S.F. is working to reduce homeless tent camps. New data shows how it’s going

By J.D. Morris : sfchronicle – excerpt

San Francisco reduced the number of homeless tents on its streets by about 17% last year in the months after the city ramped up encampment sweeps in response to a court ruling, Mayor London Breed’s office said Thursday.

The city counted 609 tents in July, prior to receiving September guidance from a federal appeals court that local officials said empowered them to take a more assertive approach to clearing encampments. In November, after San Francisco had begun incorporating the court guidance, the tent count dropped to 508, Breed’s office said.

The initial July tent figure was the highest since October 2020, when the city counted 703 tents. And the November tent count of 508 was the lowest since June 2022 when there were 492 tents, according to city data.

However, the number of tents tends to fluctuate and it’s unclear from the data whether the court guidance was behind the drop…

Under an injunction in place since December 2022 — which San Francisco is challenging in court — the city is restricted in its ability to remove homeless tents from streets and sidewalks without providing shelter and from enforcing certain laws against public camping. The city has still been able to remove tent camps, after giving 72 hours’ notice, to ensure access for disabled people and first responders. The injunction also allows for sweeps to be conducted for health and safety reasons, and it permits the city to force encampment residents to move temporarily for street cleaning.

But after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals released guidance in the case in September, the city said it could begin enforcing anti-camping laws against people determined to be “voluntarily” homeless, which means they “declined a specific offer of available shelter” or already had access to shelter…(more)