Following objections at a passionate community meeting, Supervisor Hillary Ronen said city-proposed “tiny homes” for the homeless near 16th Street BART Plaza may be off the table.
On Thursday at The Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, Ronen and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing presented plans to the community to add 60 to 70 cabins to 1979 Mission St., where the Mission’s unhoused would live temporarily.
A tentative city timeline expected Mission Cabins to break ground by the fall if all went smoothly. It did not: After nearly an hour of residents criticizing the choice to place the cabins near Marshall Elementary School, it looks like it may not happen at all.
“You’re all using the school as an excuse this time,” said Ronen, who was clearly exasperated by the night’s meeting. If it wasn’t the school, “you find something else next to it, and point to that. It is something of a NIMBY thing … That being said, I am not going to support this project unless I can look you in the eye and say it’s safe.”
The plan could come to fruition only after more public input and assurances that benefits would outweigh the neighborhood’s concerns, Ronen said. She vowed Thursday to hold herself “personally accountable” for ensuring the site is properly maintained and “positive results” are delivered.
“If the project moves forward,” Ronen clarified at the meeting’s end. “I don’t know if it will, I will be honest with you.”
As proposed, the “Mission Cabins” would have 24-hour staffing and social services operated by a local community nonprofit, and be modeled after the city’s first Tiny Homes site at 33 Gough.
The site would last roughly a year-and-a-half to two years, before making way for 300 affordable-housing units slated for construction on the site in 2025.
The most prominent critiques centered around the site’s proximity to Marshall, located a two-minute walk away at 1575 15th St. Siting a homeless village so close, critics said, would mean students being exposed to possible drug use and other public safety issues. One woman brought a sign that read, “Great idea … but not next to Marshall Elementary School.”
“I’m not against homeless people or anything like that, but my son is my priority, and my son goes to Marshall,” said one mother in Spanish. She worried that the city wouldn’t hold unhoused people accountable if an incident occurred at the site. “I think it will be a good idea if we find another place for this.”
Another Spanish-speaking Marshall father described a situation where a person trespassed onto school grounds several months ago and it took the police two or three hours to respond. “I know these are humans,” he said. But he agreed with others: Tiny Homes should go elsewhere.
But the city said no other possible sites are as cost-effective, temporary, and ready-to-go. Because the city acquired 1979 Mission St. in 2021, operating Tiny Homes there is free.
Sam Dodge, the director of the Healthy Streets Operations Center, told the meeting attendees that multiple long-term unhoused residents in the Mission prefer to stay in the neighborhood, and HSOC’s extensive knowledge of the area means the cabins would be occupied quickly.
About 664 unhoused residents were tallied in District 9 during the 2022 Point-In-Time count. While homelessness dropped by 3.5 percent citywide, it rose by 55 percent in Latinx communities.
“We’re always looking for sites in the Mission,” Emily Cohen, the homeless department’s deputy director of communications and legal affairs, told Mission Local. “It should be an ‘and,’ not an ‘or.’”
Residents pushed back on that statement Thursday. Todd Eng, the president of Marshall’s Parent Teacher Association, said he and others recommended sites like a University of California, San Francisco property property near 15th and Harrison streets. Eng and his family have lived in the Mission for 15 years, and his daughter is a fourth-grader at Marshall. He thinks about the “risk” to his daughter, and to 240 other students at Marshall.
“It seems inequitable,” Eng said, repeating other neighbors’ complaints that social services are concentrated in the North Mission. At the location of Thursday’s meeting, St. John’s, a safe-injection site, is proposed. The Division Circle Navigation Center is also in North Mission.
Neighbors also questioned whether the city could actually maintain the site. “I’ve seen a lot of promises made and broken,” said Barbara, a site neighbor.
The latest promise is to operate 1979 Mission St. like 33 Gough, but even the supervisor isn’t sure that’s doable. “Tools we have in the toolbox today are not sufficient that we can make 1979 look like 33 Gough. I have to see action from the city,” Ronen said.
