Ride-hail company Uber has been making headlines recently after releasing (and then removing) a fleet of driverless cars onto San Francisco streets, but behind the scenes another battle was being waged. CNET reports that security guards at Uber’s self-driving car storage facility are responsible for dismantling a tent city and displacing the homeless people who lived there.
The homeless encampment, known as “Lower Perry,” was located under the highway in a quiet section of Potrero Hill. The longtime camp contained around a dozen tents where approximately 30 homeless individuals lived.
But its proximity to Uber’s storage warehouse drew the attention of the company’s security guards, and the community was forced to move on. Jason Pitter, who lived in the camp, told CNET that the residents were given notice about a week before U-haul trucks arrived and loaded up peoples’ tents and possessions.
Once the tents were gone, Uber parked many of its self-driving cars along the sidewalk where people used to store their belongings.
Speaking to the Examiner about Uber’s recent actions around self-driving cars, Supervisor Aaron Peskin noted, “Given the rise of Trump nationally” and the nationalistic calls hailing back to Nazi Germany, “you’d think Uber might want to rethink its name.”
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