Hundreds of unsheltered people living in tent encampments in the blocks surrounding the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco have been forced to leave by city outreach workers and police as part of an attempted “clean up the house” ahead of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s annual free trade conference.
The action, which housing advocates allege violated a court injunction, was celebrated by right-wing figures and the tech crowd, who have long been convinced that the city is in terminal decline because of an increase in encampments in the downtown area.
The X account End Wokness wrote that the displacement was proof the “government can easily fix our cities overnight. It just doesn’t want to” (the post received 77,000 likes). “Queer Eye but it’s just Xi visiting troubled US cities then they get a makeover,” joked Packy McCormick, the founder of Not Boring Capital and advisor to Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto VC team. The New York Post celebrated the action, saying that residents had “miraculously disappeared.”
That’s a good read. It does go into a little more detail about who was discussing it. This SF Standard article doesn’t mention anything about illegal activity on the police’s part, aside from a brief mention of a lawsuit.
It still doesn’t answer the question of exactly who ordered the clearing.
Also, one article mentions this guy saying he was set back by being moved. That’s a really important point. Homelessness isn’t a flat plane but rather it is its own hill to climb, and at a certain point in that climbing one can get back to being housed. Disrupting people’s ongoing life send them sliding back down the hill.