San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Thursday celebrated new data showing that the number of people living in tents in the city has reached a six-year low.
However, some skeptics say these numbers do not reflect the reality on the streets of San Francisco.
Breed started in August increasing enforcement of anti-camping laws following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Case City of Grants Pass v. Johnson And an executive order from Governor Gavin Newsom to clear camps.
CBS News Bay Area spoke with Mel, a woman who has worked at Marina Floral Designs on O’Farrell St. for a decade and a half.
“Been in this neighborhood for 15 years,” she explained as she put together a flower arrangement. When asked if she saw much during her time in the Tenderloin, she answered with one word: “Everything.”
There’s a whole tent on her doorstep on Thursday, and she says it probably won’t be there much longer.
“I’ll give it another day or two until some friends move in,” she says. “Either the police will try to kick them out or the city department will try to kick them out.”
“It’s finally starting to happen,” Mayor London Breed said Thursday. “We see remarkable changes. The streets look better. The streets are a lot cleaner, but we also know that there is still so much work to be done.”
Across the city, Mayor Breed touted a decrease in the number of tent camps across the city. According to the most recent quarterly count, these figures have fallen by 60% since July last year. She says progress has accelerated in the wake of the Grants Pass court ruling and enforcement has intensified.
Critics of the mayor’s encampment strategy say the tent numbers don’t tell the whole story.
“Right now we’re seeing a political reaction to an election year,” said River Beck of the Coalition on Homelessness. “That’s targeting a vulnerable community. There are still people. Just because you remove tents doesn’t mean you’re solving homelessness.”
So where is everyone going? Nearly 1,000 people have accepted shelter so far this year, with 365 of those only since August 1, when these operations ramped up a bit. But not everyone on the street is necessarily without a home or shelter.
“We also know that these encampments are actually a draw for people who may have a place where they can find shelter,” Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said Thursday. “Maybe they have shelter and still come back to use substances on the streets. I think clearing camps, making it clear that if you need shelter or treatment, we will get it for you. But you can’t stay in our place. sidewalks and you cannot engage in illegal activities in our public areas.”
Part of the goal in reducing homelessness is to break a pattern of behavior and reach those who have previously been reluctant to accept the help offered.
“And in some of those locations we find people that we engage repeatedly,” said Sam Dodge with the Department of Emergency Management.
And the city says it will keep going back, hoping to continue to chip away at that resistance, even if it seems to some like it continues to go in circles.
“Once they get rid of it, they just go across the street,” Mel said of the tent outside her work. “Wait for that cleaning thing and then they’ll just come around again.”
Since August 1, 296 people have been summoned or arrested. 80% of them were charged with illegal stay and released on the spot. Many of the arrests were made on outstanding warrants.
Questions remain. Do people feel like progress is being made? Can they see that progress? A big measure of that, of course, will come in 25 days, when voters go to the polls and decide who will preside over these challenges over the next four years.
Wilson Walker
