As a non-electoral movement, Occupy was like a fish out of water in the national political scene of 2012. Its message did lead Democrats, from President Obama on down, to talk more about economic inequality and to strengthen opposition to tax breaks for the wealthy. But Occupy never aspired, as the Tea Party did for Republicans, to push the Democratic Party to the left by backing candidates in primaries or undertaking other electoral activism.
Measuring Occupy’s Success
Occupy continues primarily in the form of multiple groups independently challenging foreclosures, banking policies, Wall Street practices, and other issues affecting income inequality and economic fairness. Identifying these diverse actions as part of the Occupy movement put these protests in a broader and more understandable context. But a social movement is more than independent groups acting independently, and some question whether the goal of building such a movement was ever feasible or even necessary.
Occupy brought discussions of class, income inequality, and corporate greed back into the national debate. A study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting of leading newspapers and television news shows from the period of June–August 2011 (pre-Occupy) found the phrases “income inequality” and “corporate greed” barely mentioned; but uses of both phrases spiked dramatically after Occupy’s emergence. Similarly, Think Progress found that in the last week of July 2011, the leading cable news networks overwhelmingly focused on the national debt, while barely mentioning unemployment or the unemployed. Yet in mid-October 2011, Occupy’s emergence had made “jobs” and “Wall Street” far and away the top news media issues; the debt “crisis” barely registered. The Occupy movement clearly caused the media to shift coverage to job scarcity, Wall Street’s wealth, and the underlying economic and class issues that it had previously downplayed.17
The Pew Research Center released a poll on January 11, 2012, that appeared to confirm that Occupy-generated media coverage of income inequality had influenced public attitudes. The study found that “in just two years the perceptions of class conflict have increased significantly among members of both political parties as well as among self-described independents, conservatives, liberals and moderates. The result is that majorities of each political party and ideological point of view now agree that serious disputes exist between Americans on the top and bottom of the income ladder.” According to the study, 66 percent of the public believed that there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor—an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.18
Thanks to Occupy’s proactive agenda setting, millions of Americans had gained a better sense of the nation’s staggeringly unequal wealth and income distribution. And while the path toward reducing this disparity remains tortuous, Occupy activists have played an indispensable role in bringing public attention to this crisis. When Hurricane Sandy laid ruin to the Atlantic Coast and Northeast, Occupy activists created an “Occupy Sandy” campaign to mobilize and coordinate volunteer efforts by “the 99 percent.” Using social media to secure resources for those in need, Occupy Sandy showed that the inspiration that launched the Occupy movement remains strong and that its activists still aspire to make a difference in the world.
HOMELESSNESS: THE FAILURE OF DEFENSIVE ACTIVISM
In comparison to the Occupy movement’s far-reaching ambition to create a more just and equal society, the goal of ending homelessness in the United States would appear much easier to achieve. After all, the United States has sufficient wealth to provide housing for all who need it, and Congress even passed a law in 1949 pledging housing for all. But as anyone walking the nation’s streets knows, for more than two decades widespread visible homelessness has been a fact of life in the United States. Sadly, no presidential administration has called for allocating the money necessary to meaningfully reduce homelessness, even though its cause was the sharp decline in federal funding for affordable housing starting in the 1970s.
I was working in the Tenderloin when homelessness burst on to the local and national scene in 1982. I have spent three decades trying to reduce homelessness, and since 1988 my organization, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, has created and run housing programs for homeless persons. At first, homelessness was overwhelmingly framed as a lack of affordable housing. Since the 1990s, homelessness has been associated in the public mind primarily with panhandling, public urination, “bums” sleeping on park benches, and other conduct lumped together as “problem street behavior.” This reflects a tragic shift in perception. And its impact is stark: the United States has more homeless persons today than in 1982, the federal government has never tried to end the problem, and millions of Americans are no longer surprised to see homeless people in public plazas and other areas.
How did those unwilling to provide low-income people with a roof over their heads get so much of the public on their side? After the initial wave of sympathetic media stories, conservative think tanks, activists, and politicians got to work reframing homelessness as a problem of individual behavior rather than a social problem. Unfortunately, grassroots homeless activists accepted this reframing, zealously defending people’s right to camp in public parks or panhandle on neighborhood streets. While homeless activists also advocated for more affordable housing, conservatives made sure that the “debate” about homelessness focused on camping and panhandling. And considering the number of homeless encampments and panhandlers in major cities, these issues easily overwhelmed discussions about homelessness as a housing problem. The public supported people getting affordable housing, but opposed camping and begging. Homeless advocates accepted the conservatives’ redefinition of homelessness and fought the battle on their opponents’ terms. It was a struggle they could not win.
San Francisco’s Homeless Problem
San Francisco has been a national model for addressing homelessness, and its experiences from the 1980s through today both foreshadowed and mirrors that of other cities. San Francisco is the nation’s most politically progressive city, a place where longtime Congress member Nancy Pelosi is more likely to be criticized from the left than the right. The successful reframing of homelessness from a lack of housing to a problem of individual behavior in progressive San Francisco explains why this strategy also found success elsewhere.
I head an organization that is San Francisco’s leading provider of permanent housing for homeless single adults. I have crafted city homeless programs and believe San Francisco is the national leader in housing the population my organization serves. But I know that tourists view San Francisco as having the worst homeless problem they have ever seen. People feel this way not because they have any knowledge of the actual numbers of people who lack housing or shelter, but rather because of the visibility of panhandlers, people sleeping in doorways, and problem street behavior in Union Square, on Fisherman’s Wharf, in UN Plaza, and along Market Street. These activities have come to define the city’s homeless problem. And using that frame, many San Franciscans join tourists in equating “combating homelessness” not with getting people housed, but with pushing panhandlers and those involved in “problem street behavior” out of sight.
I saw this turn in the framing of homelessness firsthand after Art Agnos became mayor in 1988. Prior to his taking office, I was among a group of homeless advocates who created a consensus proposal for a new direction in city policy. Calling itself the Coalition on Homelessness, the group (which later became an independent nonprofit) offered a concrete and specific program to an incoming mayor who had vowed during his campaign to change how the city treated the homeless. The Coalition’s proactive approach put Agnos in the position of having either to adopt a “ready to go” program or explain why it was inadequate. The group’s tactical activism ensured that its consensus proposal would be the starting point for all future discussions about homeless policy.
Ultimately, the city adopted almost every component of the consensus proposal. Whereas homeless activists in most cities in 1988 were still fighting for more emergency shelters, the thrust of the Coalition’s agenda was to divert funds from
