Navigation Center makes many feel right at home
San Francisco’s new homeless Navigation Center has turned out to be quite a hit with the homeless — in fact, it may be a bit too successful for its own good.
The full-service center in the Mission District allows people on the streets to move in with their partners, their fellow encampment dwellers and even their pets. It’s so popular that homeless people are moving into neighborhoods being targeted by city outreach workers in hopes they’ll be selected for a spot, according to a new city controller’s report.
The center quickly hit its capacity of 75 people after opening in April. The trouble is, the homeless are staying a lot longer than the
envisioned two to three weeks.
In fact, the average stay for the homeless at the center at 16th and Mission streets is turning out to be 85 days — with 37 of the current clients having been at the center for nine weeks or more. One person has been there 223 days.
It’s not for lack of housing, but because the clients aren’t ready to go.
“Some of these cases are very complicated,” said Sam Dodge, Mayor Ed Lee’s point man on homelessness. “We have undocumented people. People with drug and mental health issues, some with outstanding out-of-state warrants. Things that prevent them from accessing benefits so that they can move into housing.”
There’s another challenge: Some of the clients want to choose the location of their new housing.
“This is San Francisco, right?” Dodge said.
As for the overall success of the program: As of Nov. 15, 84 clients had gone into supportive housing, 41 had opted to go back to their hometowns or families, 26 had returned to the streets, and 19 had been told to leave, usually for disruptive behavior.
Dry run: One of the more disturbing visuals on the videos of the recent tour bus crash at San Francisco’s Union Square was the sight of the huge plastic traffic barriers along Post Street being knocked about like bowling pins.
The K-rails, as they are called, are a required safety measure for street-side construction sites.
The barriers are supposed to be filled with up to 683 pounds of water.
“In this case, they were not,” said Public Works Department spokeswoman Rachel Gordon.
Permits for the barriers were taken out by the general contractor outfit Digney York, which was doing work on the 500 block of Post Street. Efforts to reach the firm were unsuccessful.
Not only were the barriers not filled with water — they hadn’t been inspected by the city, either.
In fact, until the Post Street incident, the folks at Public Works — which is in charge of enforcement — had not been routinely inspecting barriers at construction sites unless there was a complaint.
But now they are, Gordon said.
High burn: After making a rocket-like rise in the upcoming race to replace U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, state Attorney General Kamala Harris finds herself dangerously low on financial fuel — months before the campaign starts in earnest.
The trouble started in May when Harris brought in a crew of Washington, D.C., consultants and fundraisers on the advice of her sister Maya Harris ,an adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
They didn’t come cheap — in fact, Harris has spent about $3 million on the consultants. Upshot: Despite having raised upward of $6 million, she has only about $1.5 million on hand for the June primary, with an equal amount untouchable under campaign rules until the November general election.
So now the nationals are out, and longtime Harris confidant Juan Rodriguez is in as campaign manager.
“Like every campaign, we’re making adjustments in alignment with our strategy to win,” said campaign spokesman Nathan Click.
Berkeley barb: The contentious vote by the Berkeley City Council to enact new rules for the homeless on city streets is likely to be just the first round in a fight that will wind up on the ballot.
The 6-3 vote came at 12:45 a.m. Tuesday, after hours of comment and debate. The council banned urinating and defecating in public places, lying in a planting bed or having personal effects take up more than 2 square feet of sidewalk space between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.
“I fully expect the opponents to hit the streets in the next 30 days to gather the needed signatures to put it on the 2016 ballot,” said Mayor Tom Bates, who voted for the bans.
Councilman Kriss Worthington — one of the three dissenters — said no decision had been made on a referendum. But he said the council vote was pushed back to last week to make gathering signatures harder, by timing it over the holidays when students sympathetic to the homeless would be out of town.
“There was nothing deliberate about the timing,” Bates said. “This is Berkeley. They could get the needed signatures just by going to the weekly farmers’ market.”