San Francisco and Humboldt County officers are buying and selling jabs over Mayor London Breed’s plans to extra aggressively promote a metropolis program that pays to relocate homeless folks to different communities the place they’ve household or different ties.
Throughout their Tuesday assembly, Humboldt County supervisors debated sending a draft letter, addressed to Breed, questioning whether or not San Francisco was ensuring the homeless folks it’s busing out really land housing and jobs.
“We’re involved that offering bus tickets to different jurisdictions with out verifying entry to housing, household assist or employment doesn’t alleviate homelessness; it merely shifts the individual to a different county,” the letter states.
The supervisors have been responding to a current report within the San Francisco Normal that discovered the counties of Sacramento, Los Angeles and Humboldt have been the highest three locations for homeless folks bused out of San Francisco since September 2023.
“We don’t have to be a dumping floor,” Humboldt County Supervisor Rex Bohn stated on the assembly. “Our price for taking good care of a homeless person who has nothing up right here … it’s costly.”
Breed’s workplace says the notion that San Francisco is dumping its homeless issues up north is overblown — and famous that Humboldt County has despatched folks south, too.
During the last yr, San Francisco has helped 5 folks relocate to Humboldt County, which in flip has despatched 4 folks to the Metropolis by the Bay, in accordance with information from each jurisdictions.
Humboldt County’s considerations heart on a San Francisco program referred to as Journey Residence that Breed launched in autumn 2023 to help homeless folks in returning to their dwelling states or relocating to different cities in California the place they’ve household, pals or some historical past. Town covers the price of bus, airplane or practice fare and offers a meal stipend.
This system is a crucial element of Breed’s high-profile marketing campaign to extra forcefully filter the sprawling tent encampments which have mushroomed throughout the town in recent times. The trouble, launched in July, is buoyed by a pivotal June 28 U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling that gave native communities better authorized standing to ban homeless folks from sleeping in public areas.
In current weeks, outreach staff, backed by regulation enforcement officers, have unfold out throughout the town and ordered folks to dismantle their tents, providing them therapy and housing — and issuing citations in the event that they refuse to simply accept assist.
As a part of the initiative, Breed issued an govt directive Aug. 1 requiring outreach staff to supply homeless individuals who aren’t from San Francisco free relocation help by means of Journey Residence “earlier than offering every other metropolis companies, together with housing and shelter.”
An estimated 8,300 folks reside homeless in San Francisco, about half of them sleeping in parks and on sidewalks in makeshift shelters, in accordance with the town Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. In keeping with the town’s 2024 homeless survey, about 40% of individuals dwelling on the streets stated they weren’t from San Francisco.
Humboldt County, about 300 miles north, is combating its personal homeless issues. The numbers are far smaller — about 1,600 individuals are dwelling with out everlasting housing — however in a rugged rural setting with far fewer assets, native officers are straining to fulfill the necessity.
“It’s not that Humboldt has seen an inflow of individuals experiencing homelessness being despatched to the county from San Francisco,” Christine Messinger, spokesperson for the Humboldt County Division of Well being and Human Companies, wrote in a press release.
“It’s that the county and the Humboldt Housing and Homelessness Coalition member companies are already seeing our assets stretched skinny to maintain the parents dwelling right here, and an inflow of latest folks might be detrimental to these efforts.”
As a part of its efforts to maneuver folks into housing, Humboldt County additionally operates a relocation help program. During the last yr, the county has helped 142 folks journey to places all through the nation, Messinger stated, together with the 4 who relocated to San Francisco. They’ve denied help to just about 100 extra.
However the supervisors crucial of San Francisco’s method stated Humboldt’s program is much extra concerned. County staff are imagined to confirm that contributors have household, pals and employment alternatives ready for them, and to comply with up with folks on the opposite facet of their travels.
In distinction, Bohn claimed, San Francisco hasn’t tracked individuals who relocated to Humboldt County to ensure they landed on their toes and have discovered employment and secure housing.
“All it’s important to do is ask, ‘I need to go right here,’ and also you get a bus ticket, and also you get to go. No follow-up, no all the things else,” Bohn stated.
As well as, he stated, San Francisco is actually giving homeless folks a alternative between leaving city and authorized motion.
“I don’t need to harm San Francisco’s emotions,” he stated. “However then again, I don’t care.”
Jeff Cretan, Breed’s spokesperson, rejected the depiction of San Francisco transport homeless folks out of the town with out due diligence. He stated Journey Residence helps “reconnect them to pals, households or communities they beforehand lived in.” Earlier than busing folks to Humboldt, he stated, metropolis staffers spoke with members of the family or pals who expressed that “they wished them.”
And although he acknowledged Humboldt County is among the many extra well-liked Journey Residence locations, he stated the numbers are small.
Along with the 5 folks despatched to Humboldt County previously yr, Cretan stated, six have been despatched to Sacramento, 5 to Los Angeles and 13 to different elements of the state. Seven folks have been relocated to Nevada and 9 to Oregon.
Cretan stated he wasn’t conscious of any requirement for metropolis staff to comply with up with Journey Residence contributors as soon as they’re relocated, however he added: “Typically you possibly can’t discover folks, too. That’s the truth.”
For now, Humboldt leaders have put a pause on formalizing the draft letter to Breed. Messinger stated county officers will comply with up with San Francisco staffers instantly “to have extra discussions earlier than a remaining resolution is made about whether or not a letter can be despatched to the mayor.”
