SF Politics Sup. Jackie Fielder Challenges City Policy That Limits Shelter Stays For Families A progressive supervisor is taking on San Francisco's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, as well as the moderate-majority board she sits on, with new legislation that could prove politically difficult to oppose.
SF News Day Around the Bay: SFPD Has Arrested Over 750 Homeless For Illegal Camping Over 750 people have been arrested for illegal camping in SF since last summer; OpenAI may be closing in on 1 billion users; and the Trump administration now wants to completely gut the State Department.
SF News New California Bill Would Outlaw Arresting or Fining Unhoused People Camping In the Street Several California mayors (including SF’s own) cheered a June Supreme Court decision that allowed cities to arrest or prosecute those camping on the street. But a new proposed California law could bring that practice to a complete halt.
SF News City of Oakland Gives Notice to Homeless Encampments Next to Lake Merritt The City of Oakland, which like San Francisco has struggled to address widespread camping on sidewalks and elsewhere in the city amid on ongoing homelessness crisis, gave a seven-day warning on Monday to an encampment around Peralta Park.
SF Politics Mayor Daniel Lurie Promises 'New Era of Accountability' In New Homelessness Plan SF Mayor Daniel Lurie is signing a new executive order Monday and announcing an ambitious plan for tackling the combined crises of homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health, which includes holding nonprofits more accountable for outcomes.
SF Politics San Jose Mayor Suggests Arresting Homeless Who Refuse Shelter; Legal Case In Vallejo Highlights Growing Backlash After nearly a year in which city and state leaders in California began swinging to the right on the issue of homeless encampments and the civil rights of homeless people, advocates say the tide may be turning again.
SF News It’s Curtains for the Bayview RV Triage Center, Closing Today After Blowing Through $15 Million Once dubbed "by far the most expensive homeless response intervention” in SF history, the Bayview RV Triage Center is being shut down today, after a three-year run of pricey logistical snafus and frankly very little usage.
SF News Unhoused Fairfax Woman Delays Clearing of Her Own Encampment With Lawsuit; Fremont Passes Strict New Ordinance Two Bay Area cities are going in different directions in battling encampments, as a Fairfax woman just won a delay on the clearing of her own encampment, while Fremont just passed a law that activists fear could illegalize handing cash or food to the homeless.
SF News Man Seen In Viral Video Throwing Eggs at Homeless Man In Haight Identified A man dressed in business attire pulled up to a corner in Haight Street on Monday evening and was seen hurling eggs in the direction of a sleeping homeless man on the sidewalk.
SF News SF Homeless Woman Known for Menacing Mothers and Small Children Has Agreed to Conservatorship We learned last week that Kim Andrews, a woman who became notorious for harassing and threatening women and their children on San Francisco streets and in parks over the course of five years, had been charged and detained.
SF News SF’s ‘Bus the Homeless Out of Town’ Strategy Now Catching On With Other California Cities A few other California cities are duplicating San Francisco’s tactic to merely hand the homeless a one-way bus ticket out of town, not because it's proven to be a particularly effective strategy, but more because it's just cheap and easy.
SF News Santa Clara High Student Dies by Suicide After Classmates Bullied Him for Being Homeless 14-year-old Jose Zamora’s short tenure at Santa Clara High School came to a tragic end last week, as the freshman took his own life after weeks of taunting for living at a homeless shelter and being raised by a single father.
SF News Nearly Three Years After It Opened, Bayview RV Triage Site Finally Gets Decent Electricity The Bayview RV triage site that opened in January 2022 has been dubbed the “most expensive homeless response” ever because of PG&E and Urban Alchemy costs. The problem was that PG&E never delivered that electricity, but they finally got it up and running this week.
SF Politics With November’s Prop 36, California Voters Could Effectively Undo the Infamous Prop 47 Property Crime Law California's 2014 law known as Prop 47 is often blamed for unleashing crime, homelessness, and the fentanyl crisis, and voters will have a chance to toughen up its under-$950 misdemeanor theft threshold with the new state measure Prop 36.
SF News Mayor Breed Touts 60% Drop in Tents on Streets, Mandelmans’s District 8 Supposedly Has Just One Tent Some very encouraging new statistics 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.
SF News SFMTA Votes to Tow RVs Parked Overnight on Streets If Campers Refuse Offers of Shelter San Francisco's rules targeting people who live in parked RVs on the streets are about to tighten up, as the SF Municipal Transit Agency has approved a law to tow people’s RVs if they refuse an offer of shelter.
SF Politics Sheng Thao Issues Executive Order to Ramp Up Oakland Encampment Sweeps Facing a recall election and a slew of scandals, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is seizing on a recent Supreme Court decision to proclaim that the city will get a lot more aggressive in clearing homeless encampments.
SF Politics Even In Liberal Berkeley, Aggressive Encampment Sweeps Set to Begin A ruling by the Supreme Court allowing cities to crack down on illegal camping without necessarily providing shelter to the unhoused has even brought Berkeley's city council around to approving more unfettered encampment sweeps.
SF Politics Newsom Says He’ll Yank Counties’ Funding If They Don’t Clear Homeless Encampments Aggressively Enough Governor Gavin Newsom is ratcheting up the threat level toward California cities and counties on the homeless encampment front, now saying he’ll cut their funding if they aren’t more aggressive in clearing encampments.
SF News Tents Return Right Away In Mission District, Tenderloin Areas Targeted By Encampment Sweeps The new and supposedly more aggressive sweeps of homeless encampments are turning into a familiar game of whack-a-mole, as new tents are reportedly popping right back up in areas where city workers have cleared encampments.
SF Politics Mayor Breed Doubles Down on Just Shipping the Homeless Out of Town, as Encampment Sweeps Ratchet Up SF Mayor London Breed’s new tactic to reduce homelessness won’t be seen as particularly compassionate, as her latest executive order demands encampment sweeps where people are first offered a bus ticket out of town before they’re offered shelter.
SF News SF Steps Up Homeless Encampment Sweeps This Week — Will Homeless Just Ping-Pong to Other Blocks? San Francisco's ever-shifting strategy to address the crisis of homelessness shifts again this week to an aggressive effort to clear encampments off of streets and push individuals to accept shelter and/or substance abuse treatment.
SF News Newsom Orders State Agencies to Clear Homeless Encampments En Masse in Wake of Supreme Court Ruling Governor Gavin Newsom just issued an executive order that would represent the largest homeless encampment sweep effort in the nation since the Supreme Court handed down their decision that cities can ban sleeping outdoors.
SF Politics Ninth Circuit Clears Way For San Francisco to Resume Encampment Sweeps Although the removal of homeless encampments had not completely stopped in San Francisco, a panel of federal appellate judges just ordered an injunction to be lifted that clears a legal hurdle to the city's efforts to clear illegal encampments.
SF Politics Supreme Court Ruling Could Have Broad Implications for Homeless Encampment Sweeps In California The Supreme Court has, predictably, ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, weighing in for the first time on the issue of homelessness and how cities and states may legally enforce laws around public camping.
