The Mansion: Liberated Zones Inside The Controlled Inner City

Situated between a red brick church and a luxury condo building was The Mansion, an old Edwardian house in San Francisco's Japantown. It looked quite the desolate wreck on the outside, but inside, it was home to a young Black man newly arrived from Atlanta-and 29 houseless others. Oakland performance poet Dee Allen returns with his 10th volume of poetry, The Mansion, named in honour of his first real home in the Bay Area. The Mansion covers Allen's first 5 years surviving homelessness in San Francisco by squatting numerous buildings, whether long-abandoned or new ones under construction. In a city where alarmingly high rents, gentrification and displacements are the norm, and squatting is seen as a viable means to live for the less fortunate [and resourceful].