Feds rescind OK for huge Bayview shelter
Highway agency objects to Navigation Center on lot
Federal highway officials have reversed approval for San Francisco to open a 200bed Navigation Center in the Bayview neighborhood — a blow that could potentially throw into doubt plans for dozens of homeless shelters across the state.
Plans for those sites might require federal approval if they are in the rightofway for state highways. The Federal Highway Administration owns some of those rightsofway. Gov. Gavin Newsom has set aside hundreds of similar stateowned properties, largely empty Caltransmanaged parcels next to state
highways, to provide shortterm shelters for cities confronting the homelessness crisis.
So far, San Francisco’s plans for the Bayview Navigation Center — a homeless shelter with services — is the only approval that’s been reversed. But federal officials are also challenging approval for two existing Navigation Centers in the South of Market neighborhood: one at Division and 13th streets and another at Fifth and Bryant streets, which house 186 beds and 84 beds, respectively.
Numerous sites statewide could also be at risk, including shelter venues in Los Angeles and Sacramento.
Officials at the Federal Highway Administration had previously signed off on San Francisco’s plan to open a Navigation Center under Interstate 280, in a vacant parking lot in a heavily industrial area.
The agency, however, revoked that approval in a
May 7 letter to the California Department of Transportation, writing that the shelter location had been approved without an appropriate environmental review.
Vincent Mammano, the FHWA’s division director for California, also wrote that the agency is “reconsidering whether a temporary homeless shelter is an appropriate use of the interstate” rightofway.
Mayor London Breed’s spokesman, Jeff Cretan, said the city will proceed with its plans to open the Bayview Navigation Center, regardless. He said the center could open by the end of the year, if construction begins in the next few weeks “as planned.” San Francisco plans to spend $19.2 million on the Bayview shelter.
“San Francisco is facing a crisis and we need more shelter and housing for people living on the streets,” Cretan said. “We are continuing to move forward with the site in the Bayview under state authorization.”
Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin criticized the FHWA’s move in a letter to the agency Monday, saying several locations in question may not be within the federal rightofway or need such approval.
Omishakin wrote that the agency’s unexpected revocations had “created a highly unfortunate situation,” noting that cities have already spent significant amounts of money to construct these shelter sites.
He also rejected Mammano’s assertion that shelters might not belong near highways, arguing that moving homeless people into adjacent centers helps prevent injuries.
“California has a significant homeless population, many of whom are already living on interstate rights of way,” Omishakin wrote. “Caltrans sees these leases as an innovative solution to an existing problem.”
Philip Mangano, former homelessness czar for presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said it appears that the federal highway officials who initiated the decision might not have checked with the right officials at the White House. Last year, President Trump said he wanted to see federal facilities used to house homeless people in California, and he hasn’t publicly changed that position since then.
“What the (FHWA) is currently doing is discordant with what the president has been talking about, most importantly in California,” said Mangano, who as a member of the governor’s task force on homelessness has been participating in talks for the past year on using federal land for homeless facilities.
He added, “The president was talking about using every bit of federal property he could get his hands on to address homelessness, and now there’s one agency that’s going counter to that? That’s shocking.”
Newsom’s office has reached out to the highway administration to discuss rescinding the order, several sources told The Chronicle.
In addition to environmental reviews, Mammano, the FHWA administrator, said it appears Caltrans is trying to transfer the land for less than fair market value. He warned that threatens the “federal transportation investment.”
“It appears that Caltrans is looking to dispose of its highway (rightofway) for less than (fair market value) on a programmatic basis,” Mammano wrote in a May 14 letter.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who cochairs the governor’s homelessness task force, said that he was talking Friday with “high officials” in the White House, and thinks the issue can be resolved in California’s favor. His administration plans to open a 100bed shelter on Caltrans land in the fall, and that plan is now jeopardized.
“We are trying to break through, and I am hopeful that we will because the opportunity to bring more people indoors ... is too important,” Steinberg said. “We’re talking to some key people and I’m hopeful it will work out.”
As for the idea of tearing down the Division Circle Navigation Center in San Francisco, Steinberg said: “Come on. They shouldn’t tear anything down.
“The clear contradiction here is what gives me hope this will be resolved soon,” he said.
Caltrans owns the land beside and beneath the freeways where the homeless shelters sit or are planned, but the FHWA has oversight because the agency accepts federal funding.
“We take money from the federal government and it comes with rules and oversight,” said Matt Rocco, a Caltrans spokesman.
San Francisco officials, faced with a lack of affordable vacant land, have embraced the chance to build Navigation Centers on excess Caltrans parcels. The centers offer a range of onsite services, such as medical care and housing counseling, to help people find a more stable living situation.
The Bayview area is home to the city’s secondlargest concentration of homeless people, outside of the Tenderloin, and has a major shortage of shelter beds. San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton, who represents the area, said plans for a shelter there are long overdue.
“Obviously the federal government doesn’t know what’s best for local communities,” he said. “That should be up to us to decide.”