Building.
Among the demands the protesters are making: The $5 million that the city is spending to promote the Super Bowl would house 500 people. Why not put that money into housing?
Some facts from the Facebook page:
– There’s one shelter bed for every six homeless people
– There’s an 8,000-person long wait for housing
– 3,300 Children make up SF’s homeless
– 61% have disabilities
– 11,000 citations were given to homeless for resting in SF last year
Superbowl-Related Statistics:
– 25% of the costs for Superbowl ads would be enough to end homelessness in SF (Each 30-second Superbowl ad costs 5 million.)
– The $5 million cost to SF to host the Superbowl would house 500 homeless people.
– SFPD is responsible for clearing out homeless people for the Super Bowl by giving them citations, which are already up 30% from last year.
It’s not FREE. If the corporations plugging their brands on every corner and every skyscraper wall send San Franciscans a REIMBURSEMENT CHECK for the $5 million that was spent, THEN YOU CAN ALL IT A “FREE” PARTY.
Math, much?
I don’t think you remember what the Matrix was. It wasn’t just a movie.
No, I’ve read Capital and a lot of other Marxist analysis. Thanks for asking.
Progressive policies in action. None of that can be blamed on Republicans — not in this city, not in this state.
Not necessarily true. They often take very good care of them. I would not deny them the comfort and protection of a dog unless they were abusing them in some way.
People that can’t take care of themselves shouldn’t have pets…. Because they take poor care of them.
$189M budget is $3.6 million a week… are we supposed to believe an extra $5 million for 1 week wouldn’t help?
One of seriously needs to change your handle! 😉
As for why here now, TV cameras… lots and lots of TV cameras. Why not?
Thank you for the respect. But somebody is all of us. Charity will never cover all the need out there. Ultimately it is up to government to tax people and spend the money in a way that helps those in need, and up to all of us to make them do it.
I know righties who are personally generous people. They’ll buy food for the homeless (but resent taxes for anti-poverty programs), they’ll hire someone with a criminal record and give them a chance at a good job (but are vehemently against unionizing the company the company they own), they’ll go into poor communities to provide free health care on their own time (but oppose socialized medicine). Sometimes, they actually make the connection explicit. One very distinguished president of a healthcare university who I personally had the displeasure of knowing, would get in front of the each class and tell his students that it is their duty to provide charity to the poor, because if they don’t, then the government will impose it. Sometimes, it’s not so explicit, but the end result is the same -a course, capricious society where people struggle to survive amid fabulous wealth for the few.
Well I *want* the government to impose it, dammit! I don’t want people to give more crumbs off their table. I want everyone to have a *seat* at the table! The lefties are right. And the righties have no right to feel smug about themselves for throwing a few crumbs.
Then, respect, because that already places you above the 99% of lefties who do nothing personally or financially to help the poor but, rather, demand that somebody else should do it, or be made to do it.
I did. I contributed to campaign to buy homeless people more tents.
I hope you find a healthy and life-affirming outlet to channel all that anger about a game.
Some perspective here: this is a stupid ballgame. We don’t need to declare martial law because some beer-bellied rednecks are going to invade our town to watch some steroid junkies in tights throw a ball around. So fuck security theater. Fuck false “unity.” This isn’t about terrorism. It’s about social control of dissent. Fuck that.
We got Lee instead of Chiu so I don’t think it’s automatic, but I think under these circumstances, we might. Unless Peskin has his gavel back.
My comment about distracting the police was directed not at the homeless but rather at those who are threatening disruption, protests and demonstrations. I think direct action has its place but when there is a serious threat of terrorism then I think it is time for Americans to pull together rather than emphasize their differences. Nor do I think that disrupting the Superbowl will be effective or persuasive, and may just appear immature and spiteful.
That said I was downtown earlier today and, while the city is not on lockdown, there was some very serious security. SFPD were at all Muni stations and riding the trains, there were sniffer dogs and guys in military fatigues, and ominous looking black SUV’s with dark windows and running engines. I suspect the Feds and secret service ops are handling the real heavy security, and SFPD is demoted to glorified traffic duty.
