SF Squat Bust Doesn't Stop Housing Liberation Action

San Francisco, Friday, November 26-Police raided a building occupied by squatters in the city's Mission District this morning.

The housing activists, members of the Creative Housing Liberation Group, had taken over the long vacant building for over 24 hours. The takeover group was part of an action organized for Black Friday to create a radical alternative to capitalism's zombie toxic shopping day.

At a rally at 16th and Mission streets this afternoon, Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenants Union and Homes Not Jails set the tone for the action with these words:"There are 36,000 empty housing units in San Francisco. The city should be taking them. People should be living in them.

"But since the city isn't doing this, so we need to go out and take these buildings, and people need to turn them into housing--now!"

This statistic reportedly came from the US Census Bureau.

To one side of the plaza a youth sat holding a sign that read: "Over 35 million in the US are homeless/1.5 million are kids/That's 1 out of 50 kids in the US."

Others spoke out as well, in song as well as speech.

Then an organizer announced that a taken over building, intended to be the destination of the action's march, had been "compromised" by the police raid earlier, after a 27 hour stand.

Shortly thereafter we took to the streets anyway, marching out of the plaza onto Mission Street and headed toward 15th street.

Two police cruisers parked alongside Walgreens fell in behind us.

Organizers soon turned the march into a tour of abandoned buildings in the neighborhood.

It didn't take long to find the first one. Halfway down the block and set back we came upon the former Phoenix Middle School. We learned that its 13 buildings have been vacant for 6 years. Also that the site has become a favorite spot for people in need of extralegal shelter.

But instead of using the neglected facility to help people find homes, the Board of Education had spent a small fortune fortifying the place to keep people out.

What kind of lesson does this teach us?

We took to the streets again, chanting, "Housing Is a Human Right, Capitalism Just Ain't Right!"

Next it was left onto 15th and then up to Dolores Street, where we took a right. Not far up the first block loomed an abandoned 3 story, 9 unit apartment building, 180 Dolores. Activists told us it had been "squatted many times."

"The owner is a real estate mogul," one organizer said." He'll keep this place empty for years if he gets his way. To him it's just an investment, and he'll keeping it vacant until the market improves. " As with the school, this owner "fortified the building because people were living in it."

A recurrent theme was emerging, first at the morning bust, then repeatedly along this tour.

By the Numbers

Public records indicate that 180 Dolores' assessed value is $2.4 million.

They also show that on 2-16-10 the building was cited by the Department of Building Inspection as a city certified Abandoned Building. An inspector's notes read: "Building vacant for a year. Transients started living in the building starting fires. Building not boarded up."

On 5-27-10 the building was cited again, "for failure to comply with the Abandoned Building Ordinance."

On 6-1 a Notice of Violation was issued by DBI. On 9-1 a second NOV went out.

Then on 10-7 a Notice of Abatement was issued. An inspector's notes state: "Department hearing today. Property owner not present."

The property owner or owners evidently had better things to do than fix up their abandoned building.

Because more public records, these from just a week later, on 10-15, reveal that on that one day there were 3 financial transactions recorded for 180 Dolores. These involved 3 Murphys, an outfit called Alamo Apartments LP, and First Republic Bank.

Meanwhile, as these kinds of shenanigans continue all over San Francisco and beyond, the cold has come to town, and people living outside will start to suffer from it, even die, while shoppers max out their plastic during this "season of sharing" and real estate investors bide their time in overheated offices.

In the end the solution for the city and the speculators is the same: Board up the empty buildings and keep the people out at all costs.


We marched back to 16th and Mission, still in the streets, where Food Not Bombs provided our holiday meal, and festivities went on. As we returned the chant went up, "Occupy Everything, Fight, Take Over!"

If the authorities thought their bust would spoil this party, they miscalculated. Because the problem is too impossible to ignore, and our spirit of resistance is too big to fail.

For more info, go to the Creative Housing Liberation Group's Facebook site.