Need for shelters growing more dire
Mayor struggles to meet pledged goal of 1,000 new beds
It’s 4 p.m. in the Tenderloin on a recent afternoon, and a woman slowly unzipped the flap of her tent to poke her head out when she heard the Homeless Outreach Team walk by.
“Are there any Nav Centers open?” she quietly asked about the city’s popular homeless shelters.
“We’re 100% full tonight,” said Mark Mazza, an outreach worker, as he crouched to meet her at eye level. Just a few minutes earlier around the corner, another woman, who was holding two plastic trash bags swollen with belongings, had the same question.
“I’d put you in one if I had one today,” Mazza said tenderly.
So it goes nearly every day in San Francisco, often long before the sun sets. As the city’s homeless population swells and major tent encampments are less tolerated on the streets, people are shut out of the city’s shelters and Navigation Centers every night. While it breaks Mazza’s heart when he has to tell people
there are no spots available, there is a bit of hope: Mayor London Breed promised that hundreds more beds are coming.
Breed took office last July with the ambitious goal of adding 1,000 new shelter beds by the end of 2020. But over the past year, the mayor has hit snag after snag in creating more beds, making it increasingly clear just how hard it will be to pull off her goal.
“If they’re (Navigation Centers) full, that means it’s working,” Mazza said. “But it also means we need more.”
Breed has steadily chipped away at her goal since announcing it in October. So far, 286 beds have been added across the city. The majority of those beds have been in Navigation Centers, which are shelters with services that help connect homeless people with stable housing. Those facilities either already existed or were in the works before Breed took office. The rest of the new beds are inside a school gym at Buena Vista Horace Mann, which originally was used by only an average of two people per night, but has since expanded its use.
Meanwhile, 304 more beds are expected to open by the end of 2019 — though 200 of those planned for a Navigation Center on the Embarcadero may get snarled in a lawsuit by nearby residents. Opponents are determined to halt the project over concerns about crime and blight. Depending on the outcome of the suit, Breed needs to create 400 to 600 additional beds over the next 18 months to fulfill her promise.
“We are still committed to making it happen,” said Jeff Cretan, Breed’s spokesman. “If there was a solution that could work today, it would be happening. The mayor is committed. And as soon as she sees something that is feasible, she wants to get it done.”
The city has been focused on creating Navigation Centers over more traditional shelters as they are typically more comfortable and offer more services. But, Cretan said, it’s not that easy to build them.
The money for building the extra beds is already in the upcoming budget — that’s not the problem. The problem is the logistics, bureaucracy and intense push back from residents that often comes with any proposal to increase homeless services in a specific neighborhood.
While Cretan said the mayor is pleased with her progress so far, District Six Supervisor Matt Haney — whose district includes neighborhoods with high homeless populations, including the Tenderloin — said he expected to have more sites proposed by now.
“We need to get moving,” Haney said. “To meet this goal, which is a good goal, we need to see more proposed urgently.”
To jumpstart the creation of more shelter space around the city, Haney, whose district includes the Embarcadero site, proposed an ordinance earlier this year that would force the city to create a Navigation Center or other types of homeless services in every district. However, critics say it doesn’t make sense to put costly services in districts with fewer homeless people.
The mayor and board also passed legislation this year that could expedite the process of building shelters and Navigation Centers around the city.
“I hope that they don’t just meet the goal just by adding more beds on sites that already exist,” Haney said. “I’d like to see them propose new sites, and also those that serve specific populations.”
Breed’s office has spent the last year combing through more than 100 potential sites around the city for Navigation Centers, the vast majority of which were ruled out because of their price, size or location.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin recently proposed a site at 888 Post St. for a Navigation Center, his fourth attempt to get a shelter in his district. The mayor’s office said the Post Street site would be very expensive to turn into a Navigation Center, but officials might be able to make it work.
Meanwhile, Supervisor Vallie Brown is growing skeptical of how realistic the mayor’s goal is. Brown said she has spent the last year looking for a site to put a Navigation Center for atrisk youth in her district, which includes the Haight. So far she’s had no luck. But she’s still looking.
Why isn’t this easier?” she said. “I’ve looked in Golden Gate Park, I’ve asked the state for the DMV lots. … But I keep hitting a brick wall.
“Right now, from what I’m looking at, I don’t see it happening,” she said of the mayor’s goal. “Just to get one in my district has been a battle.”
Building a Navigation Center from scratch, or renovating an existing building, can cost the city $2 million to $3 million, possibly more. Even if the money is already allocated in the budget, it can quickly become hard to justify building a pricey Navigation Center — which are meant to be temporary — over more longterm options like permanent supportive housing, said Jeff Kositsky, director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.
Still, Kositsky said the mayor’s goal is “totally doable.” He said the city is searching for a few more sites, and will have some announcements “hopefully soon.”
“We have a pretty clear path forward,” he said, adding that shelters are only part of the solution. Even more important, he said, are the city’s efforts to create more affordable and supportive housing.
While the city’s six Navigation Centers often fill up by early evening, a few beds are sometimes available earlier in the day for people who want to come off the streets. But on a recent afternoon last week, no beds were available anywhere in the city. Zero.
That was partly because the Healthy Streets Operations Center was doing a twoweek outreach on specific blocks in the Tenderloin last month and connecting more people to the city’s myriad services. In the first week, the team was able to connect 23 people with open Navigation Center beds, identify 11 people who were eligible for “priority status” for permanent housing and refer 16 people to an assessment center.
“Even if we don’t have more beds to offer, it’s important to just let people know of the services,” Mazza said. But sometimes, it takes more than just having an open bed to convince people to accept help.
As one outreach worker lugged a cooler of snacks, fresh socks and Narcan through the Tenderloin, he knelt to talk to a man sprawled in front of a vacant storefront and offered to connect him to a treatment program or an intake center on Mission Street. The man politely declined. Before the outreach worker — who was not authorized to talk to the media — walked away, he gave the man a handful of beef jerky, water, crackers and a new pair of socks.
The next time they see each other, the outreach worker said, maybe the man will be more receptive to accepting help. And when that time comes, hopefully there’s a bed available.
“When they’re ready for us, we might not be ready for them,” he said. “And that’s a sure way to lose people.”