The shelters are not necesarily safe and usually don’t take pets.
That’s what Ed Lee and company want, isn’t it? Of course nothing will ever get done that way, so maybe it’s time to try shaming them in front of the whole world.
That’s why I contributed to the GoFundMe campaign to buy more tents. Good way to help the homeless and give Ed Lee the middle finger at the same time.
As for police, I don’t see why they would be spread more thinly. The homeless aren’t a big security risk. They should concentrate on more important tasks than taking homeless people’s shelter… like getting kittens out of trees.
Don’t worry though. There’s always enough police to go around to stage a good security theater production.
brah. brah. You’re slicing the numbers all weird while you’re making your word salad.
Those are worthy and important messages to send, but what is the purpose of sending them to people who are visiting the city as tourists? They don’t vote here and have no influence over decisions made here. They are not suddenly going to decide to go home because they are told that there is homelessness and inequality here.
Moreover the police are going to be thinly spread over this period in any event, and being vigilant about possible terror attacks will consume security and enforcement resources. Distracting and diluting them further is not responsible. Wouldn’t it be better to let everyone have their fun for a week, and then get back to the serious business of seeking to influence policy at a more appropriate time and location, and with a more relevant audience?
if the mayor is recalled, do we get London Breed as mayor because she is board president?
Gotta protest people having fun! just as soon as I’m don’t protesting people getting to work on a bus.
We don’t do math here and we certainly don’t include revenues in forming our opinions.
I’m still trying to understand this one:
A really good Super Bowl brings in $360 million in ad revenue. So 25% is $90 million or $13K per person (homeless population of about 6.5k).
Just for comparison’s sake, the city’s homeless budget in 2016 is $189 million, which is $28K per person or twice the amount needed to end homelessness forever.
Like I said, we don’t do math around here.
48 Hills reported the “fact” that 61% of the homeless had disabilities. What does that mean? The truth is that only 34% reported that they had a disability that affected their ability to get off the street. In other words, 2/3 of the homeless do not blame physical conditions for their situation.
Then you add in that the biggest disability (37% drug or alcohol abuse) is something that can be amenable to counseling and it becomes a bit difficult to fault physical disabilities as a chronic cause of homelessness, despite what 48 Hills wants you to believe.
That’s not the same thing, bro.
“– The $5 million cost to SF to host the Superbowl would house 500 homeless people.”
So that is $10,000 each? Obviously not a permanent housing solution, just paying the city subsidized portion of their rent each month for a year. Next year you will need another $5m to help pay their rent.
The issue is that there aren’t 8000 units to put them in. Even if you could somehow find them or build them (a record year for SF is like 3500 units/yr, including market rate and subsidized), you would still have about 4-5,000 new homeless people who needed it next year.
ALSO, if the city does net say $20M from the Superbowl once you count sales tax, by your math that could house 2000 people, right?
Will they wrangle the homeless like props, or are they going to pose as homeless in tents? Both make me uncomfortable, and I want to like this idea.
I’m sure that will shake the oligarchs to their core…
“…those who live off the profits of our labor, can have a capitalist utopian Disneyland to frolic in guilt free”
Jesus, did you just read the communist manifesto for the first time or something? If you’re so salty about it, why don’t you pull a Timothy McVeigh or whatever…
And that census contradicts the implication that 61% of homelessness is attributable to disabilities:
(page 45)
Educated middle class white folks like Stuart are going to pretend to be homeless. To poke a finger in the eye of SF. Thanks. Lets not forget there are real homeless people that actually need services from the state and federal level as SF can not afford to provide all the services. But that is a hard issue to face so lets just look outraged and set up tents down town.
It would be better to focus efforts to recall the mayor. Remember a few months back when Super Bowl City spokesperson said there would be no food or drinks to encourage people to eat at nearby establishments?
Well that turned out to be another fucking lie.
