In a Facebook post on Thursday evening, District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton railed against Mayor Daniel Lurie’s decision to expand homelessness capacity at 2177 Jerrold Ave. in the Bayview, referring to the mayor as an “oligarch” who plans to lead through “tyranny and unilateral decision making.”
Walton had argued earlier that the Bayview is oversaturated with homeless services and some should be placed in other, more affluent neighborhoods.
Lurie ignored that entreaty, and announced Wednesday that 68 shelter beds spread across 60 tiny cabins are the beginning of “Jerrold Commons Phase I.” Eight of these beds will be set aside for those living in RVs parked near the site. Jerrold Commons Phase I will be designated for older adults experiencing homelessness.
Last year, Mayor London Breed secured a lease for the plot of land at Jerrold Ave. to build 68 tiny homes in addition to 20 RV parking spots. In March, Lurie’s administration and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing proposed expanding the shelter capacity at 2177 Jerrold Ave to over 200 beds, creating 132 additional beds. Presumably, the 68 beds in Phase I are the start of that expansion.
Walton has been resistant to the expansion. It will eliminate 12 of the originally proposed 20 RV parking spots, and place many of the city’s homeless services disproportionately in one neighborhood of the city.
District 10 already holds about 18 percent of the city’s homeless population, and several other shelters, housing a total of nearly 500 beds, including Bayshore Navigation Center, with 128 beds, and the largest, Bayview SAFE Navigation Center, with 203 beds.
This week, the first tiny homes were built at 2177 Jerrold Ave., and Walton, who was originally supportive of former mayor Breed’s plan to designate the lot for a mix of tiny cabins and RV parking, chastised Mayor Lurie’s project, writing that it was “against the wishes of the community.”
In Mayor Lurie’s press release on Wednesday, Lurie states that city departments have worked closely with members of the District 10 community to develop this project for “nearly two years.”
Though Jerrold Commons Phase I looks much like former mayor Breed’s original plan for the land, it is likely that subsequent phases of Jerrold Commons will expand shelter capacity on the lot, fulfilling Lurie’s goal of building more than 200 beds at the site. This project would contribute to Lurie’s campaign promise to create 1,500 interim beds throughout the city.
Walton said that he had urged Mayor Lurie to expand homeless shelters in other parts of the city, and argues that the mayor is funneling the city’s homeless population into the district, over his objections and the the objections of residents in District 10.
“Ask yourself, would this oligarch do this in Pac Heights, Lake Merced (where there are dozens of folks living in vehicles), Golden Gate Park Area (where there are dozens of folks who are unhoused)?” wrote Walton. “I guess it is true that Black people, communities of color and their voices are second-class for this administration.”
Walton added that members of District 10, which includes Bayview Hunters Point, Potrero, Dogpatch and Visitacion Valley, and the largest percentage of Black residents in the city, were not quoted in Lurie’s press release, which instead quoted three members of city departments, including Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Disability and Aging Services, and Public Health, in addition to the founder and president of WeHope, a homeless shelter based in East Palo Alto.
“Mayor Lurie is an oligarch who most certainly does not care about collaboration or cooperation,” Walton said, referring to Mayor Lurie as an oligarch for a second time. “His statements claiming he wants to collaborate are disingenuous and he plans to lead through tyranny and unilateral decision making. Your actions speak volumes! We won’t sit back and watch you disrespect our community Mr. Mayor!”
Many commenters threw their support behind Supervisor Walton. One called the Bayview a “dumping ground for the unhoused.” Another said they would “occupy the hall.”
It is unclear how Walton plans to proceed to protest the construction of the expansion of housing at Jerrold Ave., but for now, an incendiary choice of words have already caused a stir.
The mayor’s office declined to comment on Walton’s post.
Thanks for the article .
Has Mr Walton visited or his aware of the number and density of homeless shelters , hotels run by the city in the Lower Polk Street Area and Tenderloin?
How has he voted for these places in those areas ?
Shelters and homeless should be divided equally to each district .
He can whine all he wants but I dont think he ever voted against another shelter or sro in the Tenderloin?
Get real Mr Walton Come and visit the drug infested alleys of Lower Polk.
Tenderloin is the most massively affected by homeless of any single area in SF. Bayview is by comparison huge as is Mission. There’s a reason the loin has the services, take a guess.
If you look at the map and are aware the area, it is composed primarily of industrial businesses rather than residential houses/apartments . Though considering the history of the problems of non profit agencies (inefficiency, poor record keeping, lack of positive results, corruption, cronyism) the objections raised should be based upon facts rather than NIMBY is.
Lame duck Walton ranting and raving on his way out of office, appropriate since that’s all he’s done while in office.
The thought that Supervisor Walton is suddenly interested in collaboration is amusing. He’s spent the past six years doing very little for his district, except promoting the same non-profits that are now under investigation for fraud. Aside from the artists on the corner of Napoleon and Jerrold, this section of Bayshore is made up of warehouses and light industry. Amazon’s big distribution center comes to mind. Better than placing the shelter in the middle of a community where people live, and children go to school. Unless the supervisor wants to contract with a city like Vallejo to build more beds…
DO NOT PRINT
I live in D10 and supervisor Shamann Walton is a liar. He voted YES on this when Breed was in office. Now he’s acting like he knew nothing about it. What we need is more family shelters in Bayview and more help with Domestic Violence
I’m glad someone is openly standing up to Lurie finally. I was hoping there would be something to all his “new day in San Francisco” talk, but so far it’s a lot of the same failed War on Drugs 2.0 policies, and the same my-way-or-the-highway attitude that was so disastrous under Breed. Only difference is supervisors have been hesitant to defy him until now.
