Homes Not Jails.

• Author: Steinberg, Michael
• Position: House building group in San Francisco

San Francisco

In the fall of 1992, a group of homeless people and their supporters took over a building in the Tenderloin district at 90 Golden Gate Avenue, forming a clandestine community of about thirty people--and Homes Not Jails was born. The group's goals are to create permanent housing for the homeless and to do so in ways that promote autonomy and democracy.

Shortly after its first building takeover, Homes Not Jails staged a rally at the Civic Center on Thanksgiving Day 1992, and then marched to 250 Taylor Street, ripped the plywood off the boarded-up entrance, and occupied the building. The owner, Robert Imhoff of Landmark Realty, had evicted all the tenants of the former residential hotel a number of years before, in order to convert it into luxury apartments.

Construction work stopped, however, and the building, which is located directly across from the highrise Hilton, sat idle and empty for several years. Homes Not Jails brought it back to life, but the San Francisco police soon showed up and forced the occupiers to leave. Instead of dispersing, the people regrouped and marched boisterously through the Tenderloin, pointing out empty buildings and threatening to open them up, as police trailed nervously behind.

This public action captured the attention of the local media and helped exposed the depth of the scandal surrounding homelessness in the Bay Area. More than 6,500 San Francisco residential units sit vacant--enough to house all 10,000 people forced to live in the streets and parks of the city.

Homes Not Jails continues to pursue its twin strategies of starting covert squatters' residences and staging public actions. Over the last two years, the group has opened up more than 100 abandoned buildings, and many hundreds of homeless people have found shelter and community within them. A few of these households have lasted more than a year. The longest-lived was recently destroyed in an arson fire shortly after the residents had won the legal right to live there from the San Francisco Rent Board.

Homes Not Jails recommends that people abide by three agreements: 1) no violence in the house; 2) no drugs or alcohol on the premises; 3) decisions are made by consensus. The group continues to demonstrate that there is a direct, simple, practical solution to the homeless problem.

In December 1992, a group of Homes Not Jails squatters went back to 250 Taylor Street and reoccupied it. This led to a stand-off with police, who shut off the...