- Brandon Williams is a senior litigation caseworker for San Francisco's Eviction Defense Collaborative.
- Both in his personal life and professional experience, Brandon has seen the decades-long impact of housing discrimination in San Francisco.
This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Brandon Williams, a senior litigation caseworker for San Francisco's Eviction Defense Collaborative. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When I was 45 years old studying for my Ph. D., after securing a good work history and without even a traffic ticket on my record, I found myself homeless living in an industrial space, sleeping in a sleeping bag on a rat-infested floor and washing up out of a bucket every morning solely because I could not find housing.
If I can be reduced to that, how is there not a big problem in San Francisco for Black people?
A promised land of progressivism and opportunity
I arrived in San Francisco in 2011. For my first three years in the city, the only jobs I could get were as a security guard. I have now found that was a common experience among my Black colleagues who are also working in housing justice.
I first moved to San Francisco when I was working on my Ph. D. at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in the department of anthropology and social change. While my conducting research on Black migration to San Francisco in 1941 when World War II began, one of the most striking images I found was one of "Negroes" filling train cars, cramming in bathrooms and sitting on toilets, just to escape the racial terror of the South. They were tricked into coming to this promised land of progressivism and opportunity called San Francisco — I fell for the same thing.
Once they arrived, Black labor was quickly exploited. But, thanks to the Black community's efforts, they built banks, churches, hair salons, movie theaters, clubs, everything. It was a thriving community for such a short period of time.
That only existed through the 1970s. Then, there was a concerted effort to complicate the lives of Black people's access to jobs and housing. The seeds of what we're seeing today were planted back then.
The impact of historically racist developments
I'm a senior litigation caseworker in a social work department. I have a wealth of experience dealing with vulnerable communities and working with Black and brown folks who have been put in this position.
I get to help people find housing, prevent eviction, and connect them to mental health and substance use treatments. However, time and time again, I've seen the devastating impact of historically racist developments on my clients who still face colossal struggles.
I see my Black clients face eviction at higher rates. When attorneys successfully handle eviction cases, many clients are compelled to sign settlement agreements that allow them to stay only under certain guidelines and restrictions. If they breach those, they are immediately evicted. Often, those stipulations are particularly difficult for clients to maintain — if the settlement is breached, there's a large chance judges will side with opposing counsel.
That produces more and more Black people being moved into single-room occupancies (SROs), a form of affordable housing where tenants share kitchens and bathrooms. The largest population of people facing evictions in the SRO system are Black.
The school-to-prison pipeline
The pipeline here starts with school, then prison, then treatment, then supportive housing. The city has become dependent on its own poison — with the vast amount of resources the city of San Francisco has, it feels like the problem is only being maintained, not fixed.
San Francisco is one of the most depressing landscapes for Black people I have ever experienced.
At the vigil of Banko Brown, a 24-year-old man in San Francisco who was murdered by a security guard over $16 worth of snacks, so many great young, trans voices were able to speak, which was beautiful. But one of the first things they said was "we deserve housing." And so you have these situations where more young people especially are living on the street. Undeniably, safe and affordable housing are a necessary next step to creating real improvements for Black people in San Francisco.
I work with an attorney and we were able to get a struggling mother a Rental Assistance Component to subsidize a part of her rent. I advocated hard for her to get this as, though minuscule, that subsidy will keep her and her daughter in San Francisco without the threat of eviction. That's one less family that doesn't have to leave the city. And those little wins are our little bricks as we continue to build.
I don't believe in saviors at all, but I do believe you have to do your best. I'm standing on the shoulders of people who did the work. From the Black Panthers to ancestors of activism, like Harvey Milk, there have always been people trying to do what's right and fight for equality. And that's why I'm still here.