A progress report on Golden Gate Park campers

Tag : copper bus

One year ago this week, The Chronicle started publishing a seriesof columns and articles about homeless campers in Golden Gate Park.Complaints from neighbors and concerns about used hypodermicneedles lying around had created a hot public issue.
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had promised to make the park into a SanFrancisco version of New York City's Central Park, announced anumber of measures to crack down on the problems.
Police officers accompanied by 10 new park rangers and the city'sHomeless Outreach Team were sent out in the early morning every dayto round up campers. Park hours were changed from 6 a.m.-10 p.m. to8 a.m.-8 p.m.
The results after a year? Well, the campers aren't completely gone.Neither are the needles. But there are fewer of both.
On a morning trip to the park by myself, I spoke to Michael"Detroit" Willis and Chris, who declined to give his last name.They were pushing loaded shopping carts near the Conservatory ofFlowers, and they said the days of putting up a camp and settlingin for months are over.
"It's changed," Chris said. "A lot of the old-school guys are gone.You know that famous Treehouse Gary? He got out of Vietnam, came tothe park and never left. Even he got tired of (being moved around)and left."
Detroit and Chris are adamantly opposed to going into a shelter."I'd rather be in prison," Detroit said. They say some campers havemoved to streets in nearby neighborhoods at night.
"A lot of guys have given up and gone to the street," Detroit said."They sleep there and come back here during the day."
Still, you can't say city officials aren't trying. After complaintsabout the lack of oversight of the city's Needle Exchange Program,which critics said contributed to the piles of discarded syringesin the park, the city announced a program to recover more needles.
Mark Cloutier, executive director of the San Francisco AIDSFoundation, said needle collection has increased 22 percent sinceJune 2007.
Gardeners say the number of needles found near the park's easternentrance has declined, and they credit Mary Howe, director of theHomeless Youth Alliance Needle Exchange, whose office on HaightStreet provides syringes, for conscientiously leading cleanupgroups through the park.
Something must be working. At a site where I found a stack of 20 ormore syringes a year ago, I found only one this week. After an hourof searching, a Chronicle photographer and I turned up just nineused needles, some near the tennis courts and some just east of theConservatory of Flowers.
As for the campers, this week I went on the daily morning sweep atthe invitation of the mayor's homeless coordinator, Dariush Kayhan.
Starting at 4:30 a.m., we found 12 campers, all asleep. None ofthem was belligerent. They didn't have syringes at their camp oroutstanding warrants. They were awakened, asked to pack up and then- and this is new - were invited more than once to talk to theoutreach social workers.
"If we can get one person into services or on Homeward Bound (afree bus ticket home), we've done some good," said San FranciscoPolice Department Officer Bob Ramos, who is assigned to the dawnpatrol.
That sounds like a manufactured sound bite, but Ramos handles thisjob about as well as possible. He's loud and forceful when heenters a camp. He issues citations for illegal camping, checks foroutstanding felony warrants and pushes homeless campers to meetwith the social workers. But he's quick to engage, too.
At one campsite, a man rolled out of his sleeping bag to reveal ahash pipe. A park ranger, trying to avoid tacking on a minor drugparaphernalia charge, tried to give him some cues.
"That's not your pipe, right?" he said. "It was just laying there,right?"
The guy, still looking a little dazed, clearly wasn't sure how toexplain how the pipe got there.
"A squirrel must have left it," Ramos said breezily, moving on toasking the man if he would like to talk to the outreach team.
Social workers Bill Buehlman and Eula Sherman-Lawrence made a pointto stay back from the group to make it clear they were not part ofthe police or ranger force. They held quiet conversations with aheroin addict and a woman whose head was partially shaved where shehad needed surgical staples to close a wound from a beating.
"We try to meet everybody where they are," Buehlman said. "I'd saythat contact was a success. That one person had dropped out of hismethadone treatment, and I think he's ready to get back."
Kayhan said 239 homeless individuals from the park have receivedtemporary beds since last July, and 166 have taken the team up onits Homeward Bound offer, which provides a free bus ticket anywherein the United States (with some limitations).
Inevitably, the authorities and social workers encounter certainindividuals over and over. Dempsey, camping with his partner,Amanda, and their dog, Fire, had two shopping carts stashed in thetrees with cut branches placed over them. Dempsey insisted thecarts contained scrap metal, including 90 pounds of copper - "Andwe don't want to know where that came from," Ramos interjected -that they were going to sell for a bus ticket.
The two negotiated. Ramos finally agreed to Dempsey's suggestionthat he give them a day to cash in the scrap metal.
"You have my word that it will be out of the park by tomorrow,"Dempsey said.
"That's all I can ask," Ramos replied.
Ramos will be in the park Monday morning. It will be interesting tosee if Dempsey is.
C.W. Nevius' column appears on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.E-mail him at cwnevius@sfchronicle.com .