SAN FRANCISCO — 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 folks residing in these tents go?
Outreach employees, backed by legislation 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 homeowners it’s time to pack up and go.
They’ve cleared unsanctioned tent cities underneath freeways and a stretch of sidewalk within the drug-plagued Tenderloin with the purpose of forcing folks off the streets. On Monday, metropolis employees visited a longtime encampment lining the sidewalks outdoors San Francisco’s solely DMV workplace that had been cleared greater than a dozen instances this 12 months solely to resurrect days later. By Monday evening, the sidewalks had been clear.
Breed’s efforts are buoyed by a pivotal June 28 U.S. Supreme Courtroom ruling that approved native communities to extra forcefully limit homeless encampments on sidewalks and different public property.
In response, Breed stated that San Francisco, a metropolis that’s turn out to be 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 stated, to handle “this issue differently than we have before.”
Regardless of a years-long effort to maneuver folks into shelter or housing, avenue encampments stay a visual downside in San Francisco.
(Tayfun Coskun / Getty Photographs)
An estimated 8,300 individuals are residing 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 folks into momentary shelter or everlasting housing, tent encampments stay a obvious downside, usually accompanied by trash, theft and open drug use.
For years, Breed and different metropolis officers stated their fingers had been tied by selections issued by the U.S. Courtroom 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 obtainable. Now, bolstered by the Supreme Courtroom ruling, metropolis personnel can take a more durable stance if folks refuse assist.
However San Francisco, together with many different West Coast cities seeking to crack down on encampments, nonetheless hasn’t discovered the place individuals are speculated to go as soon as their tents are dismantled: The town’s shelters — with roughly 3,600 beds — are at 94% of capability, in accordance with the San Francisco Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
Jeff Cretan, the mayor’s spokesperson, stated town doesn’t essentially count on an enormous inflow of recent folks in shelters. After years of makes an attempt to maneuver folks inside, these nonetheless residing on the streets are typically essentially the most proof against accepting gives of shelter, actually because they’re battling psychological sickness and substance-use issues.
Within the first three days of this week’s encampment sweeps, solely about 10% of the folks provided shelter have accepted it, Cretan stated.
As an alternative, Breed — within the thick of a tough reelection bid — is popping to methods apart from extra shelter beds. She stated town could subject felony penalties for individuals who repeatedly refuse shelter. However the prospect of native jails processing a whole lot extra homeless folks additionally raises capability points.
On Thursday, Breed put weight behind one other method. She issued an govt 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 stated town would cowl the price of bus, airplane or practice fares.
The town has had the same program in impact for years, however it misplaced traction throughout the pandemic. Underneath the brand new directive, employees are to press the relocation possibility earlier than providing another metropolis companies, 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 stated they weren’t from San Francisco.
“This directive will ensure that relocation services will be the first response to our homelessness and substance-use crises, allowing individuals the choice to reunite with support networks before accessing other city services or facing the consequences of refusing care,” Breed wrote within the directive.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed faces a tough reelection bid, with homeless numbers a burning subject. 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 deal with the poverty and dependancy that trigger homelessness — and who say her efforts are politically motivated.
“Policies to address homelessness must be humane, lawful and effective — not implemented just because someone’s job is on the line,” stated Aaron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and one among Breed’s mayoral challengers.
Peskin as a substitute known as for bolstering lease management and protections in opposition to eviction, and for town to increase shelter and inexpensive housing choices.
Since Breed took workplace, town has elevated shelter capability from about 2,500 beds to almost 4,000, the mayor’s workplace stated, 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 folks residing on metropolis streets is at “the lowest level in at least 10 years.”
Cretan stated the relocation gives and risk of felony penalties are simply a place to begin as town figures out what methods will work.
“The mayor really wants to make clear [that] you have to accept shelter. But, clearly, it’s not going to be everyone says yes,” Cretan stated. “It’s not like you snap your fingers and everything changes overnight.”
