A community meeting to discuss street conditions around the safe-sleeping site at 1515 South Van Ness Ave. devolved into accusations of defensiveness and prejudice. After 40 minutes, the three representatives of Dolores Street Community Services, the nonprofit running the site, walked out of the meeting.
The contentious nine-person meeting to discuss a 40-person sleep site encapsulated the difficulties of trying to fix a city-scale problem in a one-block radius.
Several city departments signed an agreement last week that promised the area more resources towards encampment resolution and outreach, but the fact remains that no city department can force people camped in the area to take services or leave the area. As of the meeting, there were two encampments on the site’s block, the same two from when Mission Local visited on Feb. 6.
“We can’t grab and arrest people,” said Santiago Lerma, an aide to Supervisor Hillary Ronen.
This left residents wondering how the increased outreach to the area will change what their 311 calls have not.
“It’s the same thing we’ve been doing, and it doesn’t work,” said Lucy Junus, who lives around the corner from the site, on Shotwell Street between 24th and 25th streets.
Neighbors are also upset about the removal of unruly residents from the safe-sleeping site, leaving them on the street in the area.
“If people put themselves, others, or staff in danger, it would be negligent not to exit them,” said Laura Valdéz, executive director of Dolores Street Community Services.
But it would also be negligent to merely move them to another facility:
“We can’t transfer a violent person from one shelter to another,” said Emily Cohen, director of communications for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. So that means they end up on the streets and often remain in the area.
There was disagreement about how frequently this actually occurs. Yesenia Lacayo, Dolores Street’s Shelter Program Senior Manager, said that only two people have been asked to leave this year.
“So many incidents are worked through, so many people are not exited,” she said.
Both Cohen and Dolores Street representatives reminded neighbors that the organization is only responsible for managing the inside of the site. Though the meeting was about maintaining the area around the site, neighbors began asking questions about site management. This questioning extended beyond Dolores Street’s administration, to the lifestyles of the site’s residents.
“What is it that these people do all day? Crosswords? Watch TV?” asked Jane Perry, a Mission resident and member of the Inner Mission Neighborhood Council.
Valdéz called this statement “latent with prejudice.” She also accused Perry of being defensive.
“We have to be, we live here,” Perry rebutted.
Shortly after, Valdéz and the two other Dolores Street representatives exited the meeting, leading to calls for a new community partner to manage the site.
“I don’t want people who walk out,” said Francesca Pastine, captain of the Inner Mission Neighborhood Committee. “They’re not willing to acknowledge that their presence hasn’t worked.”
“Worked for who?” asked Lerma. “It has worked to house people.”
Dolores Street’s original contract with the city ran from Sept. 16, 2020 to July 1, 2022, at which point it was extended to June 30, 2023. Cohen did not entertain suggestions that the city break this contract, though Dolores Street and the city are currently working on a revised Good Neighbor Policy for the contract. Dolores Street will also need to have a 24/7 phone line for neighbors to call in concerns. More meetings are to be expected.
“This is not a silver bullet,” said Cohen, of last week’s agreement. “That’s what this table is for.”
8000 homeless folks surviving on our streets. 62 billionaires living high off the hog in our city. 61,000 empty homes in our speculation-driven housing market. Stop blaming the folks on the bottom rung. The problem is greed at the top.
Please don’t forget that if Campos and Ronen had not blocked the original development plan, we would have had 150 apartments on this site — 25% set aside for low income residents — almost a decade ago. Instead, thanks to their intervention, we have what is currently there now
It amazes me how people consider themselves immune to poverty. It crazy how people criminalize people for being sick. (Mental illness or drug misuse or both). Dive deep into what the real issues. Housing is a solution with clinical case management. I think people forget the humanistic issue here and forget that someone was lit on fire and killed not to long ago for being houseless on the street. There are continuous articles “homeless person lit on fire” all over different incidents. And it’s like wow, yall really don’t care about thy neighbor unless their property value is 1mil. People act as though homelessness is new to SF. Ha! Where were yall in 95′? Because we have never been a utopia. And then people ask why so many honeless in a city. Well let me tell you eventhough houseless folx are still getting burnt alive here. People still feel safer than where they’re coming from. Imagine hating the poor and sick so much that you want them casted away to Treasure island, have them institutionalized (in jail or a forced phych ward) —no plan just lock em up, or let’s just exterminate them from the mission—like pests….. its mind blowing the hate people have. Houseless and addictc and people with mental illness are not monsters. People forget they are not eternal and when you walk in malice Karma is gonna come back at you. As they say, some day you may need help from the rocks you kick around. So what do these shelter and safesleep villages do…. keep people alive and safe. Who cares if they’re “playing chess” all day. I thought saving people and keeping them alive was important too but no, it’s the property value that we care about. Right?
