Michael Inman, 57, has struggled to find stable housing since he lost his job as an ironworker in 2018. “I’m doing the best I fucking can out here,” said Inman, who is among thousands of unhoused residents affected by San Francisco’s aggressive crackdown on homeless encampments. “No matter what you think of us, we are all someone’s child.”
In July, Mayor London Breed vowed to “aggressively” remove people experiencing homelessness from encampments beginning in August. “This is not just about cleaning and clearing,” Breed said. “Because these are people and they gotta go somewhere, but we are going to make them so uncomfortable on the streets of San Francisco that they have to take our offer [of shelter or housing].”
The move comes after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which determined that the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause does not apply to fining, ticketing, or even arresting those who are homeless, even in the absence of public shelters.
To show the devastating human toll of Breed’s crackdown, I worked in collaboration with individuals experiencing housing insecurity to document their stories in a human, artistic way. I photographed portraits of unhoused residents using analog film and gave them a pen and notebook to share their perspective on encampment sweeps, the loss of personal belongings or their thoughts on their current situation.
One of the people I met was Justin Frank, 28, who was sitting on a stool with a blank expression just weeks after Breed launched the crackdown. Frank said workers with the Department of Public Works had just taken his tent, which he shared with his wife and their dog. His medication was also thrown out. Guarding what little remained from the sweep, Frank reflected on the experience: “You start to lose all of your belongings — kind of all the things that made you human.”
According to the Department of Homelessness’s May Point-in-Time Count, there are nearly 3,000 people sleeping unsheltered on the streets — the lowest count since before 2015. The report also noted an increase in people and families sleeping in vehicles and shelters.
Among the communities impacted by the crackdown are the city’s RV residents, who have faced displacement amid the city’s push to create and enforce parking restrictions. “The city has bothered us many times, just because we live in RVs,” said Alonso Rosales, an 18-year-old RV resident who lived with his family on Winston Drive before being displaced. “The rent is too high in San Francisco and all around, and that’s why we were forced to live in RVs.” Rosales said he lost his job at a Mexican restaurant in Oakland after it shut down during COVID, which forced him out of the small bedroom he rented.
Rosales’s neighbor, Marlon Arostegui, is another RV resident. Like many others in the city’s RV communities, Arostegui’s situation highlights the precarious balance between having a temporary roof and being pushed into even more unstable conditions. “I work long hours. I’m alone here, and right now my main focus is being able to earn enough money to support my family back home,” Arostegui said, as his eyes welled up with tears. Arostegui is among the city’s growing base of immigrant newcomers who fled Nicaragua amid political and economic turmoil. He says he considers his motorhome a stepping stone to obtaining a work permit so he can get financially settled enough to afford stable housing
What many residents see as “eyesores” on city streets are, in reality, the human fallout of soaring living costs and a housing crisis that shows no signs of abating. The aggressive sweeps and the city’s forceful displacement of RVs have highlighted the vulnerability of people’s belongings — essentials that provide a semblance of stability and comfort.
In one harrowing case, Michail Hutson still remembers when Department of Public Works (DPW) officials threw away his mother’s and brother’s cremated ashes. After returning from the food bank, all of his belongings were gone. Hutson has been unable to retrieve his most sentimental items. “I can’t explain how it feels,” Hutson said, shaking his head. “Those were things that can’t be replaced.”
Critics of the sweeps have raised concerns about DPW officials discarding people’s personal items. A federal judge has since ordered the city to improve its training on the “bag-and-tag” policy, which governs how street cleaners remove items from encampments, as first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
According to Raul Cahuich, another unhoused resident, street cleaners often arrive unannounced or outside the 72-hour notice period. Cahuich, who moved from Mexico to find work and has struggled to secure housing for five years, has had his tent thrown away multiple times. He continues to find ways to avoid any contact with the city.
“My belongings are the most important things that I have in life,” Cahuich said, capturing a sentiment shared by many in the unhoused community.
