If there was trouble at the Dreamforce convention this week, it was mostly just the good kind. As in crowds so big that it was hard to get into some events, and traffic that slowed to a crawl around the confab’s nexus of Fourth and Howard Streets in San Francisco.
What there wasn’t, according to many convention-goers, was mess on the streets to stumble over. Or panhandlers. Or tent camps dotting the sidewalks. Or open-air drug dealing and use.
Dreamforce 2023: What tourists should know about San Francisco
But mild grumbling could be heard several blocks away, where a few homeless folks said they were shooed off in the morning and told to stay away while Dreamforce ruled its part of downtown.
“The police, security guards, those street ambassadors — everyone told me ‘get out of here’ this morning when I woke up around 8 a.m.,” 66-year-old Jan Weith said as he lounged in a doorway on Powell Street two blocks north of the cable car turnaround.
He’d spent the night sleeping in front of Walgreens on Market Street, and his wake-up call came right around the time convention crowds started to filter past him, south toward the Moscone Center where the convention action was.
“I walked off to look at the crowds and when I came back someone had stolen my suitcase and blankets,” he said. “And those rich techies? They think they’re all that. They act like they didn’t have enough money to give me $5 or a cup of coffee. They looked right through me.
“Can’t wait ’til this thing is over and we can get back to normal.”
City officials weren’t revealing their strategies for keeping the few blocks surrounding Dreamforce clear and clean, but it was evident this week that extra effort went into that goal. Homeless people and panhandlers have a right to hang out if they’re not disturbing anyone or blocking passageways, but they did seem to get the message from the endless streams of police, smiling city street ambassadors and security forces that they should steer clear for now.
Dreamforce is the creation of Salesforce, and CEO Marc Benioff said two weeks ago that if there were significant issues with drug use and homelessness around the convention he might not bring it back next year. He appeared to be satisfied with the outcome, posting on X (formerly Twitter) that “San Francisco has been incredibly clean, beautiful, and safe for the last 3 days of Dreamforce, and it is great that the city is able to put its best foot forward for this major event.”
Still, Benioff questioned why “the city cannot be this clean and safe every single day.” Mayor London Breed quickly responded that the city is making progress, stressing that conventions like Dreamforce are important to the city’s economy. Dreamforce, which drew 40,000 attendees, is projected to bring in nearly $90 million in local spending. The city hasn’t said how much it spent to prepare for Dreamforce, but it’s been devoting hefty resources in recent months to increase enforcement against open-air drug dealing and use in the Tenderloin and other neighborhoods.
Parisa Safarzadeh, spokesperson for Breed, said “we were a little surprised” when Benioff’s concerns were expressed two weeks ago, “because by then our work was already under way to make sure the place was welcoming and clean for the event.
“Obviously we want people to come back and remember San Francisco in a good way,” she said. “I’m hopeful Mr. Benioff and the organization are enjoying themselves and having a good time.”
Francis Zamora, spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Management, which oversees teams that keep the streets clear of overgrown encampments, did not detail specific actions taken by the city this week.
“While San Francisco regularly deploys resources to support large-scale events like Pride, Bay to Breakers, Fleet Week, and conventions including Dreamforce, we’re glad people are taking notice of the investments the City has made over the years to assist people in crisis and address street conditions,” he said in an email.
“San Francisco’s Coordinated Street Response Program brings together specialized street response teams to help address the needs of people experiencing crisis on the streets while simultaneously working with public safety resources and cleaning crews to promote healthy, clean, and accessible streets,” Zamora said.
Convention-goers appeared to appreciate the efforts, even as many expressed sympathy for the plight of the unhoused.
“I just walked to the Hilton, and the streets are clean, definitely an improvement over last year and really nice to see,” said Stephen Fegan, an electrical manager with the Freeman company of Dallas who has been coming to Dreamforce for more than a decade to attend as well as install electrical systems. “The homeless? There need to be more permanent solutions to that — housing, mental health services, and more.
“But I’d say for this convention, it’s OK to move them. It’s important that the attendees have a good experience.”
One convention-goer said he attended in 2018. He didn’t want to be named, but he pooh-poohed San Francisco’s reputation for lawlessness and danger.
“There’s too damn many people for it to not be safe,” he said. His main complaint — there were just too many people.
“I can’t get into half the sessions,” he griped. Dreamforce attendees were lining up an hour before some sessions, he said.
Dreamforce 2023
Music reverberated around the Moscone Center, as convention-goers ducked into pop-up tents in nearby Yerba Buena Park and in the north and south convention pavilions. Many also said they had seen the bad press the city has been getting, particularly from right-wing outlets, about open-air drug use and tent clusters, but what they’ve seen didn’t match the reputation.
Cristi Brant, an attendee from Indiana, was visiting for her second time. “This is substantially better” than last year’s, she said.
“It’s a beautiful town. It’s been getting a bad rap right now.”
One thing that worked in the convention’s favor is that the area is normally not much of a homeless center anyway. And attendees wandering off to see the sights generally didn’t go much past tourist-heavy Union Square or east along the fine eateries and shops en route to the upscale Ferry Building.
“They haven’t been to the Tenderloin or SOMA,” said Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, who has loudly advocated for more resources for those neighborhoods.
“Let’s be honest. Fourth and Howard was never a problem area. It’s not a good test — it’s always pretty clean there.”
Still, if the area around Moscone Center was at its best, the city’s challenges were occasionally evident elsewhere — like a few blocks away.
Outside of Urban Outfitters at Powell and Ellis streets a homeless man erupted in outrage after a security guard expelled him from the shop for allegedly trying to steal clothes.
“I’m Michael the Archangel,” he yelled at the top of his lungs, hurling obscenities and vitriol at the security guard. “A—hole!” The guard shrugged. It was noise, but harmless.
That incident was rare, however. A heavy presence of police, ambassadors and security guards in a several-blocks radius around the convention discouraged acting out like that — and as the man erupting at Urban Outfitters stalked away, he pointedly noticed a knot of police officers watching him from across the street.
More typical of the few homeless folks who chose to stay in the core area of the convention was Timothy Hullahan. He sat on some steps at Yerba Buena Gardens and said he appreciated being able to see throngs of people having fun.
“Those techies — they’re just doing their own thing,” said Hullahan, 34. “It would be interesting to know what they’re talking about, but I don’t think they want to talk to me. Are they here to party? Whatever. There’s nothing wrong with them.
“Sure, we homeless get asked to move while all these people are around. But that happens all the time if I have all my bags with me. It’s kind of just another day for us.”
Reach Kevin Fagan: kfagan@sfchronicle.com. Reach St. John Barned-Smith: stjohn.smith@sfchronicle.com
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