Smaller homeless shelters would better serve needs
The St. Vincent de Paul Society manages the largest homeless shelter in San Francisco, a 45,000-square-foot building at Fifth and Bryant streets. We were recently invited to meet as part of a “good neighbor” policy with Tishman Speyer, as the developer is about to build a 700,000-square-foot development a block away on the corner of Fifth and Brannan streets. We were shown a map that revealed, should all things go as planned, the city’s shelter will be completely surrounded by high-end commercial tenants — not on just one corner — as proposed development would fill the entire block bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Brannan and Bryant streets. More development is planned for the block between Fifth and Sixth streets.
It is hard to imagine future success for the businesses locating there, for the homeless, or for San Franciscans, in having a large-scale shelter, serving 310 residents and an additional 100 drop-ins daily, in such proximity to such tremendous growth.
Providing focused attention
The city could consider selling the facility at current top-market rates and using the funds to buy smaller, more humanly scaled buildings in which to house people along various commercial corridors throughout the city. The city would gain more space for additional housing by asking to retain a portion of the 525 Fifth St. site for mixed-income housing.
We would be able to provide better access to transit for people seeking permanent housing by scattering shelter sites amid other neighborhoods. In short, we could begin true healing of the homeless by getting them the focused attention they need in these smaller settings to get them off the streets and ultimately, housed.
The days of large-scale homeless shelters are numbered. There is no way within large shelters to have any meaningful outcomes for homeless individuals seeking to turn around their lives. The homeless shelter at 525 Fifth St. is funded by the city for a supportive services staff of three to serve 410 individuals.
This is not optimum for engaging with homeless individuals to find solutions to their housing problems. The optimum caseload is one support service staff member to 11 homeless individuals. It is widely known that the most successful path to ending homelessness is providing housing first. People stabilize when they have their own place. Housing is the answer, but in San Francisco it is in short supply. We need to think creatively about how to get people housed first because what we are doing is not working.
The 525 Fifth St. facility also is not the only homeless shelter in District Six. Of the 6,686 homeless individuals in the city’s official annual homeless count, 4,500 are in District Six. There is also Next Door shelter at Geary and Polk streets, with 334 people, and Sanctuary shelter at Eighth and Mission streets, with 200 people. When the 525 Fifth St. shelter was opened in 1985, and the neighborhood was predominantly a commercial area, this was not such an issue. But with an onslaught of residential development as envisioned by the city and developers, it is only a matter of time before residents in District Six begin to ask why they have to carry more than half the burden of sheltering the city’s homeless.
Sharing responsibility
There’s a need to find different ways to house our homeless, and now we also have the means: In December 2014, the little-noticed passage of a Planning Code amendment and subsequent ordinance now allows for shelter zoning to match that of group housing. Group housing is currently allowed in most neighborhoods. This ordinance now opens up the opportunity to look at spreading housing for our homeless residents throughout the entire city and sharing this responsibility.
Obviously this transition to scattersite shelters requires a shift in thinking and resources, which will take time and coalition-building to accomplish.
But as the City of St. Francis, this is our problem to solve together.
The time to plan is now.