The Cops and Street Cleaners in San Francisco Are Very Strict About Getting Rid of Homeless Camps
SAN FRANCISCO — New rules announced Tuesday by Mayor London Breed’s office say that police will start removing homeless people from public spaces who are living in tents. Breed has promised a tougher approach to tent cities after a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
In a memo, Breed’s office said that city workers will continue to house and help homeless people while they take down tent cities. However, street cleaners, police, and other city workers will have more freedom to keep tent cities from re-forming in places that have already been cleared, or for smaller encampments to grow into bigger ones.
About 8,000 homeless people can stay in shelters in San Francisco, which has almost 4,000 beds. Breed has added more space since he became mayor in 2018, but the city is still short.
“This law is meant to make people take shelter offers and understand that they can’t stay where they are.” A press release said, “If people go back to an area where staff have recently been working to clear an encampment, they will not have to offer shelter again.”
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for towns to ban homeless camps. This is becoming a bigger problem in more parts of the country because of the opioid drug crisis and the high cost of housing. Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom told state agencies to start taking down tents and other buildings on state land in California, which is home to about a third of the 650,000 homeless people in the U.S.
People in Fresno, California, argued strongly that people should not be punished for being poor, but on Monday, the city council gave preliminary approval to a ban on homeless camping.
At least twice a day, five days a week, a multi-department unit from San Francisco goes out to clear encampments. Homeless people are told ahead of time when cleanings and contact are going to happen.
That will still happen, but now city workers can go back to places that have been cleared to kick someone out if they come back. Also, every day, new groups of cops and public works workers will go out to deal with smaller camps.
Breed, who is running for re-election and is facing a lot of opposition, said that the city will still provide services and housing. But we need new ways to help the homeless because two-thirds of shelter offers are turned down. According to her office, enforcement will happen in stages, starting with warnings and moving on to tickets, harsher fines, and even arrests.
People who are homeless say they have turned down shelter offers because they can’t bring all of their belongings or their pets, or because they have had bad experiences with workers or other residents. Some of the people who sued the city in 2022 said that the city wasn’t giving enough warning or real shelter offers. The case is still open.
At a news event in San Francisco on Tuesday, people who work with the homeless said that hundreds of subsidized housing units and hotel rooms are empty and available, but that officials are focusing on encampment sweeps, which make things worse.
A spokesperson for the Coalition on Homelessness, Jennifer Friedenbach, said, “Our local officials are choosing to take people’s property, like survival gear, medications, and the last things they’re holding on to after losing everything, instead of offering… a place to live.”
At a meeting of the supervisors’ board on Tuesday, Los Angeles County officials said they didn’t agree with the governor’s plan to help homeless people.
“Criminalization is purposely not part of the county’s framework because it makes the problem worse by making it harder for people to get housing, and it goes against our goals to make the system fairer,” said Va Lecia Adams Kellum, CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.