No foes, big funds for seawall repair

Proposition A on the San Francisco ballot, which would allow a $425 million bond to strengthen the Embarcadero seawall, has no organized opposition. So why is the Yes on A campaign budget approaching $1.5 million?

One answer: Plenty of big developers and corporations are writing big checks.

The campaign has netted $1.5 million in contributions so far, according to records filed with the city’s Ethics Commission, and the donors include several players with an obvious stake in the result — such as the owners at Pier 39 and Waterfront Plaza, who gave a combined $55,000. Their properties are on the front line, as it were.

But then there are the Golden State Warriors and Pier 70 developer Forest City, whose projects aren’t behind the century-old seawall but are located along the bay. Each contributed $50,000.

Large checks also came in from Kilroy Realty ($50,000) and One Vassar ($90,000) — developers with proposed projects several blocks inland, hardly at risk from rising bay waters. There were also $50,000 contributions from such firms as Jacobs Engineering

Group, which is active on a project to rebuild Seattle’s seawall and might presumably be interested in similar endeavors elsewhere.

Maybe the election is tighter than we know. Or maybe, just maybe, some donors are eager to show City Hall that they have the proper civic spirit. Hey, it never hurts to have friends in high places. — John King

First, now gone: The nation’s first Navigation Center closed last week after helping more than 2,000 homeless people off the streets and inspiring a proliferation of similar shelters in the city and throughout the nation.

The center opened in March 2015 on Mission Street, near 16th Street, under the guidance of then homeless czar Bevan Dufty. It had the ambitious goal of drawing hard-core homeless people inside and giving them intensive counseling and services for housing, drug rehabilitation and other issues.

Admission to the center was set to be “low barrier,” meaning street people could bring in their pets, partners and belongings, and come or go 24/7. That made the center vastly more attractive than the typical rules-laden homeless shelter.

The Mission Street center drew both praise for its programs and criticism for attracting a regular crowd of street people hanging around outside, but it was always intended to be temporary. The original plan was for it to last a year before being replaced by affordable housing, but delays in the housing project let the timeline stretch on.

“This was the first one, very special,” said Randy

Quezada, a spokesman for the city Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “What we learned there led to all the others.”

In its three-plus years of operation, the Mission Street Navigation Center took in 2,204 people, and 68 percent of them exited homelessness, according to city figures. More than half of those people who left the streets — 1,177 — did so through the Homeward Bound program, which gives bus tickets to people to return home to receptive family or friends. — Kevin Fagan