Homeless families facing eviction from San Francisco city-run shelters in February and March have received some assurance Wednesday that they will not be displaced.
That reassurance did not come from Mayor Daniel Lurie, however, whom the families have been seeking to meet with for weeks. Instead, it was Supervisor Connie Chan, who joined with a dozen families and some 15 teachers from Everett Middle School on the steps of the school on Wednesday, and promised to stave off the looming displacement.
“You have my commitment today, as your budget committee chair at City Hall, you will not be evicted by February 10,” Chan said. The families, many of them immigrants and newcomers to the city who have been staying in homeless shelters for months, were told in late December that they could be evicted on Feb. 8 or 10. “You will have a home.”
A few mothers, who stood with Chan on the steps, shed tears.
In December 2024, San Francisco changed its shelter policy to limit stays to 90 days before residents face eviction, meaning the first wave of evictions would have occurred in early February. In late January, those families got a 30-day extension after dropping off a letter at the mayor’s office.
Chan said she and other supervisors will push the city’s homeless department to quickly approve contracts with nonprofits to provide them permanent housing.
She said she is confident that the families have additional support from three other supervisors: Jackie Fielder, Myrna Melgar and Chyanne Chen. Melgar, Chen, and Chan are all immigrants themselves.
“Rain or shine,” she said, “I will fight for you.”
Pastor Victor Floyd from the Calvary Presbyterian Church asked Lurie, “a billionaire with a good heart and a good conscience,” to meet with the families. Lurie’s office, asked whether he had read the families’ letter, did not answer and referred questions to the homeless department.
According to data from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, there are currently 305 households in San Francisco’s family shelters. Of those, 253 households, some 83 percent, are families with children.
Almost the same number of families, some 308, are on waiting lists to get into shelter, the homelessness department said.
Fielder, who represents District 9, said in a statement that she believes that limits on shelter stays “do not solve the problems of family homelessness, and instead risk sending families back onto the streets.”
Chan said the Board of Supervisors has approved multiple contracts with providers such as Catholic Charities to “make sure that these families are placed in homes.” The next step, Chan said, is to push the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to “carry out those contracts immediately.”
Sadie Bermudez, an organizer with Faith in Action Bay Area, the nonprofit that has been helping families organize, said that Chan’s remarks today have been “very good and very positive.”
“It makes us feel a little safer that we have people within City Hall to support us, and we are not alone in this.” Bermudez, who used to live in a city shelter, but got out once she found a stable job to support her family.
But Bermudez said the families will not stop here, and will keep organizing and try to get a reply from Lurie “as quickly as possible.”
“We are not gonna let down on the struggles,” Bermudez said.
Chan should not be making promises or commitments that are not within her power to grant. I commend her zeal to help and her good intentions, but this is her inexperience showing.
False hope does not help here.
You have no idea what her plans involve, and it’s not “her power” alone. If you read the article she has the support of 3 other supervisors already on board, and the remaining supes aren’t on record supporting families becoming homeless. You have no idea what will happen with these families. If she’s serious about this, it’s her vow to keep – yes she should make commitments to her constituents, and follow up on them as she’s doing. This is Lurie’s first term, not Chan’s, so maybe it’s your inexperience as a reader showing instead.
What REALLY doesn’t help is goons trying to poo-poo even the idea of helping them.
None of these families are San Franciscan’s. It’s just more handouts to newcomers when we need to prioritize the people who are already here. We have a huge budget deficit coming and drugs all over the TL. Why are we paying for free housing for new comers when we have loads of unhoused people on our streets. San Francisco voters are fed up.
“None of these families are San Franciscans”
Now do Engardio.
Free homes for certain select penniless immigrants. How ludicrous, unfair to the vast majority who are left to secure a home with their own efforts and wholly unsustainable. But great virtue signaling publicity! Nothing ruins a city like promiscuous compassion…
Ah yes, the attack dog defends Capitalism from the “evil” of compassion…
Still trying to reserve judgment on newbie Mayor Lurie……..but his failure to respond to the homeless families with kids even by making a statement to the Press is troubling. Also: his silence on the shenanigans to do with Cerberus Capital Investments, Align Real Estate and the closure of the Fillmore Safeway does not bode well. Same goes for his trying to remove Max Carter Oberstone, an anti- corruption warrior and advocate for accountability and transparency from electeds. Oberstone was THE whistle blower on Breed’s practice of requiring illegal undated letters of resignation from her appointees. Throughout Lurie’s 14 month campaign, his primary focus was corruption and lack of transparency at City Hall. He vowed he would be different. All talk? Looks like it.
Are these families here legally?
It’s an important part of the story.
Is San Francisco risking federal funds by giving endless free housing to illegal immigrants?
Stop the madness . No one owes anyone anything. Temp housing food and clothing and services .
But a blank check on the taxpayers dime without requirements and time limits is selfish and wrong.
I want to live in Beverly Hills . Is SF going to pay for me to live there?
SF already pays 6k a month to house people in hotels .
Where is my 72k a year?
Non-citizens can’t vote, Einstein-san.
As a war refugee child who entered U.S. legally and now as an adult, naturalized U.S. citizen, it offensive and insulting to conflate illegal with legal immigrants. Almost 1B in budgets deficit, these corrupted politicians are gaslighting the SF taxpayers to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers money on ILLEGAL migrants with free housing, free phones, free food money, and these ILLEGAL migrants are overwhelming the homeless shelters. These ILLEGAL migrants are robbing the resources meant for SF American citizens and LEGAL immigrants. DEPORTATION NOW!!!