SF community groups protest escalated homeless encampment sweeps
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Workers clear a homeless encampment in Bayview this month. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
San Francisco community advocates are escalating calls for state and local officials to cease homeless encampment sweeps, one day after Mayor London Breed directed city workers to prioritize relocation over shelter offers.
Why it matters: Encampment sweeps have ramped up since the U.S. Supreme Court's Grants Pass ruling, allowing San Francisco to take stricter measures as critics continue to raise concern over possible infringement on unhoused people's rights.
The latest: 26 local organizations released a letter Friday condemning the "inhumane" sweeps, which they said violate unhoused people's "fundamental human right to housing."
- "Punishing people for being poor won't solve the underlying issues," the letter reads. "In fact, it will make homelessness worse."
- The advocates noted that fining and arresting people leads to warrants and destroys their financial credit, while seizures of belongings can result in loss of government documents and medicine.
- That can make it "nearly impossible" for people to apply for services and benefits.
State of play: The letter — signed by the Homeless Emergency Service Providers Association, Harm Reduction Therapy Center and Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, among others — comes as many service providers urge local leaders to focus taxpayer resources on expanding affordable housing instead of more punitive measures.
- Many community advocates also see homelessness as a racial justice issue. Friday's letter pointed out that Black people comprise roughly 35% of unhoused people in the city despite making up about 6% of the total population.
Catch up quick: Breed's Thursday executive order requires city workers to offer unhoused people bus tickets and relocation assistance before providing housing or shelter.
- Her office has maintained that reconnecting unhoused people — many of whom come to San Francisco from elsewhere, according to the city's homelessness count — with stable networks is a compassionate and effective resource.
Yes, but: "It just seems designed to make the problem out of sight" rather than actually address root causes of homelessness, said Nisha Kashyap, an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
- Footage of police officers' interactions with unhoused people this week has already led to claims of inhumane practices.
- Kashyap, who is representing the Coalition on Homelessness in its encampment sweeps lawsuit against the city, called the pivot away from a housing-first approach "alarming."
- "We've been down this road before and we know it doesn't work," Kashyap told Axios, noting that community advocates are watching closely to ensure the "aggressive enforcement doesn't trample over people's civil rights."