Campers,
Treasure Island was given to the City with an Order to use it to alleviate Homelessness and Poverty as Mission One.
First Willie and then Gavin and on and on have viewed it only as a place to build Market Rate Condos.
ALL of the Homeless should be sheltered and fed and cared for on Treasure Island.
Why don’t any of the Supes even mention this ??
Got me by the short hairs.
Go Niners !!
h.
If it’s illegal for me to camp in a national park without a permit, it should be just as illegal to camp on city streets without permission. This is the first part that needs to be fixed about the laws. Second, there needs to be three options… 1) Find out where these people came from. If they weren’t born in San Francisco, if they didn’t previously have a home or job in SF, if they aren’t coming here to actually make a difference in their life, they need a one way ticket back home. 2) Otherwise, shelter, housing, job, rehabilitation should be the primary focus. 3) As a last resort, some sort of institutionalization rather than just kicking them back on the street. Why is this so hard to figure out?
I go places for my job, and I can tell that housing people doesn’t always work, in those cases, when people can’t take care of themselves. Most often, it’s the same homeless encampment, just inside.
The laws are written to tie the hands of the organizations supposedly to be helping the vulnerables. They’re counter-productive. Those violent individuals and those refusing help, belong to the mental ward, not assisted housing, not the streets. Stop reinventing the broken wheels. Take NY City as an example.
I do not live near a safe sleeping site. However, I do have people sleeping and pooping in the alcove next to my driveway, leaving behind garbage and wet clothes or walking by looking deranged and talking to themselves. I DO NOTconsider myself a victim of our city’s administration. Rather, I consider myself someone who lives in a country that tolerates and promotes huge disparities in wealth, education and job opportunities, that does not provide adequate mental health and drug treatment programs, has not figured out what to do about the civil liberties vs inability to care for self, and thinks that offering a shelter bed is enough. Many shelters do not felt safe and offer no privacy or 24/7 access. People need to be offered a room with a door that locks. This should be the baseline minimum for human dignity. Agree that other neighborhoods need to do their fair share.
This is insane. “We can’t transfer a violent person from one shelter to another”, yet it Is fine to oust them into a residential neighborhood and expect us to deal with them instead? We are not trained professionals who are equipped to take on this burden and it is not our job to do so. I live 1/2 block from the safe sleeping site. My neighbors have made hundreds of calls to 311, sent many letters (with pics) to our supervisor documenting numerous encampments around the safe sleeping site and our homes. We have been asking for help from the beginning.
I would like some answers.
Why has this neighborhood’s pleas for relief been ignored for years? Who in city government decides and is responsible for the selective enforcement of existing laws regarding; open selling and use of illegal drugs, violations of disabled access regulations, creating human waste and health hazards and criminal activity against residents? Don’t my taxes pay for DSCS to operate? How about a little transparency? What do they provide for services in the safe sleeping site? Why do they have no responsibility for the conditions around their perimeter? Who has allowed their policy to eject violent individuals onto the sidewalks in front of our homes to continue? Why was a MOU (to protect residents and keep encampments off the sidewalks) not set up prior to the opening of this site? We had Paul Monge’s verbal word and that was immediately ignored.
We pay the same property tax rates as the rest of the city. Why are we receiving less enforcement of laws, fewer services and why are we hosting the majority of services for and occupation of our sidewalks by the homeless? We are expected to fix these problems when other neighborhoods aren’t? Perhaps we should be getting refunds on our property taxes to offset these inequities.
If ALL neighborhoods shared these burdens EQUALLY there might be a chance that realistic policies could emerge. Current policies are a failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.
If only there was a place that we could put violent people. Maybe someplace with locked rooms, guards, and so forth. Hmm….
That comment got to me to me as well. Why are we allowing known violent people to walk around? And why are we, tax paying citizens, required to subsidize their lifestyles, with no requirements to better their situations, and no accountability for where the money is going?
