By Rachel Brahinsky

When Mayor Gavin Newsom announced the creation of the Bayview Neighborhood Rescue Team in late August, he promised a fresh approach to dealing with problems in that neighborhood. But Sept. 30, in a move that has left city officials fumbling for an explanation, city workers tore apart a homeless encampment, a sweep that appeared to disregard the needs of the human beings involved.

That morning a crew of Department of Parking and Traffic workers, accompanied by police officers, rolled through an encampment of R.V.s parked on an unpaved portion of Wallace Avenue in the Bayview District and towed some 12 cars and R.V.s. Witnesses said that city officials left warning notices the night before but that workers moved in even before the announced deadline.

Fifteen to 20 homeless people lived at the site, an isolated cul-de-sac bordered by overgrown fennel on one side, bay waters to the south, and a long, patchwork cement wall to the west. Former residents of the R.V.s, many of whom count among the city's "chronically homeless" whom Newsom has pledged to help, had emptied all of their belongings into massive piles before the tow trucks pulled their homes away, giving the place the air of an ad hoc dump.

"DPW will be here tomorrow – to get rid of all this crap," Bayview police captain Rick Bruce told the Bay Guardian. Bruce expressed no concern for the people whose possessions were about to be dumped. "The focus is not on these people; it's on the property," he told us, and referred to the place as a "toilet" on the KTVU, channel 2, evening news that night.

The sweep came after a series of complaints were filed by homeowners in the neighborhood, according to city attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey, whose office heads up the rescue effort (which includes the DPT). Violations included "illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, and drug activity," Dorsey said.

But there were people affected by the sweep, and none of those we spoke to knew quite what to do.

Several wandered around the debased encampment, looking lost; a young woman with scabs on her face picked through a pile of things she'd rescued from her R.V. Meanwhile Cindy Avilez, a 47-year-old with blond hair and an eyebrow piercing, told us her story. "We used to live in a house, for 17 years, until the landlord passed away and it was sold," she told us.

Then, she said, her husband started doing odd jobs for Mike Garza, a onetime Republican candidate for Congress who owns the land behind the cement wall and was cited earlier this year for maintaining a flock of sheep on the property. She and her husband got an R.V. and a trailer and set up camp.

Now, Avilez said, she doesn't know where they'll go. Even though she might have benefited from some advice on the matter, there wasn't a social-welfare worker in sight.

Just days later Newsom held a press conference in his City Hall office to announce federal grants just awarded to three local agencies that serve the homeless. He talked, as he often does, about the city's commitment to helping the chronically homeless population. But when we asked about the Bayview sweep, about which his office had been alerted five days prior by us and by members of the public, he claimed to be out of the loop. "I am just now getting the facts," he said. "This was not directed by our office."

But who did direct it? Department of Human Services chief Trent Rhorer, whose office is supposed to take the lead on housing the homeless, also said he knew nothing about the sweep. And Dorsey admits there was a lack of coordination among rescue team agencies. "We certainly hope to do a better job with coordination with homeless services in the future," he told us.

Lost in the shuffle are the former R.V. dwellers who now must find somewhere else to stay. They'll be doing so in the brave new world of Newsom-Bush homeless policy, where grants are released for homeless programs to great fanfare ($4.6 million for San Francisco was announced Oct. 4) while deep cuts are made in the social safety net – almost guaranteeing the creation of new homeless families. As of Oct. 1, for example, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had dramatically cut grants for housing subsidies under the Section 8 program. For a family renting a three-bedroom house, the feds will offer $380 less a month in San Francisco than last year; for a family renting a four-bedroom, the cut is $405.

For those on the edge of homelessness, that's too much.

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