Updated June 9, 2023
Ten days after a federal injunction forbidding San Francisco from carrying out most sweeps of homeless encampments, the situation is mixed in the Mission: Some unhoused Mission residents say they have still been told to pack up and move, particularly before Carnaval; others say that sweeps have stopped and they have been left largely alone.
And still others say that, sweeps or not, city staff still come by to clean the sidewalks and confiscate their belongings, a practice specifically called out by the federal injunction against San Francisco.
“They take whatever, whether it’s trash or belongings, every time they make us move,” said E.J., who lives at an encampment on Harrison and 19th streets, on Monday.
E.J. and his friend Julian said that staff with the Department of Public Works told them to move on May 25, two days before Carnaval. When the city brought trucks to clear the area, they took some of E.J.’s things.
“DPW’s like a gang,” said Damon Sykes, who got housing a couple years ago after a long stint on the streets but was visiting E.J. and Julian on Monday. “They do whatever they want.”
A motion filed against the city and various agencies last week alleges that San Francisco has continued to criminalize unhoused residents through sweeps, citation threats and illegal seizure of personal property, despite a December injunction prohibiting actions that plaintiffs say cause “ongoing, irreparable harm.”
The motion, filed May 25, requests measures from the city to guarantee adherence to the original injunction, which plaintiffs say the city has violated repeatedly. Witness statements from 25 homeless residents and advocates confirm ongoing sweeps.
U.S. District Court Judge Donna M. Ryu granted an injunction on Dec. 23, 2022, barring sweeps and activities like seizing property.
Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for City Attorney David Chiu, said they are reviewing the motion and plan to respond at the Aug. 18 hearing. “The City is working to ensure San Francisco’s streets are clean, safe, and provide a sufficient path of travel for all,” wrote Kwart in an email. “We are reviewing the motion and will respond to specific points in court.”
“It’s not illegal to exist,” said John Do, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the plaintiffs. “Multiple times a day, people are dispatched to respond to calls of the mere existence of an unhoused person.”
Mission District: 10,000 calls in a month
In the last month, more than 10,000 311 complaints about encampments have come from the Mission. The emails and calls received by Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s office prompted her to create a public report that “tracks progress in addressing homelessness and street conditions in District 9.”
Using data from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and the Healthy Streets Operation Center, Ronen provides a weekly tally of homeless people contacted and/or placed in a shelter.
According to the tracker, between May 15 and May 21, agencies reached out to 31 homeless residents, and 10 were placed in shelters (it is unclear what kind of shelters).
On the morning of May 25, the same day the motion to enforce was filed, Amadis Velez, who lives with his son in an apartment at 19th and Bryant streets, found an encampment had been swept from Harrison Street and relocated in front of his home.
Velez, a teacher at Mission High, was concerned about visible drug use so close to his 11-year-old child.
Velez went downstairs and spoke in Spanish with a man at the camp. “They were told by SFPD to move two blocks,” he said. “The person I spoke to was also a teacher in his country,” said Velez.
“He told me, ‘We’re in transition, we’ll move on.’” When he checked back that afternoon, the encampment had gone.
Though a homeless sweep brought his worries right to his doorstep, Velez disagreed with Judge Ryu’s injunction. “Sometimes, the camps can get out of hand,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, a group of nuns from Queen of Peace Missionary Church on Folsom handed out hot meals to residents on an encampment on 19th Street. Robert Kelly, a worker with the church, who was homeless a few years ago, said the missionaries usually would distribute food to the encampments dotting Harrison and Folsom Streets.
“But, since Carnaval, everybody’s gone from there. They move them for holidays.”
Lawsuit alleges Constitutional violations
The injunction and motion to enforce are part of an ongoing lawsuit against the city brought by the Coalition on Homelessness and seven homeless residents, alleging that current policies targeting homeless residents violate constitutional rights.
In last week’s motion, which will be heard Aug. 10, plaintiffs are once more asking for a special master to monitor the city’s compliance with the injunction, as well as regular reports on police and other agency responses to 311 and 911 calls about homeless people.
The special master and regular reports were first granted by Judge Ryu in the December injunction. But, according to Do, reports never materialized.
Do said that in the original injunction, plaintiffs explicitly stated they want to know exactly what happens when an officer or worker is dispatched to deal with a 311 complaint.
Public data shows that, in the last three months, 311 logged 353 homelessness complaints that were marked closed with the note “encampment able to remain, due to Judge Ryu.” But, in the last week alone, there were 813 complaints about encampments filed — many closed without much explanation.
Many of the statements recount alarming experiences in shelters; several of the homeless residents allege they were threatened with fines if they did not move. A majority lost property they considered necessities. All witnesses experienced sweeps without notice. Each of these actions violated the December injunction, according to the motion filed last week.
“We want them to respect property rights of unhoused people just like they would anyone of higher means,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness.