It is negligent to exit dangerous people onto the street. If the “professional supportive service staff” can’t handle them how do they expect the public to deal with them? What is the city paying these people to do? Sounds like there is something wrong with the program and it may help to send some supervisors and judges into the affordable housing projects they created to see how well they function or don’t.
None of these programs work for some of the homeless who are indeed a threat to themselves and society BECAUSE…a Napa and/or John George Mental Institution hasn’t been implemented here in San Francisco.
The City Officials cannot afford to continue putting their heads in the sand with this issue.
“Worked for who?” asked Lerma. “It has worked to house people.”
How many individuals has this safe sleeping site housed? Like so many nonprofits in this city, outcome data is nowhere to be found.
I’d love to hear specific, detailed examples from neighbors about unruly, violent people that they can prove are residents of the safe sleeping site. Other than two encampments, what SPECIFICALLY has been the impact to neighbors? Other than being generally offended at the presence of “these people” who sit around doing crossword puzzles and watching TV. Agree that statement is deeply problematic, stereotyping unhoused people as lazy, unmotivated, mooching off society, etc. Case management and counseling is usually a condition of entry to these programs, if that’s what was being asked.
Also, without the site how many more encampments would there be?
We have loads of untreated mental and medical illness in SF with an overdose crisis, minimal psychiatric and skilled nursing beds, ever-evaporating housing, underfunded social services and an apathetic police department. I’ve watched SFPD shrug at a woman walking naked through the Tenderloin talking to herself, they could not have been more indifferent to obvious grave disability. I so wish neighborhood associations would focus their energies on the systemic barriers to care. Please lobby hospitals, supervisors, your local police station and budget committees instead of targeting stretched and stressed non-profit workers for being unable to control an issue far larger than any of us. HSH, bring back shelter-in-place hotels as an alternative to the shelter model. People camp because it feels safer than a shelter but are open to a safe, clean room and engaging in housing case management. I’m a social worker and I saw so many unhoused people get housing this way during the pandemic. But of course more people lost their housing also. I hoped the City would continue this model for transitional housing but sadly we did not.
Anne states “I hoped the City would continue this model for transitional housing but sadly we did not.”Just to be clear Anne, we support shelters and helping people in them. HSH and nonprofts need to set an example that shelters, in fact, can exist in neighborhoods in a way that is respectful of the community that hosts them. At this meeting, DSCS felt that they were above criticism and, in fact, they are because they have City support regardless of how they function. Homelessness solutions have to work for both the sheltered and the unsheltered. The NC in the Embarcadero proves this can happen. They had an MOU drawn up in 2019 when they opened and it functions well. HSH has just employed that as a model for the Safe Sleeping area at 1515 South Van Ness. The IMNA wants this to succeed and, hopefully, serve as a model to demonstrate that it is ok to host shelters without compromising neighborhoods. For three years, this has not happened. Now, only time will tell. I have asked, as stated in the MOU, that we have regular meetings with all stakeholders to make up for the community outreach that never happened.
We saw an incredible expansion of long term high quality private shelter through the SIP hotel program during the pandemic, the ideal format for “social services” according to all our leading experts, yet street conditions are absolutely worse than ever and so are drug related deaths. Why should anyone believe a social worker?
That neighbors assoc doesnt represnt the inner mission. They just representing their lil group. There shouldnt even have been a private meeting with them. Any meetings should be held on the community level. Open to the public. The city gives this lil group too much recognition. Let them write tgeir letters and complain. They arent helping to solve any homeless situations. Anyone would know the shelter isnt responsible for people outside. And theres been people camping in that area for years. Long before the shelter was opened.
I absolutely agree. Why is there so much deference paid to this particular group? The Inner Mission Neighborhood Commission
I’ve lived here 28 years. How is it I have never heard the names of these two women “representing” my interests?And why has there been no outreach to include the community they supposedly represent?
I’ve never heard of them, but thrilled to hear they exist!! I shall be contacting this group. Hopefully if we raise our voices, get organized, and get some changes. We cannot continue living this way. It’s absurd.
Im fed up of Calle 24 who do nothing for the mission.
Defending BS only furthers it. Stop defending it.
Thank you.
What a surprise
Dolores Street Community can walk away.
