Now, the auctioneers may think they are offering the homeless a cool, refreshing shower but boy the optics are bad.
From Curbed San Francisco:
SF Luxury Auction House Allegedly Turns Sprinklers on Homeless [Update]
Dousing the homeless with water as a preventative measure is nothing new in San Francisco
Potrero Hill's Bonhams Auction House office, a British auctioneer of fine art and antiques, has reportedly installed a sprinkler system that appears to douse the neighborhood's homeless people with water, presumably in an attempt to keep them from gathering on the sidewalk.This is the word according to BrokeAssStuart's Candance Cui, who writes:As of Monday morning, June 6th, the homeless people were gone but the water was still going. So not only is it mean and wasteful behavior, random people (ahem, like me) got rained on for no good reason other than turning the corner while walking down the street. No signs around and apparently no shame either.Curbed SF talked to Jim Bettencourt, Bonhams Auction House's director of human resources, who neither confirmed nor denied the sprinkler system's anti-homeless purpose. When asked about the homeless problem in the area, Bettencourt explained, "It's really bad, but I can’t get into that right now."...MORE...Using a sprinkler system to remove homeless people from structures is not a new idea. In 2015, the San Francisco Roman Catholic Archdiocese got into hot water after it was discovered that they were using sprinklers to regularly douse people camping overnight in the doorways of St. Mary’s Cathedral....
