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Residents and many elected officials have reacted with outrage to the news that San Francisco will foot the bill for nearly $5m in costs to host the week of festivities that precede the big game. Guardian

Super Bowl protests flare up over plight of San Francisco’s homeless residents

This article is more than 8 years old

Protest against efforts to oust homeless people from ‘Super Bowl City’ highlights tensions days before city hosts one of the largest sporting events in the world

Hundreds of protesters were gathered on the sidewalk across from San Francisco’s temporary Super Bowl City around 4.30pm on Wednesday, when a few organizers began assembling tents. Decorated with slogans such as “We have a right to rest” and “Tackle homelessness,” the tents were supposed to establish a “Homeless Super Bowl City” in protest at the “fan village” that has transformed several downtown plazas, parks and city streets into a gated exhibition for NFL sponsors.

Within minutes, hundreds of police officers in riot gear surrounded the crowd and ordered them to take down the tents or risk having them confiscated.

“You have one minute to disassemble the tents,” a police captain announced over a loudspeaker.

“That is what they tell us when we’re on the street,” said Lisa Gray-Garcia, an activist with Poor Magazine. Gray-Garcia, who goes by the nickname Tiny, said that earlier in the day, San Francisco police officers had similarly confiscated 30 tents from a homeless encampment with only one minute’s notice.

Just days before one of the country’s largest sporting events is set to take place, with eyes on the San Francisco Bay Area, Wednesday’s protest highlighted tensions in the city that have persisted since long before the Broncos and the Panthers knew they were going to the Super Bowl.

Residents and many elected officials have reacted with outrage to the news that San Francisco will foot the bill for nearly $5m in costs to host the week of festivities that precede the big game. That’s in contrast to Santa Clara, the small city about 45 miles south where the championship itself will be played, which struck a deal that requires the Super Bowl host committee to reimburse it for its costs.

That information, which came by way of a government budget analysis that dryly noted that the NFL’s 2013 revenues of $9.2bn exceed San Francisco’s total annual budget, added insult to injury for residents of the city already feeling inconvenienced and alienated by an expensive, star-studded spectacle that is increasing traffic, disrupting public transportation and shutting down streets.

While different San Franciscans have used the occasion of the Super Bowl to protest about a variety of issues – including the installation of tacky Super Bowl statues, the December police killing of Mario Woods, and recent rate cuts for Uber drivers – the outpouring of anger on Wednesday was focused on the plight of San Francisco’s homeless residents.

A woman holds up a pair of signs as police look on during a protest to demand city officials do more to help homeless people outside Super Bowl City. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP

“San Francisco has the resources to end homelessness because of the tech industry, and we’re using it instead for these big bread and circuses events,” said Jordan Gwendolyn Davis, who attended the protest.

Instead of taking down the tents, Davis and other protesters held them in the air, as the crowd listened to speeches from various activists and later marched around the perimeter of Super Bowl City – a compromise the police accepted.

Davis joined the protest because she had experienced homelessness. She lived on the streets for the six months when she first arrived in San Francisco, she said, during which time she slept under a highway overpass. She later found shelter at the city’s new Homeless Navigation Center and was eventually able to move into permanent housing.

The city’s approximately 7,000 homeless residents have been thrown into a state of even greater instability and uncertainty by the big event, following remarks made by Mayor Ed Lee last August.

“They’re going to have to leave,” the mayor said then, referring to the homeless people who hang out along the Embarcadero, where Super Bowl City has been erected.

Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, estimates that about 60 homeless people typically spend the day or night in the footprint of Super Bowl City, but the widely reported comment touched off a wave of fear and rumors within the homeless population citywide that their encampments – usually in out-of-the-way locations such as highway underpasses – would be cleared out in time for the arrival of Super Bowl tourists.

Rumors and misinformation have persisted, as assurances from the mayor that the homeless would be provided with alternative shelter are drowned out by reports of police and other city workers disassembling tents and telling homeless people to leave their locations.

Dozens protested what they say is San Francisco mayor Ed Lee’s plan to push homeless people out of where Super Bowl festivities are being held. Photograph: Eric Risberg/AP

“We’re hearing over and over from homeless people that they’re being cleared out and told to leave during the Super Bowl,” said Friedenbach. “Folks are already in crisis because they’re homeless. It’s really destabilizing for them to have to move somewhere else or feel threatened.”

Balil Ali, a homeless resident of San Francisco, said: “I don’t even call it the Super Bowl, I call it the toilet bowl. We’re throwing a penalty flag on Ed Lee for unnecessary roughness on the homeless.”

One positive outcome from the Super Bowl, however, is the surge of support for homeless residents from housed San Franciscans. Many if not most of the protesters at “Homeless Super Bowl City” were not, in fact, homeless. Friedenbach explained that participating in an evening protest is a challenge for those staying in shelters, where curfews can be as early as 6pm, or on the street, where abandoning one’s tent or belongings can leave one vulnerable.

“I think it’s disgusting that human beings aren’t able to sleep, to rest, to meet their basic needs in a city that has been a sanctuary to so many people,” said Lizzie Locker as she held a tent aloft. Locker said that while she was not homeless, she’s been close, in part because of the city’s rising rents.

Like many of the protesters, Davis was angered by the intensity of the police response. “You would respect this response if we were terrorists, but we’re just protesting.”

The cost of policing and public services for the Super Bowl was an added sore point. Many protesters carried signs stating that either the $5m the city is spending on the Super Bowl, or the millions sponsors will shell out for television ads during the game, could house 500 people immediately.

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