An RV shelter park that opened early in the pandemic on a lot near the Bayview is now set to remain temporarily open as a shelter for the homeless, despite moves by the Port of SF to reclaim the property.

SFist reported on the RV parking area at Pier 94 in April 2020, when the city provided over 100 trailers to house individuals awaiting more permanent housing at the start of the pandemic. Some of the same people who moved in then are still there, and the Board of Supervisors has been going back and forth with the Port for several months now, hoping that they could keep the site open.

Now, as KPIX reports, a tentative, verbal agreement has been reached between the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), which has been overseeing the site, and Port. Supervisor Shamann Walton announced the news, saying that the trailers will remain in place "for the time being," and the city will enter into a month-t0-month lease agreement with the Port.

The trailer homes are nicer, even, than the tiny-home villages that have popped up in SF and elsewhere to serve this same purpose. They each have their own kitchen and bathroom, and they're equipped with electricity. There is also a small medical clinic onsite.

HSH had said back in May that they were ready to wind down the site, with a spokesperson saying that the Port had "more than lived up to their end of the deal" and that this was always meant to be a temporary, pandemic-emergency shelter program. After applying for a two-year extension and being denied by the Port, they negotiated a 10-month wind-down period, to which Walton vocally objected, given the lack of shelter beds elsewhere.

As KPIX notes, Walton also criticized HSH for being so quick to defer to the Port's wishes as if it were some "alien nation." The Port has said it want to return Pier 94 to "maritime uses," but there's no indication that there is an urgent need for this.

The Supervisors ended up voting unanimously in May to demand that the site continue to operate as is.

As of April, there were 118 people living in the trailers, and some have apparently been given other placements since then. KPIX reports that there are now 82 individuals living in the 114 trailers, and it's not clear if the city plans to place anyone else there.

HSH reportedly stopped intake of new residents for this site in April, even though under their agreement with the Port they could have taken in new individuals through October.

HSH is apparently looking for a new site on which to place the trailers, but they anticipate likely only finding room for 70 to 90 of them.

There is a similar RV "triage" site for homeless people living out of their own RVs at Candlestick Point. That site is expected to wind down by early next year as well.

Previously: Supervisors Come Out Swinging Against Plan to Shut Down Bayview Homeless RV Site

Photo: Steven Weeks