Still, others view Mission Cabins as a potential solution to growing homelessness. On Thursday, a man said Urban Alchemy was doing a “great job” at managing Gough. People Mission Local interviewed at 33 Gough said it was a positive addition that decreased encampments and improved the nearby situation.
Elizabeth Funk, the chief executive officer of Dignity Moves, whose organization built the housing at 33 Gough St. at $15,000 a pop, said “the immediate area” of 1979 Mission St. would benefit from tiny cabins.
Ronen also said if the plan did pass, Public Works, the police, and homeless outreach teams would visit 1979 Mission and have “extensive daily cleaning.”
Other residents are unconvinced. Families echoed this sentiment at an exclusive Mission Cabins meeting for the Marshall community last week, citing issues at the Division Navigation Center. Other neighborhood residents are discontented with the 1515 South Van Ness Ave. homeless sleeping site, and said it causes encampments and graffiti to pop up.
One woman, who does not have a student at Marshall, said she felt the city wasn’t taking the school seriously, especially about shielding students from visible drug use. “This doesn’t feel respectful, just because it’s free to you,” she said. The room erupted in applause.
The community opposition appeared to strike a nerve with the supervisor, who pointed out residents’ constant complaints about Mission homelessness conditions, but refused to get behind a proposal that could alleviate some of it.
“It’s not an insult to say we don’t have enough money. Do you know how much each unit costs?” Ronen said, appearing to address previous comments in her final speech. “It’s not an insult to you, but a love for human beings.”
“Every single argument you made, we have heard it every time,” Ronen said, referring to Thursday’s panelists. She understood residents’ fears and concerns, sharing some herself, she said. But “conditions are bad right now. I want to make them better. I can’t unless I have someplace for [homeless people] to go.”
The compassionate qualities of San Francisco are being lost, Ronen added. Her own daughter attends a school “like Marshall,” and walks by homeless people daily.
The opportunity is a teaching moment; you could teach “our children homeless people are to be feared, that they’re bad,” or that inequality drives situations like homelessness. If parents opt for the latter, “maybe they’ll think about that reality, and not be so scared.”
Kind of pissed at this entire situation.
Housing Action Coalition is sending people in the neighborhood dishonest emails asking for signatures of support by explaining, “turn an empty parking lot at 1979 Mission Street into temporary supportive housing” (emphasis on “empty parking lot” which it’s not).
These people are entirely shameless in their attempt to promote their agenda — essentially extorting the developer, stalling any chance of development on the site for years, and now making it sound like it’s just some empty lot with nothing to do with their own (and associated parties) corrupt approach to building housing.
Shame.
I’d like to learn more about why the Mission has 100x more loitering drug addicts/ mentally ill than the north and west SF neighborhoods. What leverage for help do those other neighborhoods have that the Mission doesn’t? This discrepancy of SF neighborhoods isn’t talked about enough. What happens when a tent pops up in Pacific Heights for example.
I used to live on that block on Minna street—frankly, it could really do with the safety and coverage that they’ve built for the 33 Gough Street ones. Any amount of movement / guards / eyeballs would make it feel safer to walk down than it is now.
I’m glad I moved out of the Mission years ago. I was embarrassed to live there.
When were you there?
Personally I think the tiny homes are a good idea that the city should implement. We can’t fix homelessness but we could save 60 people from sleeping on the street.
I’m sure the city would mismanage it, but in theory there could be some sort of screening to keep out junkies from other cities.
What I don’t want in this neighborhood is a drug-use center. That will attract the junkies and keep them there, so they will do all their stealing within a mile radius of it.
You could easily build a permanent apartment building there with 300 units, reserve 60 units as transitional housing, and offer the rest for rent. 50-60 tiny homes is such a “we’ve tried nothing and this is all we can offer” type of solution. Except Ronen is against permanent homes being built.
She’s as NIMBY as those who oppose these units.
How and where are these community meetings even advertised/ disclosed?
We are on van ness and 16, and were unaware of this community meeting on this topic.