In the last five months, said Friedenbach, “we’ve gotten reports they’ve taken medication and survival gear and, in one case, someone’s ashes.”
In a row of tents by Best Buy on Division Street, two friends born and raised in the Fillmore shared a tent and a small supply of bikes to sell. Nobody’s asked them to move in a while, said one, a man named Kahlua.
But, almost every week, Public Works comes by and asks them to move, and hoses down the sidewalk. In the process of clearing, they’ll sometimes take personal belongings.
“What you hear about DPW — it’s all true. They come by and take our shit. I’m not saying they’re all bad, some of them are good.”
“Last week, SFPD came by and told us if I didn’t cooperate they would send us to jail,” said Kahlua. “I had 12 bikes. They said you weren’t supposed to have more than three. I buy or barter for bikes, fix ‘em up, and sell ‘em, and I told them this. But they went and took nine of my bikes.”
In the Mission, injunction has effects
Santiago Lerma, Ronen’s aide and 2024 District 9 supervisor hopeful, said for his part that he “hopes something positive” comes out of the federal injunction, and that the supervisor’s office will continue to call in agencies to enforce laws against encampments where “bad behavior” is reported.
According to Lerma, the encampment Velez had an issue with, at 19th and Bryant streets, was indeed originally on Harrison, and he’d had it moved, explaining that the “ringleader” was operating a chop shop.
Because the chop shop violated a policy not embargoed by the injunction, Article 20, he said, he asked city agencies to take it down.
On one occasion when Lerma visited the encampment, which he said housed three to five Spanish speakers, Lerma was accompanied by Mission Station Captain Thomas Harvey, who recognized one resident from 10 years ago.
“We asked him why he was here,” said Lerma. “He said his mom lived around the block. He felt safe there; he wanted to be near his family.”
Lerma said the Mission can already feel the impacts of the injunction on sweeps. But he’s hopeful. “There’s more ways to approach the encampments. They’re not all the same.”
Jake Pearson, a senior who’s been part of a cluster of tents at Hampshire and 17th streets since January, said they don’t get asked to move, except every so often across the street for Public Works cleaning.
The city offers services, said Pearson, but only selectively: “They come and don’t offer to most.” He pointed around to other tents. “They’ll pass all those people and just come talk to me, because I’m a senior and they say it’s a priority. But who is that helping?”
“They come, they don’t tell us to move, they don’t say to move, but they’re relaying the message — they want us off their street.”
Wow… just wow.
I hope all of you become homeless, since it seems you were born without compassion or decency.
‘John Do, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney representing the plaintiffs. “Multiple times a day, people are dispatched to respond to calls of the mere existence of an unhoused person.”’
This is just a lie and the main problem with those who advocate for the unhoused. This kind of rhetoric makes it virtually impossible for people to have sympathy with the argument for homeless rights. Anyone who lives near an encampment can document its slow descent into chaos and lawlessness. You can track the calls to the city, from a few basic obstruction calls my those who can no longer use the sidewalk in the first few days to evidence of chop shops and drug dealing a few days later, people start fighting, decompensating long term unhoused folks start gathering around and the stable cohort of unhoused move on to a place that’s safer for them. Next thing you know someone gets attacked and you’ve got a rising number of phone calls by locals desperate for a way to address the sudden spread of filth and violence on their literal doorstep. The calls to 311 and 911 spike and finally someone will get hurt, or a fire will get out of control before finally the advocates defending them are shoved aside by SFPD and DPW and the encampments is cleared and power washed.
This isn’t an issue with “the existence” of the unhoused. We’re way, way beyond that.
Homeless advocates’ mantra is that homeless sweeps do “irreparable damage to the occupants of the encampment.” But they don’t seem to be at all concerned about the irreparable harm the encampments do neighborhoods and the health and peace of mind of residents who must deal daily with their byproducts: trash, belongings strewn about (including food left over from good samaritans, leading to rodent infestation), drug use and dealing, fire hazards due to use of torches in tents, etc. etc. SF needs to approach the problem of homelessness from the basic assumption that NO ONE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO CAMP ON THE STREET, PERIOD. This city’s faux compassion, led by the obstructionist Coalition on Homelessness, is doing far more harm than good, not just to the city’s health quality of life and desirability as a tourist destination, but to the health of the homeless folks themselves.
I agree, one hundred percent! How do we – the compassionate yet reasonable – working-class citizens of San Francisco go about removing the funding/contracts/influence of this misguided “non-profit”? (By the way, Friedenbach is being paid, so she is definitely profiting from keeping people homeless and hopeless!) Why is it that every other city (such as Santa Cruz, an equally left-leaning progressive community) has a “Coalition to *End* Homelessness” – whereas we have a “Coalition *On* Homelessness” – no ending in sight, nor ever – apparently – intended??
You wrote that “ in the last week alone, there were 281,104 complaints about encampments filed”. That is quite a lot of upset San Franciscans about the homeless crisis in our city yet you only interviewed 1 housed San Franciscan who is not involved with city services.