So here is what was done: All plans done in secret and then people knowingly lied about the plans and budget. Then ever so slowly the truth seeps out. In this case, to keep local business groups from working against the Super Bowl City efforts they were told not to worry – we won’t serve food. And then, when it is too late to do anything about it, they say, sorry we are serving food.
The last few years, hotel occupancy rates in San Francisco in February was close to 80% and those tourists were all over the city spending money. Last President’s Day, Fisherman’s Wharf was packed with people. So if tourists stay away or are locked out because of Super Bowl visitors who spend a lot of time attending the Super Bowl events, many businesses will see losses.
Fuck this shit.
There’s a homeless census every year…
https://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/sfgov.org.lhcb/files/2015%20San%20Francisco%20Homeless%20Count%20%20Report_0.pdf
It’ll bring attention to how the Bay Area is a total clusterfuck for those of us who don’t draw giant VC-inflated paychecks.
Yeah. Asking them to accept a shelter for a week or to move a few blocks isn’t quite trying to matrix them out of acceptance. But whateves.
And the concept that Super Bowl City is for “the wealthy, those who live off the profits of our labor” exists only in your head, sorry. Back on planet earth it is a completely free event and it will be filled with families of all types having a great time together without having to pay any admission fee. Yes, there will be parties for robber barons but Super Bowl City isn’t one of them.
These tourist friendly events help the city to pay $28,000 a year per person experiencing homelessness. Saying that they HAVE to live in those few blocks during Super Bowl week, is, yes, an obscene sense of entitlement.
To be fair, that’s been the way SF has been trending for years now (a sanitized capitalist Disneyland for the wealthy to frolic through guilt free). The Superb Owl just makes it a much more pronounced spectacle for a few weeks.
That we’ve failed as a city and a country to take care of our neediest citizens, that our housing policy is a failure, that dire poverty exists in the wealthiest (per capita) city in the country. The whole world needs to see that message, because something needs to be done to spur our leaders to take some action to address the crises of housing and economic inequality.
“61% have disabilities.”
How did you figure that one out? By asking them? Did you get a breakdown of their disabilities?
$500,000 a week is spent on the homeless. And everyone thinks its horrible they are encouraged to sleep in shelters instead of tents or in FiDi doorways????
And what effective message will it send to the tourists??? Seriously.
I disagree with you that those of us who think human beings have the right to housing are somehow spoiled or entitled. More likely, it’s a sense of entitlement that makes you think we should matrix homeless people out of existence so that the wealthy, those who live off the profits of our labor, can have a capitalist utopian Disneyland to frolic in guilt free.
Let me tell you something else about the $5 million dollars. The city’s budget for homeless services is $189,000,000. Are we really supposed to believe that another 2.6% would make all the difference?
The reason that we have $28,000 to spend on every person experiencing homelessness is largely because of tourism and events like Super Bowl City. Every hotel room is going to be booked at $400 (during a normally slow period) and we get our 14% cut, plus airport fees and the sales tax on the fleece jerseys that they will have to buy to keep warm.
Sheesh. A few other points about this silliness:
1) Homelessness is a national issue, in no way limited to San Francisco. IF the media shows scenes of a homeless protest then the national reaction will be revulsion to the liberal, PROGRESSIVE mindset of San Francisco that condones and even encourages such an obscene sense of entitlement. New Yorkers, frustrated because of a breakdown in city services under their Progressive Mayor, will understand perfectly.
2) Can someone please explain to Tim that Super Bowl City is NOT a party of the rich. It is FREE. He doesn’t have to worry much about going down there and accidentally seeing a wealthy person. They will be somewhere else. They get the Red Hot Chili Peppers but we get free concerts by Alicia Keys, Chris Isaak and One Republic.
ANYBODY can go, but, no, you can’t come in with a shopping cart filled with unknown contents covered by a blanket. You can’t because it is 2016 and security is something of an issue nowadays. You can go to Super Bowl City, but you can’t live there, sorry, no matter what your sense of entitlement is.
yes! I can’t wait until Occupy Oakland shows up to give the Super Bore crowd a proper Bay Area welcome.
Paid “sharing economy” trolls are going to skip this article. Sad.