I got a letter in the mail.
“ extensive daily cleaning”? In London Breed’s San Francisco? There are countless encampment sites inthe Mission that rarely get weekly cleaning — hardly extensive. Sorry, Supe, we havent lost compassion, we’ve lost considerable faith that this maladministration will, or is capable, of doing anything but making a bad situation worse.
I went to the meeting; I live directly across from the Walgreens lot where the cabin site is proposed.
Funds would be better spent on increasing slots for drug/mental health treatment on demand. Not enough beds now…
If city agencies truly want to implement real changes then they have the resources to.
The City has money they won’t spend for that. Hire more psych professionals and expand services at Zuckerberg hospitals & mandate other hospitals to expand their services for those who want help.
Also invest in vocational rehab for homeless that worked and who need some skill sets to get back to lost employment opportunities.
I worked at HSA -it has programs in place, and the City created a whole new agency $$ solely to address homelessness. Mismanagement of funds and disingenuous intent. My friend works at the Homeless agency and can firsthand attest to their shenanigans.
it’s a terrible cycle where if City services are too successful then they go out of business and lose lucrative funding and contracts that fund their growing number of MEA managers .
If City agencies truly want to implement real changes, they have the resources to.
Those of us who have lived here a long time (I have for 30 years) are familiar with then Supervisors Alioto and Newsom implementing 10 year plans to solve the issues and failed.
Our neighbors had organized a group to meet with district City supervisor Campos, DPW, mission police station captain, etc. After 10 years of lip service to improve the area, the large united group burnt out and disbanded.
I won’t demonize the percentage of drug addicts but they cause many of the problems. I pick up used needles outside and all manner of trash at the garage, and routinely ask people doing drugs against the property to not do them at the garage entry. The worst is cleaning up their feces which sticks to the garage door. There is a City operated mobile bathroom around the corner on 16th. There is also a free permanent bathroom near the BART station. We need more of those.
There has to be policy of placing these structures away from schools, residences, which other commenters specified available locations. I also think the safe drug shooting galleries need to be in locations not near schools.
The City owns the Walgreens lot and abandoned businesses in that complex. Not sure when, but they need to build affordable housing as was promised. Three affordable housing complexes are right around here and have improved quality of life issues but only in the immediate areas of them.
I recall media interviewing some hard core addicts living on the streets who admitted not wanting to be in shelters nor temporary housing because they can’t do drugs there. So they stay along with sober homeless on the street and congregate on our blocks, leaving refuse and stolen bikes etc. becoming our problem.
There are laws on the books about drug free zones around schools and residences.
I’m rambling, but am as others, burned out on asking the City agencies to do their job.
Thanks for your ideas, and encourage you to keep on asking.
I agree with a lot of the concerns, and I recognize the situation is unacceptable currently and also that there is risk in keeping this as a vacant lot and a decaying building, and putting little to no resources in maintaining or improving it, the current alternative which does not need to be the only alternative, and even in whatever future development happens at 1979 Mission. I hope that the City (especially the Mayor’s office of housing) takes full responsibility for making it good and useful for all in the community, both in the short term and the long term. It is a good thing that the City and Supervisor Ronen, Director Emily Cohen of HSH are looking at this problem of homelessness with a realistic view towards addressing this segment of the unhoused. While this approach sounds promising, the details are everything and I would question that this is the best site available for what clearly will be a long term need, and when so much underdeveloped land exists that also seem quite suitable e.g OfficeMax or UCSF parking lots, among others, perhaps ones that can be let longer than 2 years, so is it just about money? Site improvements will need to be done in any case, among many factors to be considered. I recognize that the immediate blocks of 33 Gough, (the current model Tiny Cabins site) are better now, certainly better than other shelter sites, that’s great but many questions still remain, and resident fears are valid and born of a long history of failures and deep feelings of inequity. We should also be under no illusion that this will address all of the unhoused or the mentally ill or people who just refuse to accept shelter, so I hope City leaders keep looking at all the problems in the Mission and keep listening to what the community needs.
