S.F.’s homeless inflection point

The Friday before Christmas, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu filed a preliminary injunction prohibiting San Francisco from enforcing many of its most common practices for dealing with unhoused people, including so-called “encampment resolutions,” the Orwellian term city officials use for what most people call “sweeps.”

“As long as there are more homeless individuals in San Francisco than there are shelter beds available,” Ryu wrote, her injunction will stand — at least until a federal case on the issue reaches trial.

There are currently at least 4,397 unsheltered homeless people in San Francisco. Only 34 shelter beds were available for them as of mid-December.

What that means, in short, is that the city either has to finally take meaningful action to provide its homeless population with shelter, or watch as its public spaces become permanent tent cities. The injunction still allows the city to clean up trash at encampments, and ensure sidewalks are kept clear for access. But it appears the days of pushing the homeless from place to place — while officials, activists and homeowners argue over root causes and solutions — are over.

Ryu’s ruling was the latest interpretation of Martin v. Boise, a landmark federal case that — in broad terms — prohibits the citation or arrest of people sleeping outdoors if no shelter is made available to them.

Expect it to stick.

Los Angeles tried to fight the ruling in 2019, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. The Court declined to do so. Last fall, a Sacramento ballot measure fell under scrutiny for potentially violating the law. And a judge issued a similar injunction to San Francisco’s in Phoenix only a few weeks ago.

There is already growing political pressure to appeal the ruling; Supervisor Rafael Mandelman called the belief that involuntarily removing an encampment violates constitutional rights “absurd” on Twitter. The City Attorney’s office is

weighing its options, telling the Editorial Board that it has “not made a decision yet, but we are exploring all potential next steps.”

They should leave it be. San Francisco needs to rip off the Band-Aid and admit the fastest way out of our crisis is through shelter.

What comes after that recognition will be uncomfortable for everyone in the city. Many homeless advocates, including the Coalition for Homelessness, have pushed for plans that prioritize permanent housing over shelter, citing a need for sustained solutions to the endemic crisis of homelessness. But housing takes time to build and acquire, and even as San Francisco has successfully ramped up efforts to do so, that doesn’t help the thousands currently sleeping on city streets, or the city residents and business owners who deal with the fallout.

As Ryu hammered home in

the preliminary injunction hearing, there is currently no way for a homeless person in San Francisco to voluntarily access shelter. The only way they can get it, bizarrely, is through a referral from the city — and most of those contacts are made during sweeps.

Supervisor Mandelman’s A Place for All legislation, a plan to drastically increase shelter beds and housing options for people sleeping on the streets, is a possible path forward. Introduced in 2020, it was finally passed by the board last summer. It would increase the number of shelter beds citywide and enable people to sign up for shelter. The plan could bring San Francisco closer to New York City’s model, which has shelter beds for 48,000 people, and where only 3,400 sleep unsheltered each night.

A new report from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), however, claims that achieving

such a feat in San Francisco would be impossibly expensive. To fulfill the plan, the department says it would have to add an additional 3,810 permanent housing and 2,250 shelter units, which would come in at a cost of $1.45 billion over three years — on top of its existing budget — with estimated operating costs of $410,901,000 a year.

In an interview with the Editorial Board, Mandelman blasted those estimates, calling them “The social services version of the $2 million toilet.”

“This doesn’t give me any hope that HSH is set up to address this crisis with the urgency it deserves,” he continued. “We need to call up the question of whether we’re serious about solving unsheltered homelessness in the city of San Francisco. That needs to come from mayor and Board of Supervisors, because it’s not coming from HSH.”

Needless to say, circumstances are going to force some

important decisions early in the New Year. Implementing Mandelman’s plan — or one like it — will require an intense commitment from everyone in the city.

With a possible budget deficit on the horizon, San Francisco may soon have to tighten its fiscal belt. We will have neither the time nor the resources to indulge governmental incompetence, circular ideological battles or NIMBY obstructionism, like the infamous fight over the opening of the Embarcadero Navigation Center.

In the New Year, everyone in San Francisco is going to have to make a choice — do we want shelters or homeless encampments in our backyards?

Jessica Christian/The Chronicle 2019 S.F. officers watch as people gather their belongings during a Public Works sweep of homeless encampments along Willow Street.