Vestiges of Economy: Polk Street Homelessness
The vestiges of the drug/sex work Polk Street economy include street youth who have aged into the general homeless population and now perceive themselves to be targets of “cleanup” efforts. “It’s changing, the way the neighborhood wants it to change,” said Deeth, a thirty-year old who came to the street as a teenager and now sleeps in a squat off the street. “There’s a lot of rich people coming up here, a lot of condominiums going up. They want to get all the street people out.”
When she came to the street in the 1990s, Deeth slept in the alleyways with other youth, running drugs and being protected by the older drug dealers. She now feels that it is unsafe to sleep on the streets: the “family” she knew is no longer around, and newer kids are going to the internet instead of the street. At the same time, the evaporation of the street economy led to further division and competition. “There’s a lot of greed out here right now,” she said. “I guess it’s since the economy has gone down so much, so there’s not as much money to throw around…for drugs, for panhandlers, for anything.”
Reverend Megan M. Rohrer, director of the Welcome Ministry, which serves the homeless and marginally housed in the area, estimates that “98 percent” of the homeless who live in the Polk Gulch and come to the Welcome Ministry have been part of the Polk Street sex work industry. This segment of the Polk Street homeless population stems in part from the collapse of the area’s community-based economic and social safety nets in the 1990s, combined with the absence of a viable alternative from the city, the neighborhood, or the city’s gay political establishment.
“I just got stuck here,” Deeth said. “Because I got to knowing all the hustlers and as I got older, you know, they still kept me in their hearts and stuff and in their minds they always thought about me. So every time I came up here I had some kinds of means of support. I was still selling drugs and using drugs and I didn’t really have to worry about too much.”
A hustler who asked to remain nameless, who came to the street in the 1990s and continues to work on the street, has also noticed this breakdown. “We used to stick together [and] look out for one another.” Now, “we don’t stick up for one another like we used to. And the johns notice that [and] don’t treat us as well as they used to.” Another hustler, who came to the street in 1990 and also asked to remain nameless, said “the clientele is dropping drastically. You know the kinds of bars that are popping up are not the kinds of bars you wanna hustle out of. They’re more like yuppie , straight, whatever.”
Many of the homeless have found housing in a nearby SRO hotels through the Homeless Outreach Team, instituted in 2004 as part of Care Not Cash — part of a dramatic move indoors for the homeless in the area. But most of this segment of the homeless population on Polk Street is addicted to methamphetamine and heroin, and many also suffer from mental health issues. Governmental agencies appear ill equipped to serve.
At the same time, the street’s economic downturn has eliminated the kind of safety nets and one-on-one advice may have provided guidance and options to young people attracted by the Polk Street area. These have not been replicated in other parts of the city.
“In the '60s and the '70s, it was like a big party atmosphere. I, fortunately was taken under several people wings,” said Anthony Cabello, now the manager of Polk Street’s Palo Alto Hotel. “Now people don't have the cash flow, 'cuz economically times have really changed. People who were out partying and being able to take somebody home and help them find a job are basically waiting in line at Social Security and making sure that their housing is together.”
Upscale condominiums, wine bars, and restaurants now coexist with homeless shelters, street prostitution, and low-income single room occupancy apartment buildings in the Polk Gulch neighborhood. Again, Polk Street reflects national trends: a 2006 report by the Brookings Institution found that only 23 percent of central city neighborhoods in twelve large metropolitan U.S. areas were middle income in 2000, down from 45 percent in 1970. The study defined middle income as areas where families earn 80 to 120 percent of the local median income.
In an effort to better understand the actions and attitudes of Polk Street denizens, personal histories from stakeholders who are living through and shaping changes in the area are presented in the section “Polk Street: Lives in Transition.”