The solution is simple– put the tiny houses in wealthier neighborhoods like Sea Cliff, Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, the Marina, Pacific Heights, etc. The Mission already has tons of social service facilities. Spread the situation of the homeless throughout the City. Supervisor Ronen means well, but this should be a city-wide solution. She needs to cut a deal with her sister and brother Supervisors. All the City’s problems should not be dumped in the Tenderloin and the Mission. Let’s look for and implement city-wide solutions.
Finally!!!! Families of the Mission are speaking up! For immigrant families to finally go up against Hillary and the $$$$$ of Calle 24 says how much they are fed up about the drugs and crime and tents that Hillary attracts with her policies. Latino families do not want more addicts, they do not want more injection enabling sites, they do not want no more crime next to their schools!!
SF’s low end population is a bountiful opportunity for those already operating here as businesses, contractors or consultants. Idealists go away?
According to; Fort Mason/GG Bridge, history SF is designed to prevent people from leaving. Already, SF’s design safeguards are sidesteped.b
Thank you Supervisor Ronen for proposing a solution that would surely help move people from the sidewalks into a type of supportive housing. I am disappointed by the response at this meeting by my fellow San Franciscans. Our city is in crisis. There are people who are living in awful circumstances on our streets. The only way to make a dent in homelessness is to propose and enact multiple solutions. We have to do our part as citizens to solve our collective problem. NIMBYsm undermines our collective goals.
There are so many more homeless people on Mission streets since the pandemic.
Homeless people in the Mission need homes. Then they’ll be off the streets.
This will house 60-70 people homeless people from the Mission.
What is the problem here???? Let’s build this NOW.
how many names do you post under, Melissa, to say the same thing about the same topic?
As someone who lives near 1515 S Van Ness, let’s be clear — Ronen has LIED over and over about that site. If Campos and her hadn’t blocked the development back in 2014, there would have been a mixed market rate / subsidized housing there for 150+ families years ago. Instead Ronen said we would have a navigation center for ONE YEAR before they’d break ground on a new building. But in reality, nothing has happened other than a vacant building and a glorified homeless shelter for almost a decade! She cannot be trusted.
Agreed. With Ronen’s record of lip service and empty promises, it has become difficult to believe on her personal, chest beating assurances that she will be accountable for the safety and cleanliness of the 1979 Mission project.
Shelter is not the issue for the most-problematic (20%?) of the homeless for San Francisco residents — the addicted and mentally I’ll. Putting addicts and sufferers into tiny homes does not magically move them on some path to wellness or recovery.
Deal with the 20% firmly, and I believe that the discourse, vitriol, and financial commitment around supporting the remaining 80% — the economically disadvantaged, physically impaired, etc. — will go much more smoothly in SF.
But as long as the BOS prioritizes handing out tents to addicts, these proposals are a continued total loss of credibility for Ronen.
“Putting addicts and sufferers into tiny homes does not magically move them on some path to wellness or recovery.”
You’re wrong, actually. Anyone who actually studies this could tell you that people are much more likely to be successful at beating addiction once they become housed.
Now, there is something (two things, actually) to salvage from your point:
1) Tiny homes are not very helpful, and IMHO they aren’t good enough. They come with lots of rules (no friends visiting), and they don’t let people have community or connection with their fellow humans. That’s not going to lead to beating addiction or to positive mental health.
2) The real problem is the lack of drug treatment beds.
But, to be clear, expecting people to beat addiction while they are unhoused is not a fact-based position. It just isn’t.
100% agree.
Why is your go-to to demonize those dealing with drug addiction? You sound like Reagan ranting about welfare queens. The tiny homes allow for city services to meet with those in need of mental care and help with chemical dependency and make assessments for the types of treatments you are asking for. You make it sound like only a very specific subset of people will even be allowed at this site, which isn’t the case.
Not sure why people always have to find a scapegoat.