We Live Here
On behalf of the Inner Mission Neighborhood Association, we were looking forward to a dialogue with HSH, DSCS and District 9 leadership. We appreciate the work that everyone put into the MOU and we’re hoping that it resolves issues around the site. Emily Cohen told us that normal outreach to the community did not happen because HSH and Supervisor Ronen were in emergency mode due to the pandemic and put no effort into community outreach. Therefore we were not privy to the fact that DSCS had absolutely no control over anything outside its gate. I would argue, that the steps that should have occurred to create an environment of trust and community were not taken to the detriment of this project and the neighborhood.
The Safe Sleeping area has been functioning since September 2020. We were promised by Paul Monge, Ronen’s assistant at the time, that tents would be in the site not outside. Enormous encampments have surrounding this site plus other areas in our community for the whole time.
We appreciate the extra street cleaning and security stated in the MOU but what happens to tenants of the Safe Sleeping Area when they exit and how the city plans to deal with that is not addressed. Also I find it astounding that the DSCS and HSH will simply cast out unruly tenants into our neighborhood . This is why Jane was curious what went on at the site– is their counseling for example? We don’t know because there was never any community outreach or transparency. Going forward, we would like HSH to arrange meetings with all parties to make up for the community outreach that was never done. We would like regular communications with DSCS, HSH, and other grantees as put forth in the MOU.
I understand that the residents at the Safe Sleeping area are there because of hardship and trauma. What nonprofits and government agencies do not realize is that residents of San Francisco, everywhere, are traumatized by the crises they have to confront everyday because of deteriorating conditions in their neighborhoods. Ignoring this does not help the City’s ability to open desperately needed shelters, especially when communities that host these shelters are worse off for it. I said at that meeting that I want more shelters and I want to be able to advocate for shelters. I am hoping the MOU works so I can do just that.
All of us, sheltered or unsheltered, want the same thing, an end to this crises so we can live normal lives with decency. But ignoring community concerns comes with its own risks. I believe we can find a balance if we respect and listen each other.
This is exactly what we’ve been calling for in D6, as well. This is a SoMA, Tenderloin, and Mission issue, yet no other neighborhoods like Pacific Heights or Now Valley, for example, have to deal as much with the day in/out deluge. This is a City wide issue that shouldn’t burden only specific neighborhoods.
It is not acceptable for the City to stash social refuse in residential communities, adjacent to schools or to substance treatment centers.
Does the term “social refuse” offend people? I would hope it does.
What offends us is that other neighborhoods REFUSE social problems by using the SFPD to contain them in the TL, SOMA and Mission, so I guess we’re even.
DSCS is a jewel in the crown of the politically connected Mission nonprofits where sinecures are passed around like doobies, as resting places for reliable hacks. There will be no consequences. They don’t care about existing residents because none of them live anywhere near here and they don’t have to–there are no consequences for failure.
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DSCS used to be a gay HIV/AIDS charity, but it got hijacked by the Eric Quezadas of the world once he got fired from Mission Housing for illegal candidate electoral activities, and converted into a homeless Latino service operation under Care Not Cash.
The late Joe Lynn was HIV Planning and Prevention Council ombudsperson in the 2000s. One DSCS client at Richard M. Cohen residences, the last remaining DSCS HIV facility, filed grievance against Quezada and DSCS. They never responded because they knew nothing would happen and gay men with HIV never ranked in their calculus.
Richard M. Cohen residences should probably be transferred to a less homophobic operation.
Even if the police are called about a resident in a safe sleeping site threatening or arguing with others or acting in an intimidating manner, they would not be held: and they would soon be free to return to the neighborhood. In the absence of assault and battery, their crime is being houseless and socially insensitive. Running a safe sleeping site does not mean the organization is tesponsible for every individual that doesn’t know how to get along with others. Good studies do show that the longer peopke are unhoused/untreated the more difficult it is to solve their many interrelated problems. In the absence of sufficient intensive case managers (such as is occurring in the Castro) , there is little that can be done.
I would be interested in what you mean by “sufficient intensive case managers (such as is occurring in the Castro.” What exactly is that and what does it entail?
The Chronicle ran a puff piece about a social worker who connected with a few homeless people and convinced them to accept shelter, and everyone is pointing to that as the scalable silver bullet. As if that’s gonna work for the hardcore meth addicts in a time scale that is measured in less than years.
If this is the case, then that is all the greater argument to site these facilities at arm’s length from residences and schools.
Yes, there are homeless people in The Mission.