He is taking action. I appreciate that. Disrupting the drug markets, creating more shelters, and building more housing stock is exactly what needs to happen here. What would you like to see, more failed non-profit programming?
Action MUST be taken to alleviate the human suffering all over our streets. But pursuing a carceral/criminalization strategy will not solve the problem, and eliminating harm reduction– like needle exchanges, etc. is literally just going to get people killed, and increase the spread of communicable diseases like HIV and Hep C.
Shamann Walton is right. Lurie is closely aligned with folks like Sam Altman and other tech/oligarch leaders. You can draw a much closer line from Lurie to hard-right techno-authoritarians like Gary Tan, Peter Thiel, and perhaps even Musk, than anyone in San Francisco should feel comfortable with. These similarities are only becoming more and more apparent, and it’s only April.
It is not a war on drugs, it is not a war on poor people.
It is more of a war on public squalor, including public sales of fentanyl, public usage of fentanyl and the public facing aftermath of fentanyl usage.
Nobody is making any moves against private substance use or non-consequential public drug use.
On the one hand I do see how this can be frustrating as a supervisor to feel like your neighborhood is shouldering a disproportionate burden of homeless services but on the other hand I feel like shelter capacity is desperately needed and realistically wealthy neighborhoods have the political connections and money to fight against homeless services in their neighborhood.
I live not far from this site. I’m all for it, I think giving space to homeless here is a good idea. Hold them accountable for upkeep and taking pride in the neighborhood. Also, getting RVs off our neighborhood blocks!!!! Completely enforce the removal of neighborhood encampments. Provide mental health n drug treatments!!!! Also, keep it tidy. I’m really sick of ugly rvs n all the trash that surrounds them, navigating streets (walking or driving) is dangerous as a result!!!
The Westside has RVs on Lake Merced Blvd, some on Junipero Serra near 19th Ave and some along Lincoln from Sunset to the closed Great Highway. I guess Mr. Walton doesn’t go out of his district too much.
D10 will still have more than a 5% point favor between its share of unhoused population vs share of shelter beds… also just being real… the real estate composition of D10 being full of warehouses and significant number of properties/land that sit away from residential or commercial corridors make it fact of the matter a more ideal location than what’s possible in almost every other district. “Against the wishes of the community”? Does the community want the most crime/homelessness? I get speaking on behalf of his constituents as he was elected to do but this tone comes across weak, whiney, unproductive, outdated, and ignorant to the bigger picture. There was/is a path of collaboration with this administration and my guess is Walton was in no rush to take it.
Mr Watson, oligarchy and tyranny? if you want to experience it, just join this new administration or move to Russia which is today the same thing. Plus, I would like to take a look at your 401K : are you invested in Meta, Palantir, Google, X, Amazon, etc, all the oligarchs who spend millions to elect this new admistration? if so you are an hypocrite.
Supervisor Walton, the same person who called car-free JFK “recreational redlining” and made a logical decision to have a safe, car-free segment of street in our biggest park – that is free and open to everyone – into a race issue. Please focus on reasoned conversations rather than hyperbolic accusations.
I think it’s just talk. He has to say this.
The reality is that the shelters need to go where we can fit them and where we have property available to do so, not just magically find a new house for 50 homeless people in many other areas. Moreover, you’ve got sections of the city that are simply massive for the tourist industry, where most of our money comes from nowadays, so let’s go put a massive homeless shelter right on the wharf, because that will bring the tourists back. Let’s go rip down all the Victorians because we need more housing!
We need to house people, but we also need to be realistic here. This town’s money comes from outsiders bringing it in, it comes from people visiting and saying, “this is beautiful”. That money is what pays for this stuff. THAT is what is paying the bills. All the people coming here and spending money here. So, let’s try to take care of the problem by putting people in homes and stop spending the entire time saying, “I refuse to have it in my district because it’s not fair”. Maybe you can later insist that you need to put a homeless shelter right in the middle of Disney Land? Maybe we should put one right on the end of Pier 39? Let’s put a needle exchange at Ghirardelli.
Still, I can’t stand Lurie
There is a problem in that there was a different plan for the space. And he was not consulted about the change.
Nice to see Shamann Walton finally standing up against highhandedness because he has seldom done this (except when he served as the voice of the De Young’s interests-supervisor for JFK).
Ugh. Both things can be true:
– we need a lot more shelter capacity, quickly; and community feedback adds nothing but delay, because the feedback on shelters is always predictable: “don’t put it here”
– it is deeply awful that a housing shortage caused by primarily rich neighborhoods and voters (see: immediate backlash to building more housing on the west side) is “resolved” by shelters exclusively in poor neighborhoods
The Colony again is forced to bear the brunt of the City’s burdens while providing ample property tax revenues from new condo development that are used to keep the “nice” neighborhoods free from urban problems.
Could anyone imagine Hillary Alioto-Pier taking a stand for her district like Walton is instead of lying to her constituents to try to direct a contract to Dolores Street Services now known as Mission Inaction?
Why do the “progressives” keep wanting to harm the homeless and addicts ?
The policies like harm reduction and not wanting shelters are not normal
Politics matter. When Chinatwon influencers opposed bike lanes and transitional housing proposals in thwir midst, the plans were immediately killed. That had norging to do with wealth or political connections. Just pure oilitical nose counting.
“That had norging to do with wealth or political connections.”
I think the so-called “asian vote” going into the mayoral election was a huge driver in that as Breed realized she was completely underwater. She put her thumb on the scale for Chinatown with the MTA, like she did with the MTA constantly. There’s actually a lot of political connections going on there if not also wealth.