It should not be an either/or, it should be a both/and when we are talking about how to solve homelessness in our city. Building this project does not mean that we should not fund drug treatment programs or fund more security services to stop open drug sales. Our homeless problem is an all solutions on deck situation. Supervisor Ronen put forth a proposal that could help the overall problem. I commend her for that.
Solve homelessness? DWG must work for Ronen’s office because they are completely disconnected from reality.
If you’re really concerned about moving these people off the streets, there are plenty of warehouses for rent that can be converted to transitional simple shelters. Hell, pier 80 is a nice big space that comes to mind. Move in some mobile showers and bathrooms. It’s also less convenient transportation so will be more difficult for these people to be preyed by all the dealers Barting in from the east bay. We don’t need the drugs and mental illness right next to a school in one of SF’s poorest neighborhoods that already absorbs more to the failing “solutions” to homelessness.
DWG doesn’t understand what so many of us do. Many of these people do not ever regain independent functional lives and we are not prioritizing the individuals who actually benefit to programs like these. This will be yet another example of a poorly run makeshift, financially draining program that endlessly pushes off a more permanent build like what should have already gone up at the site of so many of the low bed number navigation centers. 1 city funded build at the division circle navigation center could shelter all the mission homeless.
Well said!
We need to put this money, time, resources and invest in the future. Education, programs for these kids so that they have a brighter future. No child needs to see these drug users
You are 100% spot on and if Ronen actually listened to her constituents, this would be reflected in her voting record. No one wants these mentally ill thieving addicts around. Conserve them and focus resources to the homeless individuals like you outlines. No beds for the conserved? Well I guess Ronen and then other knuckle heads should have been working harder with Breed to solve this issue.
On a recent walk along Capp St. with our association to see first hand all the pimps beating the shit out of the dozens of vulnerable prostitutes that litter the street, she turned to her cronies and said, “I can’t wait to be done with this job.” GASP… HAVE SOME SITUATION AWARENESS RONEN but you confirmed what we were all thinking. She doesn’t care about the Mission, she’s totally checked out. I like so many others have grown disgusted with her “leadership.”
Just Curry for the All-Stars. Now that’s insulting.
We can’t wait for her to be done, either. Good riddance to the chaos maker.
Really nice article. Thank you for covering this issue.
I want to make one correction to the statement “the site’s proximity to Marshall, located a two-minute walk away on 1575 15th St”. The planned site is the Walgreens parking lot on Capp St, which is adjacent to the Marshall schoolyard. There is only a chainlink fence dividing the parking lot from the school yard. You can see the colorful schoolyard next to the parking lot in the satellite image: https://goo.gl/maps/r4AZsu8d5urT6EdTA
So the Supervisor who white flighted the family from the Mission up to Bernal, purchasing a calm aerie off of Cortland at the top of the market on two city workers’ salaries, dismissed residents of the 16th/Mission neighborhood as NIMBY because we’d not welcome Yet Another Nonprofit Social Services project that would never ever be proposed for or tolerated in Bernal, much less any other affluent neighborhood.
– North Mission NIMBY welcomed in 4 affordable buildings with another on the way.
– North Mission NIMBY welcomed the Capp Street homeless drop in service center
– North Mission NIMBY welcomed the Division Circle navigation center.
– North Mission NIMBY have suffered decades of SFPD containment policies
– North Mission NIMBY deal with the open air psych wards and substance use and prostitution contained our way
– North Mission NIMBY have seen a steady attenuation in supervisorial attention from Ammiano, Campos and Ronen and commensurate decay in the public realm.
No residents spoke in favor of the project. The only speakers pro were compensated advocates who have skin in the economic game and who live nowhere near the North Mission or in the containment zone.
The voters have weighed in on the Campos/Ronen hijacking of progressive politics. To recap: SFUSD commissioners recalled, Campos shellacked a second time, held to <40%, Boudin recalled, progressives gerrymandered into political oblivion w/Mar getting wiped out and Chan up next.
