“The Tenderloin is San Francisco’s gritty yet exciting neighborhood featuring convenient amenities, energetic nightlife, and delectable ethnic cuisines. It’s also a place where diversity thrives; a large population of LGBTQ and people of other cultures and alternative lifestyles call the Tenderloin home. The neighborhood is host to a very impressive array of arts and entertainment venues.”
From the reality site, ‘Point2’
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed almost all the of the Tenderloin, although the area didn’t appear as the Tenderloin (the TL) on any map before sometime in the 1930s.
By the 20’s it was the place to be for gambling, booze, sex, and pretty much any other kind of entertainment or distraction you might be looking for. It was the haunt of Dashiell Hammett’s private-eye, Sam Spade. Despite that the TL has been an downtown residential area since before the gold rush in 1949.
Between the end of
World War Two and the Vietnam War, the TL the vacancy rate rose sharply as central cities declined with the advent of union wages, shopping malls, freeways, and new housing developments. In the late 70’s the cheap vacancies began to fill with refugees from SE Asia. The housing stock of primarily single room apartments began to fill with families of four and five people. The child population increased dramatically and eventually the cheap rents attracted those on fixed incomes: seniors, the disabled and the formally incarcerated.
Population about 28,000
Made by direct observation of people and tents on the street, and those in emergency shelters and temporary housing, the “Point in Time” (PIT) count of the unhoused does not include Family Homelessness, which includes families with children living in SROs.
According to the 2022 Tenderloin PIT count, there were:
1896: Sheltered
1952: Unsheltered
3848: Total
Refugee families in SRO apartments in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California.
1982: ‘Feinstein Evicts 75 Homeless
From Muni Bus Shelters’
Jan 87
Money deaths on SF Streetsteep increase in number of homeless people dying
March 87
Homeless Youth Still Waiting for Help
April 87
Refugees fear reprisals for asserting their rights
Broken elevator keeps frail seniors imprisoned
Unique Home for homeless
threatened
Laotian tenants win $150,00 for Illegal eviction
An ad “Don’t share and a picture of needle
May-June 87
Homeless Found Union, take to the streets
Coalition filing suit to halt Cambridge Hotel Conversion
July 1987 Homeless Union Pickets Shelter
Oct 1987
Tough New Law Eases Family Housing Woes
GA Workfare-Sweeping the streets for survival
Nov 87
Homeless Poor May be charged for shelter under city plan: many could lose hotel rooms
Women with AIDS need housing, child care
Dec 87
Community Group sues to take over four hotels
Folklore, or perhaps and urban legend, has it that San Francisco’s Tenderloin District was named for a New York City neighborhood favored by corrupt police for the money they could make from bribes, protection or just looking the other way.
In 1994, three months before I began a project on beat cops in the Tenderloin, a cop was arrested for ignoring the warrants sex workers had in exchange for sex in the back of his police car.
Feb 1994 Tenderloin Times Op-Ed: “It’s a War out here”
Maria, a sex worker working the boundary of Union Square and the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California.
A man suspected of selling drugs is arrested in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California.
Arrested for drugs. The Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California.
Man shot dead. Eddy and Taylor in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, California.
Raises Hopes in Tenderloin’ SF Chronicle
By 2015 the murder rate in the TL had dropped dramatically in spite of the rhetoric of public officials.
Issues around poverty and inequity remained, and remain today.
Politicians and other leaders continue to use the issues of drugs, sex work, general crime, and homelessness as levers of power, but not much is done to effectively address housing, supportive services, crisis intervention or the general issue of disparity of opportunity and resources.
The Tenderloin, 2015 - 2022
Turk
Mason at Eddy Street
Turk Street at Polk
During a “sweep” of the Willow Street encampment one person afraid of loosing her possessions and having to move, moved all she had and then herself into a power box sunken into the side -
walk and pulled the cover over her. People were afraid she would be adversely affected by fumes and notified the police. 2021
Willow Street - 2021
Name: Brandy Martin, 40
Without a home: 3.5 years .
“We are both in places we can’t have visitors. It makes it really difficult to have a social life. We’re not even allowed to visit between rooms. So the only way to spend any length of time with a person is in the tent. I’m really never in my hotel. I mean I am, but I’m not. I go there to shower and change my cloths. Then I leave again because we’re stuck by ourselves. It’s not a good thing for a lot of people to stay by themselves for too long, and I’m one of them. So I have to get out and get social.” .
Willow Street - 9 June 2021
Name: Patrick Dickson, 42
Without a home: 2 years .
What does home mean? I really don’t know right now. Ah, home is my own place, but I have a tent so it’s just the same as having a place.
How’s the city doing? I’m just here, you know. We’re being moved but I guess it’s to clean the neighborhood and then [maybe] they’ll let some of us back. (The sweep happened because the Mayor was holding an event around the corner to honor an outreach non-profit).
What do you want in an offer of shelter? A bed, that’s it. A bed, a kitchen, a restroom, a regular space. Permanent. Just a regular living space, an apartment. (Now) I’m going to go right here around the corner, put my stuff up along the wall and wait tell the end, tell they clean the block up, then come back here and build it up again. .
