San Francisco steps up homeless encampment sweeps
San Francisco begins clearing homeless encampments
Crews in San Francisco have begun patrolling the streets and clearing homeless encampments. This comes a few days earlier than originally planned after the mayor said sweeps would start in August. The mayor has doubled down on something she said last week when she told KTVU the plan was to make it uncomfortable for people living on the streets so that they would take the city up on its offer for shelter and services.
SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco has stepped up a program to sweep homeless encampments. City leaders have been saying that plans were in the works to take more action to eliminate encampments, and on Monday crews began patrolling the streets clearing camps.
The renewed push comes after last week's announcement of an executive order by Governor Gavin Newsom to clear tents on city streets statewide.
Geoffrey Frye says the latest effort by the city means a challenge for him. "Damn right about that," said Frye. "I guess they're trying to make stuff safer for people or something like that. But, I don't know, I think it's still a hassle."
City crews say they try to engage with those living in tents, offering mental health care or drug and alcohol counseling, give at least two days' notice that a sweep is coming and offer to hold onto the belongings of the person in the tent.
The city's Homeless Outreach Team offers shelter beds that are available immediately. "We offer it, give them what the opportunities are right now," said José Torres from San Francisco's Homeless Outreach Team. "There's this opportunity to be at this navigation center, this shelter, or this hotel or whatever is available that day. They can be, 'OK, I'll take a navigation center,' and we're like, 'OK, let's go."
Joel, who didn't want to disclose his last name, said he'd been told he could be arrested if he didn't clear out. He said he just wanted to be left alone, and that he was not interested in a shelter bed.
"They take your stuff in there, and just lose everything and get kicked out," he said. "I don't know. It's happened to me. I prefer to be out here. But, we'll see what happens."
This latest push to clear encampments comes a month after the United States Supreme Court cleared the way, and less than a week after Gov. Newsom ordered state agencies to step up their enforcement and asked cities to do the same.
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Mayor London Breed said San Francisco's plans have been in the works for weeks. She says San Francisco can be compassionate, offering help, while at the same time making homelessness so difficult that it pushes people to accept the help the city is offering. "We are doing everything we can to make it clear to people that our expectation is that you take us up on our offer for services and if you don't, we want to make things less comfortable for you," said Mayor Breed.
Advocates for the homeless say there are many reasons why shelters don't work for some people, and that following sweeps, the most vulnerable are worse off than before. "Giving a short notice and then coming in and removing an encampment doesn't change the basic problem of someone having nowhere to go and not having a place to live, not having a shelter," said Jennifer Friedenbach from the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco.
The men we spoke with today said they planned on moving a few blocks away, and maybe moving back to that same location later on if they can.
The city says it can maintain this level of sweep for now, and officials are hoping that as more people take the city up on the offer of shelter, there will be fewer encampments to sweep.
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