Ronen's presentation was weak. She claimed to not believe that the project could be pulled off. But she's still pushing on it. And she has no political juice whatsoever to hold Breed or a nonprofit accountable once the contracts are let. The only supervisor who comes off as weak as Ronen was Eric Mar back when he could not fog a mirror.
Ronen basically made the argument they model desirable behavior by normalizing fetid squalor their kids, and that others should as well. Ronen called it "poverty." But "poor" is not a synonym for "squalor." Nowhere in the poorest parts of Latin America that I've been to have I ever seen such public squalor and filth and substance abuse. This triggers people's sense of self preservation, Law of the Plague, Leviticus level anxiety against the unclean, not the poor, but squalorific unhealthy filth.
When Ronen issued one particularly optimistic prevarication, I muttered loudly "¡Mentirosa!" The Latinx family next to me gave me a high five. Our neighbors get it, the mayor, departments, supervisor and nonprofits are illegitimate in the eyes of the community, ¡YA BASTA!
City staffers actually made the case that homeless people would prefer to live by 16th/Mission, that siting this at the UCSF Parking lot at 15th/Harrison would be an undue burden to homeless people. Hey, I'd like a home 4 blocks to the SW of ours. Could the City please get to work on finding us a 2BR with a garden there? If that's not possible, what about up in Bernal off of Cortland now that the market is softer?
We can't forget that Ronen complained that nonviolent defund SFPD protesters who demonstrated at her home in August 2020 caused her child anxiety. Young afrosocialists urging Ronen, who had communicated support for defunding, to follow through were met with political attacks and claims that their child was traumatized by citizens petitioning their elected officials. Mentirosa now claims that their kids would be edified by exposure to squalor and cabins. Ronen said that there would be no lipservice to defunding SFPD. Now that she's abandoned that, Ronen was nothing BUT lipservice. How can anyone take London Breed's doormat seriously?
Ronen in this case is an atavistic political zombie like me from whom SF politics has moved on, only Ronen held power. Sadly, this will mean Peter Theil running the show instead of the "moderates." After the degenerate nonprofity progressives dominate progressive politics to center failed homelessness policies to the exclusion of all other political considerations for 20 years, and produce no discernible results, this is what we get. In the next 24 mo, CCHO and HSN sinecures will get wiped out.
Alt right rule in SF will be Campos' and Ronen's legacy. ¡Ya Basta!
Thank you Marcos, I can’t say I understand everything you wrote but the sentiment is there– and the anger. Especially this: “But “poor” is not a synonym for “squalor.” ” Bravo! All too often our white, affluent, and so-called progressive politicians do not get this. Also, you hit all the bases. I don’t think SF will go right-wing, but surely, some common sense injected into politics along with a renewed sense of accountability to its POC, immigrant, working class, and low income residents is desperately needed. I was at that meeting and was heartened to see residents speaking up.
cheers Marcos!
well said!!
Marcos is 100% right! The only people who support the location of *yet another* homeless shelter/sanctioned encampment, and the proposed so-called “Safe Injection Site” aka sanctioned illegal drug consumption facility, are people who either work for agencies with a vested interest in continuing to keep people addicted, mentally ill, and on the streets – or those who live nowhere near the Inner Mission. The Inner Mission is tired of being the dumping ground of all of the problems of the city – and for that matter, for the state and the nation. We don’t need it. We have shouldered more than our share of the burden.
So your problem is with puritan level othering of anyone with a substance abuse issue. You can be better than that.
And I’ve been around the block a few times, seen the spectrum of proposals for all manner of interventions in all policy areas rise and fall over time.
Rarely do I see an idea keep afloat over more than a decade such as safe consumption sites. I remember when fellow ACTUP alum Laura Thomas, a longtime nonprofiteer with the DPA, we innovated needle exchange during the depths of AIDS, was pushing this a decade ago.
The question is who is funding this sustained campaign for this particular intervention? Where other proposals seem to die after failing to gain support, safe consumption sites has not, and that indicates that there is some external means of support to this sustained campaign.
