Some very encouraging new statistics are out today saying the number of tents on San Francisco streets is at a six-year low, including there being only one tent counted in District 8, but this does not seem to have meaningfully lowered SF’s homeless population.

You would expect there to be fewer tents and encampments on San Francisco streets after Mayor Breed’s much-ballyhooed encampment sweeps, coming on the heels of the Supreme Court giving cities more authority to clear encampments. And you would expect Mayor Breed to say there are fewer tents, as she faces reelection in less than a month.  

But Breed has numbers to back this up. As KPIX reports, the latest quarterly tent count shows a six-year low in the number of tents on SF streets. There were 242 tents counted in the latest October 2 count, which the Examiner notes is a 60% drop in the number of tents compared to the July 2023 count.  

“Every day our City workers are out in San Francisco offering help, bringing people indoors, and cleaning up our neighborhoods and we are seeing the results,” Breed said in a self-congratulatory Thursday statement. “We are a compassionate City that leads with services, but we also will continue to enforce our laws when those offers are rejected. This latest count shows we are making progress, and we will not let up as we continue to move people into shelter and housing and improve the conditions of our neighborhoods.”

There is a little bit of statistical play happening here, in order to produce the largest percentage drop to tout to the press. Normally we compare quarterly counts to the same quarter of the previous year, but Breed is instead choosing to compare things to July 2023 to get that 60% drop number. Looking at every quarter’s count, the year-to-year drop would be a 53% drop compared to the November 2023 count (507 tents).

But still, the number of tents has indeed dropped every quarter since July 2023, so Breed’s got that going for her.  

The big question is whether more people are sheltered, and it doesn’t seem the recent sweeps are helping much in that department. Since the August 1 crackdown started, only 365 of the 3,000 “engagements” with unsheltered people have resulted in that person accepting a shelter offer.

"Right now we're seeing a political response to an election year," the SF Coalition on Homelessness’ River Beck told KPIX. "That's been taken out on a vulnerable community. People are still out there. Just because you're removing tents doesn't mean you're solving homelessness."

Breaking tents down by supervisorial district, the number that really jumps out here is Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s District 8 reportedly having only one tent. But Mandelman says some encampments are populated with people who actually are sheltered, and are just in encampments to procure and do drugs.

"We also know that these encampments are actually a draw on people who may have placements, they may have shelter," Mandelman said to KPIX. "They may have housing and they are still coming back to use substances on the street. I think clearing encampments, making it clear that if you have a need for shelter or treatment, we will get that for you. But you cannot stay on our sidewalks and you cannot be engaged in illegal activities in our public spaces."

According to KPIX, “296 people have been cited or arrested” since the August 1 crackdown started. But the citations did not generally result in people being taken into custody, and most of those arrested were people who already had outstanding warrants.

Related: Breed Vows Major Encampment Crackdown Coming In August, Says There May Be ‘Criminal Penalties’ [SFist]

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist