S.F. Seeks Parking for Homeless’ ‘Homes’

Guinea Apollos, in the polite terms of San Francisco’s homeless advocates, is a “vehicularly housed resident.” In the less polite terms of the police, she is someone living illegally in a car on city streets.

To be precise, in Apollos’ case, the vehicle is a 1964 school bus purchased three years ago when her monthly disability check could no longer cover the rent on her small San Francisco apartment.

Apollos has painted her bus flat black and shares it with a large, lazy cat named Sydney. She has equipped it with a built-in stove, sink and spice rack, and brightened it with family photographs, potted plants, crocheted afghans and window curtains.

“I have turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse,” says the former clerical worker. Although she is as poor as many of the thousands of homeless living on San Francisco’s streets, Apollos believes her bus sets her apart.

“I am not homeless,” the wiry, 50-year-old says firmly. “My home is homeless.”

Recognizing the distinction, San Francisco officials are considering a proposal that would stop the grim game of cat and mouse that Apollos and an estimated 500 others like her are playing with police day in and day out.

At the urging of car dwellers and homeless advocates, the city is scouting for municipal sites to build campgrounds for them in the port area south of the downtown financial district.

The port area is being considered, city officials say, because hundreds of car dwellers already park there and it is too far from residential neighborhoods to raise the hackles of homeowner groups.

Point man for the project is Terrence Hill, Mayor Willie Brown’s coordinator on homelessness. Hill says this city is the first in the nation to even think of legitimizing living in cars.

Indeed, Harold Adams, executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, expressed amazement when told of the proposal. “You usually try to get people into housing, not keep them in their cars,” he said.

Hill concedes that other cities might think building a campsite for the dispossessed on city property is wacky. But San Franciscans, he says, have never been afraid to experiment.

“This city has never been concerned with how other cities or states perceive us,” said Hill, who has spent much of his career dealing with the homeless. “And to San Francisco’s credit, a lot of innovative ideas have started here.”

Laws now on the books in San Francisco say it is illegal to sleep in vehicles on city streets between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. But typically, police move people or tow the cars only after businesses or residents complain.

The proposal for what would be a vehicularly housed residents community is the brainchild of the Vehicularly Housed Residents Assn.--a “neighborhood association without the neighborhood,” in the words of Judy Appel, a lawyer for the Coalition on Homelessness, an advocacy group.

Hill says he hopes to begin with one 50-space lot. He estimates that building the facility would cost at least $100,000, which could come from the city and foundation grants.

The site would feature showers, bathrooms, laundry facilities, a community room, and social and health services for car dwellers. It would be run by the tenants and function as a nonprofit corporation. Once the city installs facilities, the tenants would be responsible for maintaining the property, establishing and enforcing rules and providing security.

Tenants would pay nominal rent--a percentage of whatever income they might have--which would go toward maintenance costs.

“The whole point is to create a space where people who live in their cars can be relatively stable for a period of time so that they can connect with social workers, health care workers and housing advocates who will help them make the transition into permanent housing,” Hill said.

Most tenants would stay for a short period, but a core group could be there permanently, Apollos said.

Brown has yet to speak publicly about the plan, and his office refers all questions to Hill, who says the mayor has given him “marching orders to see how realistic this really is.”

Last year, Brown drew scathing criticism when he proposed building camps for the homeless in Golden Gate Park, where dozens of people now sleep under trees and bushes every night. That plan was quickly dropped.

But the homeless remain a political problem for Brown, who vowed in his mayoral campaign to deal with the estimated 5,000 to 10,000 believed to be homeless.

As soon as he took office, Brown dismantled outgoing Mayor Frank Jordan’s Matrix program, which aimed at making San Francisco less friendly to the homeless by issuing thousands of tickets for such offenses as public urination and sleeping in parks. Homeless advocates say police continue to issue such tickets, however.

The mayor also has yet to schedule a promised summit on homelessness. He has introduced no programs to tackle what remains a chronic problem here and in other American cities, and last year told reporters he had come to the conclusion that there may not be a solution.

But with homeless shelters filled to capacity nearly every night, and hundreds of people sleeping in parks and the doorways of businesses, pressure is mounting on Brown to do something.

The city’s interest in a campsite for the vehicularly housed is a welcome initiative from the mayor’s office, said Appel, the homeless advocate. A campsite, she says, is a far more humane solution than the alternative: periodic police sweeps through encampments of car dwellers that often result in vehicles being towed and impounded.

“When you tow these cars, you are towing these people’s homes and all their possessions,” Appel said. Too often, she says, car dwellers cannot afford the fines they must pay to get their vehicles out of impoundment, register them, pay any accumulated tickets and make mandatory safety repairs. These people end up on the streets.

One day this month, police ticketed 58 vehicles parked along one street in the port area and later towed 17 of them, said Police Capt. Sylvia Harper. A few days after the sweep, some vehicularly housed people were moving back.

“We moved in two years ago, and since then, we’ve seen the street lined solid with campers, trucks and cars,” said Mike Waters, president of a charter bus company whose bus yard is on the street where the police conducted their sweep. Waters says he periodically asks police to move the campers along.

“They like to park here because they can use our water spigots for fresh water,” he said. “Usually, they’re somewhat harmless, but sometimes they have dogs who chase my employees. When it’s a question of safety, I’ve got to act.”

Like other business owners and operators in the neighborhood, Waters is opposed to the idea of a designated spot for car dwellers anywhere close.

“I think it is going to be a waste of taxpayers’ money,” he said. “A good portion of these people have psychological problems and probably belong in supervised care. The others probably wouldn’t have anything to do with such a place.”

Apollos says she expects controversy over the proposal to grow as it wends its way through the city bureaucracy.

“Oh yes,” she said wryly, “very, very controversial, because, in the first place, it treats poor people with dignity.”

Respect, she says, is what car dwellers long for. The years of being chased from one spot to another by the police have worn them down.

“Used to be people didn’t care we were here,” Apollos said. “Now, there are businesses moving in and we are in the way.”

So far, the plan seems to have sparked little of the anger the Golden Gate Park camping proposal provoked. In fact, the vehicularly housed community already has won editorial endorsement from the San Francisco Examiner.

“This is a community hungry for innovative ways to address the issue of homelessness,” Hill said. “People are willing to listen to this idea without just dismissing it as crazy.”