It seems that there is so much money burning a hole in this that advocates are desperate, like opiate addicts in search of the next fix, and demand siting this in an already overburdened neighborhood in the SFPD containment zone, in violation of state law within 1000′ of an elementary school.
I’ve long likened the SF budget process, with nonprofits scrambling over each other like sketchy Dungeness crabs to secure city funding to addicts unsure of where their next fix will come from, doing or saying anything to get it before the door closes.
Nonprofiteers were salivating over these contracts at the meeting. You can tell, because they get all puffy chested in poverty martyr mode, project their prejudices of residents they don’t know with a particularly maudlin condescension, and react with cheap demographic prejudicial ad hominem fallacies when challenged.
Advocates presume that residents are substance-naive, as if most all of us have not have used nor had to deal with friends who have succumbed to addiction. Most everyone has had to make difficult decisions with friends, we are informed not naive, and we know how to cut our losses when someone is irretrievable for our own health, because we’ve most all had to. To presume otherwise is condescending and reinforces previous insults to residents and our corner of the Mission.
Now, where is funding for the safe consumption sites campaign coming from?
During the AIDS epidemic, I also gave out needles. We exchanged them one for one. Today someone can get a handful of syringes with no requirement to return them. So they end up in the street and in our parks. It’s a different situation.
The problem is that the people getting paid to provide these services are the only ones speaking in favor of these services, none of whom live anywhere near this neighborhood.
What we’ve got going on here is an SFPD containment policy that is violating the law by forcing substance users into neighborhoods including within 1000′ of Marshall Elementary School. Isn’t a St. Johns safe consumption site an otherwise violation of that same state law?
Who are those who live nowhere near here to say that the interests of substance users are more important than the interests of elementary school students, mostly lower income and of color or of residents?
I don’t care if people use substances. I don’t care if substance users OD. Interventions rarely work until the person wants to change. Short of safe supply, that’s never going to change.
I’d imagine that were safe supply to come to be, that there would be a safe supply storefront, monetized by the nonprofiteers, and sited in the “Marvel” on Capp Street, convenient to Marshall.
Our backyard is chock full. ¡Ya Basta!
I really appreciate how hard Supervisor Ronen and staff are working to try and help with this intractable problem. But the premise here is all wrong – why are we spending so much time, energy, meetings, etc. for a plan that’s going to provide temporary homes for less than 1% of the people in San Francisco that need them. This is not Supervisor Ronen’s problem to solve, nor can they. This needs to be addressed at the Mayor’s office with State and Federal support. We need 7 camps that can hold 1,000 people each. We need emergency FEMA tents, trailers and infrastructure. We need doctors and programs to address addiction and mental health issues. The City spends most of the “homeless’ money on subsidizing existing housing, leaving very little for the folks who need help RIGHT NOW that are on the street.
We need a comprehensive, real plan that is actually going to help *all* of the people that need it. San Franciscans are completely fed up with these stopgap measures that haven’t worked now for decades. At this point, I think everyone needs to be fired and City’s repsonse to the homeless crisis be re-built from scratch.
Camps?
One of the points I read frequently goes like this: “Sam Dodge, the director of the Healthy Streets Operations Center, told the meeting attendees that multiple long-term unhoused residents in the Mission prefer to stay in the neighborhood…”
There are thousands of workers commuting to SF because they can’t afford to live here. We all live where we can afford to. We can spend more money helping the unhoused if they live somewhere other than one of the most expensive cities in the US.
Truth
I’ve never understood that line of reasoning. I would love to live in pacific heights, it’s just not in my budget.
YES!!! ^^^THIS THIS THIS ^^^
We are with you 100% Justin!
Actually, sorry, Supervisor Ronen, it’s not really “inequality” that is directly responsible for the situation in the Inner Mission right now. It’s drug use, and the city’s enabling of drug use, as well as the ACLU preventing mentally ill substance abusers from being mandated to receive the treatment that they so obviously and desperately need. I have a great deal of compassion for these people, but the city needs to step up and keep people from being a danger to themselves and others, and from destroying the working-class inner-city neighborhoods such as ours!
