SF Politics SF Supervisors Approve Expansion of Program That Gives Homeless People Bus Tickets Out of Town It was a small political win for Supervisor Ahsha Safaí at the SF Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, as the board voted to approve the expansion of a bus program for the city's homeless that he had earlier proposed.
SF News City Vows to Crack Down on Bernal Heights RV Encampment, Which Has Been Growing In Recent Months A smattering of RVs permanently camped on Bernal Heights Boulevard has grown larger, and now City Hall says they’ll enforce a long-forgotten 27-year-old ban on overnight parking on the street.
SF News Mentally Ill Homeless Man With at Least 60 Arrests Back In Jail on Federal Charges for Presidio Graffiti A very troubled and pretty clearly unmedicated man with a long history of mental illness, addiction, and criminal activity across San Francisco, has been in jail the past three months following an especially creepy incident in the Presidio.
SF Politics Gavin Newsom on a Blitz Pushing Prop 1, a Statewide $6.4B Mental Health Bond Remember Gavin’s Newsom’s old “Care Not Cash” phrase? He’s dusting off that rhetoric with the new phrase “Treatment Not Tents,” in hopes of pushing California voters to pass his $6.38 billion mental health bond.
SF News Almost 3,000 People Exited Homelessness In San Francisco Last Year, But Many Leaving Shelters Have Unknown Outcomes San Francisco and its nonprofit network are doing an increasingly better job of guiding homeless individuals toward services and into temporary or permanent housing, with figures now in from 2023. But one group is calling out the trend of "unsuccessful" outcomes for those seeking shelter.
SF News Repeat Offender Allegedly Steals Pastries, Causes Chaos, Assaults Employee at Castro Bakery An apparently very angry homeless man who was familiar to police from previous arrests caused some mayhem Thursday morning at Le Marais, a bakery cafe in the Castro that has been the site of multiple incidents of crime.
SF News San Mateo County Will Charge Unhoused People With a Crime If They Refuse Shelter While it only applies to unincorporated areas of the county, a new law just passed by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors will make it a misdemeanor to refuse shelter if you’re homeless.
SF News SF Homeless Man Acquitted of Assaulting Ex-Commissioner Back In Jail For a Different Assault Garret Doty, the 25-year-old homeless man who was acquitted in December in a high-profile assault case involving a former SF fire commissioner, has landed in jail again for allegedly assaulting someone with a guitar.
SF News New Homeless Census to Be Conducted Tuesday In San Francisco; Oakland and Berkeley Did Theirs Today The biennial Point-in-Time Count of San Francisco's homeless population is happening Tuesday, January 30, and it's the first time since 2022 that the city will get a semi-accurate picture of how many people are living here unsheltered.
SF Politics Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case on Homeless Encampment Sweeps The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear arguments in a case that will likely have broad implications for how cities, particularly on the West Coast, address the ongoing homelessness crisis.
SF News Guest at SF Marriott Last Summer Sues Over Alleged Attack By Homeless Person A man who stayed at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis last year has filed a lawsuit against the Marriott corporation claiming negligence after he was allegedly assaulted by a person he says was homeless on hotel property.
SF News SF Finally Getting Somewhat Better at Filling Long-Vacant Supportive Housing Units In a city with thousands of unhoused people, it’s pretty aggravating that housing intended for them is just sitting empty. But there’s some comfort in the fact that SF has cut the vacancy rate at supportive housing sites nearly in half.
SF News Owner of Tenderloin Best Western Who Installed Sprinklers to Soak Homeless Wishes City Would Just Buy His Hotel The owner of the beleaguered Best Western hotel at Eddy and Polk streets in SF's Tenderloin would really like the city to just buy the place already and turn it into homeless housing, because he says it's not doing much business as a hotel.
SF News Jury Convicts SF Man of Public Nuisance After He Displayed 'Free Fentanyl' Sign Outside Public School On Friday morning, a jury convicted a homeless man of "willfully and unlawfully creating a public nuisance" after he piled belongings on a sidewalk and displayed signs near a school advertising "Free Fentanyl 4 New Users."
SF News Like SF Was Last Year, Berkeley Slapped With Restraining Order Stopping Encampment Sweep It's a repeat of what happened in San Francisco last December, and presages what could be a contentious legal fight at the Supreme Court next year: A federal judge has issued a restraining order against the City of Berkeley over a planned sweep of a homeless encampment.
SF Politics City Outreach Teams Say Around 60% of SF Homeless Refused Offers of Shelter the Past Three Months Mayor London Breed is again putting out the message that the city needs to enforce laws about camping in public spaces, ahead of a potential Supreme Court decision on the issue next year.
SF News Supervisor Proposes Expanding ‘Homeward Bound’ Program That Buses Homeless Out of SF An 18-year-old program that offers free bus tickets out of town for unsheltered people to reunite with family is not so well used anymore, but mayoral hopeful Supervisor Ahsha Safai wants to bolster and expand the Homeward Bound initiative.
SF Politics Newsom Announces $300 Million In New Grants to Clear Homeless Encampments Governor Gavin Newsom says he’s handing $300 million to cities and state organizations to clear homeless encampments, but insists it’s not just for clearing encampments, but for providing shelter too.
SF News Homeless Encampment Sweeps Begin In Downtown SF Ahead of APEC Predictably, the city is stepping up efforts to clear people off the streets in and around the security zone being set for the APEC leaders summit next week, and some of those being told to move are being told it's because of the summit.
SF News City Audit Finds Poor Coordination, Lack of Oversight Among SF Homeless Outreach Teams San Francisco has not one but 11 homeless outreach teams to provide services for people living on the streets, and a new city audit finds they don’t communicate with one another and often have poor oversight of their contracts and responsibilities.
SF News SF Grappling With Encampment Clearing Strategy as APEC Starts This Weekend Ready or not, San Francisco’s moment in the spotlight starts this weekend as the APEC Summit begins Saturday, and the highly visible issue of encampments in public view has City Hall officials fretting over how that’s all going to play out.
SF News Newsom Signs Bill That Further Expands Conservatorship of Mentally Ill People Who Refuse Treatment Just a week after Governor Newsom’s CARE Courts started up to compel severely mentally ill people into treatment even if they don’t want it, Newsom has signed a new law that allows a broader interpretation of who can be forced into what they call conservatorship.
SF News City of San Francisco Files Brief With Supreme Court on Homeless Encampment Case Even though San Francisco's own injunction on homeless encampment-clearing is not on trial at the Supreme Court, the city has now filed a brief in another case that is sure to have implications here.
SF News Bayview RV Triage Center Extension Approved, But Critics Howling Over Its Very High Cost Headlines are blaring that the SF Board of Supervisors just approved the “most expensive homeless response” ever with $140,000-a-year RV parking spots at a Bayview RV triage center, but PG&E and Urban Alchemy are a big chunk of those costs.
SF News SF Is Among 50 City Governments and Organizations Asking the Supreme Court to Weigh In On Homeless Camping Democrats in multiple western states are making strange bedfellows with Republicans in a push to get the conservative-majority Supreme Court to settle the legal dispute over whether homeless people should be allowed to camp on public property without penalty.
