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‘Cruel and cold’: man faces backlash for dousing unhoused woman with water [1]
['Maanvi Singh']
Date: 2023-01-11
San Francisco is once again reckoning with its treatment of unhoused people after a video of a business owner spraying a woman with water from a garden hose spread online.
Collier Gwin, the owner of Foster Gwin Gallery in downtown San Francisco, admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle that he blasted water on an unhoused woman sitting on the sidewalk in front of his business. The video, captured on Monday morning by the owner of a nearby bakery, shows Gwin spraying the woman, who was crying out in distress. In a calm voice, Gwin then tells her, “Just move,” before spraying her again.
The Guardian has not been able to verify the identity of the victim, who appeared to be a Black woman that local business owners had seen in the neighborhood before.
Gwin did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. In an interview with the Chronicle, he did not express remorse, saying: “I’m only sorry that … my way of helping her countlessly has gotten nothing done.”
“It was really just cruel and cold. And I think most people who saw the video were really taken aback by the callousness and lack of feeling of the act,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “It’s anti-Black and anti-homeless.”
The footage elicited shock and outrage online. Commenters called Gwin’s actions “reprehensible” and “evil”. The gallery’s Google page had been taken down by Tuesday afternoon, while dozens of one-star reviews on its Yelp page referenced the video.
The San Francisco police confirmed that officers responded to the incident on Monday. “Officers interviewed both parties who declined further police action at that time,” a spokesperson for the department said.
The incident, which legal experts said could be charged as assault, came amid a week of intense storms in the Bay Area and California. Over the weekend, two unhoused people in Sacramento died after trees fell on to their tents.
The owner of Foster Gwin Gallery displays a lack of emotion as he sprays a desperately poor person with freezing cold water in San Francisco.
Most people are one bad month away from homelessness, & before long it's near impossible to escape. pic.twitter.com/elIlVFFpIV — ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) January 10, 2023
Although it was not raining on Monday morning when Gwin attacked the woman, amid frigid temperatures and heavy winds this week, Friedenbach noted that spraying someone who lives outdoors with water could threaten their life. “Staying dry is the most important thing that an individual can do to avoid hypothermia,” she said.
The video is the latest of several recent videos depicting enraged San Francisco residents attacking unhoused people, amid an escalating housing and homelessness crisis in the city.
Last month, a judge issued an injunction barring San Francisco authorities from clearing homeless encampments, citing people for sleeping in public or seizing their belongings. A federal lawsuit has alleged that the city punishes people for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go.
But homelessness advocates have alleged that the sweeps have continued, in violation of the ban. A Chronicle investigation also found that the administration of the San Francisco mayor, London Breed, has spent millions since 2019 to evict people from single-room-occupancy hotels that have been touted as a solution to the homelessness crisis.
Investigations by the Guardian have found that in the Bay Area and across California, the most vulnerable unhoused people, including the elderly and those with disabilities, have been evicted from encampments and forcibly removed from outdoor camps without being offered a viable alternative place to stay.
When authorities violently clear encampments and confiscate the property of people sleeping outdoors, it sends a message to residents that such treatment is acceptable, said Friedenbach.
“I think the city’s actions set a tone, and they started telling that it’s OK to treat unhoused people like garbage,” she said. “This [video] is a reminder that we need to ensure that all of our approaches to homelessness are infused with dignity and respect for unhoused people.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/11/san-francisco-business-owner-homeless-water-attack
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