Pubdate: Sat, 26 Jul 2008
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: A1
Copyright: 2008 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: C.W. Nevius

A PROGRESS REPORT ON GOLDEN GATE PARK

One year ago this week, The Chronicle started publishing a series of 
columns and articles about homeless campers in Golden Gate Park. 
Complaints from neighbors and concerns about used hypodermic needles 
lying around had created a hot public issue.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had promised to make the park into a San 
Francisco version of New York City's Central Park, announced a number 
of measures to crack down on the problems.

Police officers accompanied by 10 new park rangers and the city's 
Homeless Outreach Team were sent out in the early morning every day 
to round up campers. Park hours were changed from 6 a.m.-10 p.m. to 8 
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 of Flowers, and 
they said the days of putting up a camp and settling in 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 to 
the 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 have moved 
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 complaints 
about the lack of oversight of the city's Needle Exchange Program, 
which critics said contributed to the piles of discarded syringes in 
the park, the city announced a program to recover more needles.

Mark Cloutier, executive director of the San Francisco AIDS 
Foundation, said needle collection has increased 22 percent since June 2007.

Gardeners say the number of needles found near the park's eastern 
entrance has declined, and they credit Mary Howe, director of the 
Homeless Youth Alliance Needle Exchange, whose office on Haight 
Street provides syringes, for conscientiously leading cleanup groups 
through the park.

Something must be working. At a site where I found a stack of 20 or 
more syringes a year ago, I found only one this week. After an hour 
of searching, a Chronicle photographer and I turned up just nine used 
needles, some near the tennis courts and some just east of the 
Conservatory of Flowers.

As for the campers, this week I went on the daily morning sweep at 
the invitation of the mayor's homeless coordinator, Dariush Kayhan.

Starting at 4:30 a.m., we found 12 campers, all asleep. None of them 
was belligerent. They didn't have syringes at their camp or 
outstanding warrants. They were awakened, asked to pack up and then - 
and this is new - were invited more than once to talk to the outreach 
social workers.

"If we can get one person into services or on Homeward Bound (a free 
bus ticket home), we've done some good," said San Francisco Police 
Department Officer Bob Ramos, who is assigned to the dawn patrol.

That sounds like a manufactured sound bite, but Ramos handles this 
job about as well as possible. He's loud and forceful when he enters 
a camp. He issues citations for illegal camping, checks for 
outstanding felony warrants and pushes homeless campers to meet with 
the social workers. But he's quick to engage, too.

At one campsite, a man rolled out of his sleeping bag to reveal a 
hash pipe. A park ranger, trying to avoid tacking on a minor drug 
paraphernalia 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 to 
explain how the pipe got there.

"A squirrel must have left it," Ramos said breezily, moving on to 
asking the man if he would like to talk to the outreach team.

Social workers Bill Buehlman and Eula Sherman-Lawrence made a point 
to stay back from the group to make it clear they were not part of 
the police or ranger force. They held quiet conversations with a 
heroin addict and a woman whose head was partially shaved where she 
had needed surgical staples to close a wound from a beating.

"We try to meet everybody where they are," Buehlman said. "I'd say 
that contact was a success. That one person had dropped out of his 
methadone treatment, and I think he's ready to get back."

Kayhan said 239 homeless individuals from the park have received 
temporary beds since last July, and 166 have taken the team up on its 
Homeward Bound offer, which provides a free bus ticket anywhere in 
the United States (with some limitations).

Inevitably, the authorities and social workers encounter certain 
individuals over and over. Dempsey, camping with his partner, Amanda, 
and their dog, Fire, had two shopping carts stashed in the trees with 
cut branches placed over them. Dempsey insisted the carts contained 
scrap metal, including 90 pounds of copper - "And we 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 suggestion that 
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 to 
see if Dempsey is.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom