Per week into what Mayor London Breed has known as a “very aggressive” effort to clear homeless encampments throughout San Francisco, a key query looms: The place will the individuals residing in these tents go?
Outreach employees, backed by regulation enforcement officers, have fanned out in latest days in focused efforts to clear a few of San Francisco’s most seen encampments, confiscating private belongings and telling the house owners it’s time to pack up and go.
They’ve cleared unsanctioned tent cities beneath freeways and a stretch of sidewalk within the drug-plagued Tenderloin with the purpose of forcing individuals off the streets. On Monday, metropolis employees visited a longtime encampment lining the sidewalks exterior San Francisco’s solely DMV workplace that had been cleared greater than a dozen occasions this yr solely to resurrect days later.
By Monday night time, the sidewalks have been clear.
Breed’s efforts are buoyed by a pivotal June 28 U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling that licensed native communities to extra forcefully limit homeless encampments on sidewalks and different public property.
In response, Breed mentioned that San Francisco, a metropolis that’s turn into a favourite right-wing punching bag for its sprawling homelessness disaster, would launch a extra decided initiative to clear encampments. The time had come, she mentioned, to handle “this concern in another way than we’ve got earlier than.”
Regardless of a years-long effort to maneuver individuals into shelter or housing, road encampments stay a visual drawback in San Francisco.
(Tayfun Coskun / Getty Photographs)
An estimated 8,300 individuals live homeless in San Francisco, about half of them sleeping in parks and on sidewalks in makeshift shelters. Regardless of a years-long effort to maneuver individuals into non permanent shelter or everlasting housing, tent encampments stay a obvious drawback, usually accompanied by trash, theft and open drug use.
For years, Breed and different metropolis officers mentioned their arms have been tied by selections issued by the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the ninth Circuit that deemed it merciless and strange punishment to penalize somebody for sleeping on the streets if no authorized shelter was accessible. Now, bolstered by the Supreme Court docket ruling, metropolis personnel can take a harder stance if individuals refuse assist.
However San Francisco, together with many different West Coast cities seeking to crack down on encampments, nonetheless hasn’t found out the place persons are imagined to go as soon as their tents are dismantled: Town’s shelters — with roughly 3,600 beds — are at 94% of capability, based on the San Francisco Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
“Sadly, San Francisco doesn’t have sufficient shelter or housing for each individual experiencing homelessness, however we do have some beds accessible every day to assist the work of the outreach groups, and we proceed to develop our system,” Emily Cohen, the division’s spokesperson, wrote in an e-mail.
Jeff Cretan, the mayor’s spokesperson, mentioned town doesn’t essentially count on an enormous inflow of recent individuals in shelters. After years of makes an attempt to maneuver individuals inside, these nonetheless residing on the streets are typically probably the most proof against accepting gives of shelter, actually because they’re battling psychological sickness and substance-use problems.
Within the first three days of this week’s encampment sweeps, solely about 10% of the individuals supplied shelter have accepted it, Cretan mentioned.
As a substitute, Breed — within the thick of a troublesome reelection bid — is popping to methods apart from extra shelter beds. She mentioned town could concern prison penalties for individuals who repeatedly refuse shelter. However the prospect of native jails processing tons of extra homeless individuals additionally raises capability points.
On Thursday, Breed put weight behind one other method. She issued an government directive requiring outreach employees to supply homeless individuals who aren’t from San Francisco free transportation out of city — to cities the place they’ve household, associates or different connections. Cretan mentioned town would cowl the price of bus, aircraft or prepare fares.
Town has had an identical program in impact for years, nevertheless it misplaced traction throughout the pandemic. Underneath the brand new directive, employees are to press the relocation possibility earlier than providing every other metropolis providers, together with housing and shelter.
In keeping with town’s 2024 annual point-in-time homeless survey, about 40% of individuals residing on the streets mentioned they weren’t from San Francisco.
“This directive will be sure that relocation providers would be the first response to our homelessness and substance-use crises, permitting people the selection to reunite with assist networks earlier than accessing different metropolis providers or going through the results of refusing care,” Breed wrote within the directive.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed faces a troublesome reelection bid, with homeless numbers a burning concern. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, proper, is amongst her challengers.
(Eric Risberg / Related Press)
Breed’s hard-line method has drawn sharp criticism from homeless advocates, who argue that clearing tents doesn’t tackle the poverty and dependancy that trigger homelessness — and who say her efforts are politically motivated.
“Insurance policies to handle homelessness have to be humane, lawful and efficient — not carried out simply because somebody’s job is on the road,” mentioned Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and considered one of Breed’s mayoral challengers.
Peskin as a substitute known as for bolstering lease management and protections towards eviction, and for town to increase shelter and reasonably priced housing choices.
Since Breed took workplace, town has elevated shelter capability from about 2,500 beds to just about 4,000, the mayor’s workplace mentioned, and everlasting supportive housing slots to about 14,000. Cohen, with the Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, cited these efforts as the rationale the variety of individuals residing on metropolis streets is at “the bottom stage in no less than 10 years.”
Cretan mentioned the relocation gives and risk of prison penalties are simply a place to begin as town figures out what methods will work.
“The mayor actually desires to clarify [that] it’s important to settle for shelter. However, clearly, it’s not going to be everybody says sure,” Cretan mentioned. “It’s not such as you snap your fingers and all the things modifications in a single day.”
