Homeless group takes over Leslie Hotel in SF
Story posted 2010.10.11 at 06:32 AM PDT
Police are standing guard outside a vacant San Francisco hotel where a group of homeless advocates have taken over.
The group marched into the Leslie Hotel in the Tenderloin Sunday. Police are not allowing anyone else in, but they're not trying to get anyone out either.
This was declared to be the first annual World Homeless Day on 10-10-10 and activists decided to turn vacant housing into homeless housing.
Families, immigrants, activists and students banned together late Sunday afternoon at Civic Center Plaza calling themselves the Creative Housing Liberation. Unfurling a huge World Homeless banner, they marched down city streets to the vacant Leslie Hotel on the corner of Eddy and Larkin and they entered it. Hooded activists wearing black masks went room to room through the hotel hanging banners and taking over. The homeless came through the door and settled into empty rooms with running water and electricity until police arrived.
"We had the building open to the public -- anyone needing a place to sleep tonight could get in and at this point police are preventing that from happening," said homeless activist Aaron Bookbinder.
Activists say there are 36,000 vacant housing units in San Francisco according to the latest Census Bureau data and that on any given night, 6,000 San Franciscans have nowhere to stay.
"It's a disgrace to see three times as many empty units of housing in the city as there are people sleeping on the streets. Something needs to be done. Since today is World Homeless Day, we're acting in solidarity with 50 other countries across the world, dozens of cities in the US," said Bookbinder.
People walking by were elated to find the surprise housing.
"Building's sitting empty when we can put people in there," said homeless activist Howard Grayson.
"This is what needs to be, this is what needs to be. This is where it needs to start from the ground up. And that's a beautiful thing. I'm going to tell my best friend now and maybe he'll come back up with me," said Melvina York.
But that never happened. Police blocked anyone from entering the building and anyone from exiting it. They're trying to contact the owner of the vacant hotel so it's a stalemate for now with about 15 people who spent the night there.
Story posted 2010.10.11 at 06:32 AM PDT
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Víctor Lei
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