‘Cruel and cold’: man faces backlash for dousing unhoused woman with water

Amid an escalating housing and homelessness crisis, San Francisco has seen increased attacks on unhoused people

San Francisco is once again reckoning with its treatment of unhoused people after a video of a business owner spraying a woman with water from a garden hose spread online.

Collier Gwin, the owner of Foster Gwin Gallery in downtown San Francisco, admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle that he blasted water on an unhoused woman sitting on the sidewalk in front of his business. The video, captured on Monday morning by the owner of a nearby bakery, shows Gwin spraying the woman, who was crying out in distress. In a calm voice, Gwin then tells her, “Just move,” before spraying her again.