Yes, Ronen blaming “inequality” is an unsubtle way of seeking to blame successful people for the existence of poor people, probably because she thinks that plays well in the poor parts of town.
“Just look at those terrible rich people”, she might as well have said, probing for some positive feedback at a meeting where she clearly had her clock cleaned and her butt kicked.
There are empty buildings / spaces that the city could lease for shelter space – e.g. the old OfficeMax at 1750 Harrison, or one of the multiple closed Walgreens locations (e.g. Mission and Cesar Chavez). The first priority must be to increase the number of shelter beds so that there are enough for everyone who is homeless. The city will then have legal options for dealing with tents/campers who refuse to accept shelter/services. We cannot afford to provide free, permanent housing in SF for everyone who simply shows up and demands it. Shelters provide the first step in triage – to figure out who needs supportive mental health housing, who needs rehab, and who simply likes the homeless lifestyle. We do not need to tolerate the latter.
I asked Ronen at the Marshall community meeting at HSA the previous week, a mtg that Marshall people invited me to, about using UCSF’s parking lot at 15th/Harrison as a permanent site for tent cabins, 3x larger, rarely 1/4 full, at arm’s length from 16th/Mission and from residential and a school. This is an emergency, right? All hands on deck, right? Even our state “partners,” right?
Ronen shot back that she had approached UCSF and they’d rebuffed her, not possible she said they said. So I sunshined DHSH and Ronen for comms with UCSF Re: Mission Annex parking.
DHSH replied with no responsive records. DHSH never contacted UCSF.
Ronen is going to run the sunshine clock out for the full 14 days because she is a dedicated public servant who respects her constituents. I anticipate that the sunshine request to her office will likewise come up dry. Otherwise she’d have put it to bed with a quick response.
She could have said “That’s a great idea, marcos, Santiago, why don’t you dive into this tomorrow morning?” and put it to rest. She’d never saddle Lerma with anything raised by a mere constituent. That would be demeaning to him and we can’t tolerate that kind of hostile work environment.
But it appears that, if this sunshine req comes up dry, Hillary Ronen chose to stand up and tell a bald faced lie to the community. Having lied about this, how can we trust anything she’s said? Ronen has ruptured whatever basis of trust might have existed.
I’ve reached out to Haney’s office to see if they can’t connect the dots with UCSF here, because we have the internet and telephones where we can ask others for help. Ain’t no love lost between Haney and the lot of ’em, Breed or Ronen.
The other issue is what is Breed dangling before Ronen on this, what funding is at risk if she doesn’t screw her constituents and perform in ways that further diminish what’s left of progressive credibility?
If the Ronen sunshine request yields responsive records and they indeed contacted UCSF, then I am wrong and apologize.
No apologies needed here. The ease with which she lied was impressive.
Those aren’t bad ideas, but you koscstegorzie the housing as permanent when it’s not. The site will be redeveloped in 2025 and the intended goal isn’t for people to stay in any of these sites for long periods of time. Did you miss that part?
What about Brook’s Hall under Civic Center Plaza?
Brilliant idea.
They could truck in cabins through the loading dock, Camp Agnos goes underground. They count on an itinerant, disinterested population with no recollection of what the city once was.
Deborah, no.
h, James Leo Dunn.
Marcos,
I like the idea of going down to 85′ and riding our bore a few miles in any direction where our new (bomb proof) SF population will live.
We can connect to the Pak Subway which would ‘ suddenly ‘ become Muni’s busiest line.
I’m like the old people in Ukraine mindset.
Too old to move.
So, I’ll watch others fight and quit and fight and quit and maybe occasional snipe at the baddies.
Enjoy the desert my friend.
You’ll miss the fight.
h.
Y
Is it fair to assume you are running for the B of Supes? Not a job for the faint of heart…
I take back my suggestion of leasing empty buildings at 100 beds a piece, and endorse Justin Fraser’s plan. Bring in FEMA, and get this solved already.