Willow Street - 9 June 2021
Name: Steven Swindle
Without a home: 4-5 years
“[I’m in a tent] because there no visitors allowed. It’s like having a spot but no rights. They let you in the door. We don’t have keys, so if you want to visit somebody, see somebody, you can’t have them in your spot. You got to go to where they are. Yeah, no guests allowed.”
Willow Street - 9 June 2021
Name: Mathrew Higley, 47
Without a home: A year and a half
“I’ve been on Hemlock probably just over a year ever since I meet Devona. She and I have kind of been really good friends and look after each other. It really helps just having somebody else to watch your things when you have to go run errands, or needing someone to talk to when you need good advice or feedback. She’s been that, so I’m blessed to have her out here. It makes it much easier.”
“The hardest thing about being outside, just keeping your things. People that are really, really strung out, really need to have that drug immediately will do anything to do that. They’ll go in a tent that’s been left for a bit, rummage through it. Grab any of your valuables, whatever they think they can sell real quick. So it’s real hard
to have any of that. I go out and work hard and kind of build up a little bit of inventory to live and what not and then they take it all away again. And sometimes the City will do that too. I was gone for 60 minutes, I came back all my stuff was gone, the DWP took it.”
“It seems like you take it for granted inside when you have all these things. People go their whole life and never have anything broken into and taken - to be out here and have all these things taken from me in such a short period of time, it makes you think about your personal items – what you really need and how you keep them. I sleep with things in my pockets; I’m surprised I still have some of these things.”
“The reason I came out here, I was kind of heart broken. I was engaged and it broke off a few months before we were going to get married. I just kind of lost it at the time. I was really depressed and heartbroken. I was tired of people asking me
what happened, of going to work when I was emotionally a wreck, so I decided to come out here and kind of get lost. I’m keeping contact with my kids and ex-wife, I’m feeling better and I’m getting ready to making my way back inside. But I had to come out here and get my mind right. My kids really need me know so I’m really like focused and getting out of this and putting myself back to where I was. Maybe even a better version after being through this.”
“For me drugs really just take the pain away from thinking about what was hurting me and depressing me so bad. When I use the drug that kind of goes away and I focus on work, making money and what I need to survive. It definitely helps me cope. But it’s not good for me. It’s not something I want to continue. But if you use it right, to be creative or for energy - sometimes I use it because there are people in the area looking to take and they come by all night and they’re
just waiting, waiting, waiting for you to knock out, so I use it to stay up. So again it helps me mentally divert depression or pain. It also helps me to survive out here.”
“Drugs, there are several. There’s marijuana obviously. There’s crystal meth, which is probably the most popular. It’s called “criz” or “tt” out here and it’s like a currency. If you have a little bit of it you can go pretty much buy anything from another homeless person. Then there’s crack-cocaine, and heroin, very, very popular. You’ll see the people nodded off. Marijuana and crystal-meth, and beer or glass of wine, that’s what I normally do.” .
Mr. Higley was living on Hemlock Alley a block or two from Willow
27 August 2019
Name: Paul Rogers, 59
Without a home: “Off and on, 41 years because that’s how long my addiction has been with me.”
“Any type of services I’ve had to debate whether or not I’d take it or not. The people who are coming to see us, they’re asking us to leave. They’re coming with the police. They’re coming with garbage trucks telling us we got to go, tents aren’t going to be allowed up, and then they say but we’ll send you to tent city. Ok, so I can’t sleep on the streets in a tent but you’re going to put me somewhere where I can be in the street, in a tent. Then I find one of the places where they do this tent city and it’s gated in. It’s covered so no one can see in, nor out. It’s locked doors, and I have to sign in and sign out. All that reminds me of jail! And it also takes me to a point where
it was the Chinese, they did that to, concentration camp. Why would I want to put myself back in a situation where I feel like I’m back in jail but I’m on the street? Why would the city want me to stay off the street in a tent but pitch me in a place where there are tents but no one can see me? Are they helping me? Or are they helping themselves? They’re helping themselves. They don’t have to see us, then they don’t have to think about us. But for some people you get out here it’s just much easier not to have to pay rent. Not to have to have the nut. Not to have to do these things.”
“I’m out here and I don’t particularly like it but my addiction say if you want to beat me you have to be about me, but know what you want to be. I’m not trying to stay in too long. I have friends out here 13, 14, 15 years, finally got a place to stay. I’m happy for them. I would like
to get my own place, haven’t achieved it though I’m trying.”
“If I give in to my addiction but not give up on life, that’s the difference.”
“I can give up just living life on life’s terms and go into my addiction, and let my addiction do it’s run because it’s only a run. They always talk about “this was my bottom”, but even bottoms have bottoms. So you might stop for a moment, get it right, then find out there’s another floor to my bottom. I got to go through it because in order to understand it I got to get there. If I don’t then I keep lying to myself and putting myself in situations where everything is destroyed. If I give in to my addiction but not give up on life, that’s the difference. A lot of people are giving up on life. You talk to some people, and they say they’re dead. They’re spiritually dead. I’m not giving up because I do have things I
want to live for, and I want to live. I want a better situation for myself. I know I can have a better situation for myself, but I need to go through what I need to go through. I just have to get through this the best way that I can.”