You also wrote that there were “more than 10,000 311 complaints about encampments have come from the Mission.” In a month. Seeing as the Mission is the neighborhood that your journal calls home, perhaps you might consider including the stories of the people who get their bikes stollen and the see homeless encampments with chop shops, people who avoid walking with their children down sidewalks with encampments out of an abundance of caution, people who hate seeing trash, open drug use, nudity, or people who just hate the chaotic and decrepit scene that pervasive homeless encampments add to our city. Please write a story about how people who live in homes, who pay their taxes, who pay there city fines when issued, who support local businesses, who go to work daily, who vote for elected officials, and who want San Francisco streets, sidewalks, and parks to be available for the use of all people. I would like to read that.
“Because the chop shop violated a policy not embargoed by the injunction, Article 20, he said, he asked city agencies to take it down.”
I was skeptical of Lerma due to his association with our incompetent Ronen but appears he has a more level headed balanced approach. The encampment that was swept was once of the largest chop shops of stolen bikes in the Mission. Endless piles of trash, fighting… what you would expect from drug addicted crooks.
Anyways, Lerma you’ve caught my attention and potentially a vote. Keep up the common sense approach to politics. Our community needs this now more than ever.
Lerma is literally executing Ronen’s policy. She’s the main force responsible for managing the problem at 24th and BART despite SFPD’s “not worth the bother” approach to illegal fencing. I have to wonder what your motivation for finding Ronen “incompetent” but crediting a man she hired and supervises with accomplishments from her office.
The injunction only applies to “involuntarily homeless individuals.” Have there been any sweeps of any such people? Perhaps, but perhaps not. It’s a critical detail.
Good point. People tend to assume everyone who is homeless became so involuntarily. Obviously some are by choice, with the example of the criminal chop shop operation that was mentioned. Many of the homeless here were not San Franciscans or even Californians when they became voluntarily or involuntarily homeless. Why should San Francisco allow itself to become a magnet for the homeless and be responsible for their welfare when they have no prior personal history or family history of living here? Our primary responsibility should be assisting San Franciscans and other Bay Area residents who have become homeless.
It is sheer hubris to think San Francisco can make any significant impact on what is a nationwide problem of rampant drug abuse, inadequate care for the mentally ill, and the disaffected who voluntarily or criminally choose to come here. No single city or state has the resources or ability to tackle those problems. San Francisco spends many millions of dollars directly and indirectly every year on the homeless, and to no real or substantial effect.
Meanwhile the City has all but institutionalized a hard core of “homeless advocates” whose personal incomes are wholly or in great part dependent on City funding. Is it surprising their battle cry is always more money? I don’t accuse them of personal financial interest alone or question what is undoubtedly their compassion for the homeless, but there is a vested interest in continued or increased funding. The fact remains there has been no significant impact on the problem.
San Francisco has lots of its own home-grown major problems that need to be addressed. Increasing the amount of affordable housing for its citizens and taxpayers has been stonewalled by City Hall for many decades, they have stood by and done nothing to address the serious understaffing of the police department (it didn’t happen overnight, folks), the decades long underfunding of Muni and its badly needed reorganization, long overdue action to effectively control or limit car traffic to decrease Muni’s often pathetic transit and service issues – and to stop killing or maiming 30 to 50 pedestrians every year – as well as reducing large number of traffic accidents, address the appalling performance of San Francisco public education, etc., etc. It’s a long list, and I’m sure others can add to it.
“Small supply of bikes to sell.” Ha ha ha ha.
Likely stolen
You think that’s funny? Believe me: Homelessness can happen to you. It can happen to anybody.
Only a paycheck away!
Sorry, Robert Komanec, but I ride bikes, and I find bike thieves to be reprehensible and intolerable. Sorry, but those of you who are so wealthy that they don’t care if their bikes are stolen (unlike myself and my husband, both service-industry workers who need our bicycles to travel to and from our jobs) are the ones who keep making apologies for bike thieves and chop shops. Being homeless does *not* mean you should have a right to steal bikes, chop them up, and sell them. “But – but – but how else are they going to get the money to afford their drugs???” Seriously? Bike shops all over the city are dying for mechanics – why not apply for a job?
The guy is literally buying stolen bikes, making them unidentifiable, and reselling them. Stop pretending you’re empathizing with homelessness, you are defending and supporting the people who make it very hard for those of us who can’t afford a car to bike safely in the city.
But running a scheme to make money off of stolen bikes isn’t something that can simply happen to anyone. They’re not laughing at homelessness, they’re laughing at the fact we’re doing verbal gymnastics here to try to make this sound like some kind of legitimate business. It’s not. It’s part of the bike theft crime ring, and turning a blind eye to that fact only creates additional problems. Refusing to call petty crime crime doesn’t help the homeless. It just obfuscates the issues and makes them harder to address.
Bingo. Tony gets it
Well put.