I see a lot of mattresses when I walk around my San Francisco neighborhood of Potrero Hill. I don’t know where they came from, how they got here or who slept on them. When I see a mattress I use the SF311 App to notify the city. Sometimes the mattress can stay in the same location for days, or even weeks, before being carted away by city workers. In the meantime they get moved around, piled with trash and perhaps used again as sleeping places.
I’m a city dweller. I’m often confronted by used syringes, discarded mattresses and graffitied walls. I yearn for a garden, an Eden, a paradise. I dream of green fields and idyllic forests and see glimpses of Arcadia on the streets of my San Francisco neighborhood, Potrero Hill.
These photographs were taken in or near my neighborhood of Potrero Hill, San Francisco. The RVs, car homes and converted trucks circulate through the city streets and park overnight in various venues depending on parking regulations.
Some of these urban mobile dwellings, with names like Lazy Daze, Sunrader, Holiday Rambler and Southwind, have come far from their romantic and utopian origins.
These homes were all found in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, all within a mile of my own house. To me, they demonstrate a creative spirit and determination to make a life in this very expensive city.