“Some things I just need around me and that keeps me human”
“Accepting help is alright when the help comes that’s really helping and not just trying to shove me out of the way. You (the city) send somebody in here to talk to us about going someplace. You ask, “them where can you go?”, and they tell you. You ask them where it is and they say, “Oh I need to call my boss to find out.”
What kind of information are you bringing me? If you ain’t got it right, what makes you think I’m going to go someplace you’re telling me to go? I’d rather stay where I’m at. At
least I know what’s ahead of me. I don’t know what’s ahead of me, going where you telling me to go, cause you don’t have the information telling me how to even get there. I’m not going to something that’s half told to me. When you’re in this life you don’t want to wait. I ain’t got time to sign no paper. I need to go get mine, my drug of choice. I need to start my day even before I can even think about what you’re telling me.”
“I’ve left and came back and they’ve thrown away everything I own including my ID, Social Security card, Medicare card. Everything that you need to collect services, which takes time to get back.”
“You get thrown in this pet camp. You got people on the door telling you what you can and cannot do. They give you a place to sleep, eat, but you can only take certain items. You telling me get rid of all
that and sleep on a palette, in my tent, and everything I own must be in my tent, or I can’t have it. But somethings you get attached to. Some things I just need around me and that keeps me human. Now you want me to be inhuman. I got to live in this tent, most of them are 6x9, same size as a jail cell. You can’t move around. Once you’re in, you got to stay in and stay still. That’s all jail to me. It brings it all back.”
“I’m going to get better. My run’s just about over because I’m tired. They say you got to be tired of being sick and tired, but it’s just something that they say. But if you’re tired, once you rested up you have the energy to go do it differently. That’s what happens when you relapse. It’s got to be more than being tired of being sick and tired. You got to be through with going through the door you been going through. It takes time. Everybody can’t
do it the first time, you might have to do it multiple, multiple times. I’ve been called a recovery junkie because I relapse. I don’t relapse right away, I’ll be a year here, six years there, it’s all a constant fight.”
“The people that you’re (the city) sending out here, they’re not offering services, they’re just offering us to be out of the way. It’s not fair to those that really want some help, you have to wait for so many things.”
.
Willow Street - 25 August 2021
Name: KC, 25
Without a home: “On and off since I was 14.”
.
“My belongings are all I have. They’re how I survive. My clothing and you know, my knife, pepper sprays, and things like that. I use them for everything including protecting myself from weirdos. Without my cloths I couldn’t protect myself from weirdos either, and I’d be walking around naked.”
“At this point I’m desperate just to be safe and have somewhere I can go and be safe and warm, and not have my things be stolen from me everyday.”
.
Willow Street - 25 August 2021
Name: Devona Collins, 56
Without a home: 12 years, in this alleyway for 7 years .
“Right now home to me is my tent. It’s been my home for the past 7 years here in this alleyway.”
“In a shelter I lost everything. I was raped in a shelter so I don’t particularly care for a shelter.”
“(I miss) being able to cook and to iron my cloths. (But) I’d say my life is fine because God still has me here and he’s watching over me.”
“You get a lot of negative people. Not respectful people, that’s what we get a lot of. They assume things that are not true.”
“(Being a woman on the street), it’s dangerous. You know you can get raped out here. Some people pull knives on us just for telling them not to dirty the alleyway up. Not respectful towards us and almost having gotten into fights, so it’s kind of scary. I say be careful, be safe and always consult with God.” .
08
Ms Collins was living on Hemlock Alley a block or two from Willow
Name: Phillip Torres, 37
Without a home: “A little over 22 years
“My belongings is like my wife. You know it’s what I have to live for, what I work for. I put a lot of effort into doing things that I need to do to keep myself going and that’s what my things are. My things aren’t just like materialistic things, they’re something that actually means something and gets me going throughout the days.”
[When they come through and take it all] “I wouldn’t say (I’m) angry, I’d probably say hurtful because people don’t know how it is for people that stay on the streets without nothing’. People don’t see or realize how much hard work we have to do to get what we need. It’s like a waste of time, that’s why it’s so hurtful because we work for
[My most important belonging is] “my dog. He’s a puppy. It’s the first time I’ve actually raised a dog with like my bare hands. You know what I mean? He’s well trained. He’s well listened and he’s someone I love. He’s not just an ordinary dog, he’s like a human. He means a lot.”
.
Willow Street - 25 August 2021
Founded by three black trans women in 2017 Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, is the first legally recognized transgender district in the world. Named after the historic 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot, the first documented uprising of transgender and queer people in United States against police harassment and abuse.
“The Tenderloin District, San Francisco” A Coffee and Donuts publication
Photography, design and interviews: Robert Gumpert
Copyright: Robert Gumpert photos
