Number of homeless tents down by 60%, SF mayor says

SAN FRANCISCO - The number of homeless tents in San Francisco has dropped by 60% in the past six years, San Francisco Mayor London Breed said Thursday, proof that the city is succeeding in cleaning up the streets while providing alternatives for the unhoused.

"The streets are looking better, the streets are a lot cleaner, but we also know there’s much more work to do," Breed said.

The mayor said there were 609 tent camps in the city in 2018 and about 242 now.

Breed, who’s running for re-election, says the city has been busy getting homeless people off the streets, giving them alternatives while warning them it’s not OK to deal drugs or block the sidewalk.

"The goal is to not let people be comfortable living on the streets of San Francisco when we have an alternative place for you to go," she said.

Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of the city's Department of Emergency Management said, "We’re in the city of St. Francis. It is not OK to leave people on the street, to not engage and to not provide them services. We cannot and we do not let people languish on the streets."

Their backdrop was the San Francisco DMV, which Gov. Newsom announced a week ago will become an affordable housing site, with 372 new homes. The tents usually seen around the DMV are now gone.

"This is a great day, and I’m generally a glass half-empty kind of person," said San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman. "If you look at the progress that this city has made over the last six years in terms of street encampments, it is absolutely remarkable."

Sam Dodge, director of street response coordination said, "From 311 to the PUC and the park rangers - great partners - and so it’s really a whole government approach, separately and together."

Julian Highsmith of the Coalition of Homelessness says while less tents are a win, "just because tent counts are down 60 percent doesn’t mean homelessness is down 60 percent. Tents don’t equate to the total amount of unhoused people here in the city of San Francisco."

And homelessness comes in many forms. KTVU caught up with a man in the Tenderloin who said he lives on the streets, but not in a tent. He said the homeless issue has been a longstanding one.

"Before she took office, we were dealing with the same, and it was worse," he said. "So it has, as far as the cleanup, yeah it has gotten better."

Henry Lee is a KTVU reporter. E-mail Henry at Henry.Lee@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @henrykleeKTVU and www.facebook.com/henrykleefan