Homeless Rousted From S.F. Civic Center

Under a deadline imposed by Mayor Art Agnos, more than two dozen officers raided Civic Center Plaza before dawn Friday and gently rousted about 100 transients from their illegal encampment across from City Hall.

Only a few hours after the police action, during which five people were arrested, the plaza was “reclaimed” by ordinary citizens. Mothers wheeled their babies on the paths; old men sat on the benches, reading newspapers and chatting; children fed the pigeons. Some folks inspected the pretty flower beds.

It seemed that the homeless occupation of the plaza for more than two years had never taken place.

“I think this is very nice,” said a broadly smiling Jack Richards, who moved to San Francisco from Ohio 20 years ago. “This is the way it used to be--without the conflict, the yelling, the screaming.”

It was hard to believe that a few hours earlier police were ready to use force to remove the remnants of the occupiers of one of San Francisco’s showplace sites.

Some of the homeless had lived under the trees in the plaza for years. Agnos, who had been under heavy pressure to restore the plaza to general public use, vowed months ago to find housing for the homeless whether they liked it or not.

One man was carried away in his sleeping bag. Homeless advocate Keith McHenry of the Food Not Bombs group was arrested and booked on suspicion of interfering with police. Other charges included misdemeanor counts of illegal lodging and illegal distribution of food, police said.

Some of the hard-core homeless who refused to leave the plaza and ignored the Friday deadline called their home under the trees “Camp Agnos.”

The plaza is bounded on the west by City Hall, the north by the earthquake-ruined State Office Building, the south by Civic Auditorium, and the east by the Main Public Library.

“It isn’t fair,” grumbled one man to the police officer who was ousting him.

“You can’t live here anymore,” the policeman replied. “I’m not going to debate it with you.”

“Officers are using a low-key, friendly approach,” Police Capt. Frank Jordan told reporters recording the scene. The chief said city officials were directed to try for a “humane solution” to the homeless situation.

So far as 25-year-old Dale Forbis was concerned, life in the middle of San Francisco’s seat of government was good enough for him and his wife, Patricia. They moved to San Francisco from Chicago four years ago.

“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Forbis said. “That’s what this country was all about. So why can’t I pursue my happiness the way I choose, as long as I’m not bothering anyone?”

He said he has refused to take advantage of city multi-service centers opened this week, and hinted that the couple plan to move to a neighborhood south of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Police provided a shuttle service with vans to move the homeless people and their belongings a few blocks to a big shelter at Polk and Geary streets.

A garbage bin was pulled up on the sidewalk for trash. Some of the transients took advantage of it, while others eyed the junk for what they could use.

Living a hard life often on the edge of violence, many of the homeless said they had formed strong friendships.

“We have a small town here,” said Oscar Amezquita, 33, who said he fled Guatemala two years ago for political reasons. He said he can’t find work.

“We trust each other, feed one another, take care of each other. We don’t want to live in a shelter with people we don’t know.”

One of the “graduates” of plaza living is 28-year-old Willie Lewis, who showed up on Thursday to lend support to his old buddies. For two years, Willie lived out of a sleeping bag in the plaza, his life, he said, a haze of drugs and alcohol.

Willie said he took a look at his bleak life, cleaned himself up, got himself a job and moved into an apartment.

“These folks took care of me when I was sick,” he said. “I never went a day without eating, and I was never cold. . . . Sleeping out here is a hundred times better that those rat- and lice-infested hotels they want to send people to.”