Yes, facilities like this are magnets for bringing more homeless people into the Mission.
Decades and decades, spending billions and billions, and this is the best they’ve got?
These city sponsored encampments have no business in our neighborhoods in the first place, If someone is sufficiently violent to be “exited,” the managers have a duty of care to call the police, not dump the violent person on the neighbors.
Agreed.
This extremely difficult situation is due to many factors.
First amongst them is the fact that from the 1950’s, thru the 1990’s, the State Legislature of California, and all the other States in the USA, decided to close the State operated mental hospitals.
This was overwhelmingly approved by both wings, of both party’s, in both Houses of the State Legislature, in State after State.
It was an overwhelmingly terrible decision.
Cities throughout the USA have been paying the price for this very poor decision of the State Legislatures for many decades.
It’s high time to reverse this, and get the mentality ill to where they can revive care, 24/7.
Sorry, I don’t understand why exactly these “violent” individuals are simply “exited from the facility” – rather than having the police called and having them brought to jail for “putting themselves and staff in danger”? Why would anyone think it was a good idea for people who were “too violent” to be inside a shelter to be unleashed upon an innocent residential neighborhood???
Literally a top complaint of regular hard on their luck folks who need temporary shelter is that disruptive residents threaten or enact violence and steal their stuff. (“I don’t feel safe in shelters.”) We have a place where we can separate people like that from the general population. It’s called a jail. We should use it!
““We can’t grab and arrest people,” said Santiago Lerma, an aide to Supervisor Hillary Ronen.”
Do we know why that is the case?
Is it legal to build a private home on public property? Are not trespassing and vagrancy crimes? Not to mention drug dealing, handling stolen goods, panhandling, public urination, nuisance, noise etc?
I’d like to know where exactly Santiago Lerma, and Hillary Ronen live. Are they comfortable having to sneak into their home at night to avoid eye contact with someone in a rage?
Hillary Ronen lives high on the hill in Bernal Heights. She and her supporters never ever have to see a violent, meth-fueled “homeless” person (by this, I mean those who are homeless by choice – those who refuse shelter because they are not allowed to consume illegal narcotics or engage in any other illegal activity on the premises). We working-class folks in the Inner Mission, on the other hand…well, who cares about us? Right?
Being homeless is not illegal Ron. And until SF can provide the beds for addicted and mentally ill, and low income housing for the poor, where do you expect them to go?
https://nlihc.org/resource/court-declares-civil-and-criminal-punishments-homelessness-are-cruel-and-unusual
Martin vs. Boise and other laws do not give homeless people the right to build shanty towns on the sidewalk. It simply states they can’t be asked to move from a place they sleep.
Ignoring the fact that people’s problem with the homeless isn’t a destitute person sleeping rough. It’s the drugs, antisocial behavior, theft, violence, and other crime.
I am not, by any means, calling on more enforcement. To the contrary, I am explaining how the above statement is not the whole truth. I am calling for SFPD to step back on containment.
SFPD contains homelessness and substance use/sale in certain neighborhoods. SFPD makes it known where other neighborhoods’ “social refuse” should situate themselves. The symptoms of SFPD’s containment can be seen in the “whack a mole” aspect of homeless encampments being shuffled around the circuit. What neighborhood’s turn in the barrel is it this week?
Ronen needs to legislate away the containment zone, or civil rights attorneys need to sue to end it.
If pressure put on our neighborhoods by SFPD’s containment were taken off by ending the policy, and other neighborhoods stepped up to share the burden, then there would not be so much opposition to the nonprofiteers’ schemes.
Don’t insult us by telling us that the SFPD can’t move homeless people. It happens every day.
Kim,
Dealing drugs, being violent towards others, stealing bikes, breaking into garages and cars is illegal. The problem is that the leaders of SF have decided not to enforce the laws currently on the books.
Sorry, Kim – You are correct in stating that *being homeless* is not illegal. Being violent, attacking innocent people, blocking sidewalks, consuming illegal narcotics, urinating/defecating on the streets/sidewalks, disturbing the peace, and stealing and fencing bicycles *is*. And should be prosecuted. Period.
It isn’t unreasonable to expect the mentally ill and addicted to not be violent. If they cannot manage that, they need to be removed from the neighborhood. The city doesn’t expect anything of the campers — they have allowed this situation to develop, and it is high time that they took some responsibility for it.