I saw something this summer I had never before seen in my three years covering homelessness in San Francisco.
A crew of city workers, including staffers from the police, fire, emergency management, and public works departments, cleared out a string of homeless encampments under the Central Freeway in less than two hours.
The July 31 sweep, which started around 9:30 a.m., wasn’t listed on the city’s tent clearing schedule, as such operations usually are. The crew swept at least half a dozen tents from the mile-long stretch.
In a video captured by The Standard, a police officer can be heard telling a homeless man that encampments are “no more” as the person’s belongings are thrown into a truck bed.
This was the first day a federal injunction restricting the city’s ability to clear tent encampments was partially lifted. In the months prior, while campaigning for reelection, Mayor London Breed teased “very aggressive” plans to increase enforcement on homeless camps.
In the following months, police made 432 arrests for illegal lodging, compared with just nine in 2023.
Some were split on the city’s dramatic shift. Shelters were near capacity, as they usually are, leaving many to wonder what Breed planned to do with the thousands of people living on the streets.
On Aug. 1, the mayor answered some of those questions, directing all city workers to offer homeless people bus tickets out of town before any other services. But this initiative fell flat as the number of bus tickets never increased and the change in strategy didn’t appear to help her reelection chances.
Following the crackdown, the number of tents dropped to a record low, according to an October count. However, fewer people entered shelters this year than in the previous three, raising the question: Where did those people go?
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Many homeless people say they’ve stopped using tents or have found creative ways to make their encampments mobile. Some say they have simply gotten used to being arrested.
Geoffrey Frye, who lives on the streets around the Panhandle, was arrested five times in the first four months of the crackdown — more than any other homeless person, according to data from the San Francisco Police Department. His mother told The Standard he suffers from mental illness, triggered by childhood trauma, and needs time and treatment to recover. But she worries that the constant enforcement may be making matters worse.
Meanwhile, there’s a shortage of treatment beds for people suffering from mental illness, and convincing some to accept help is a long, costly, and complex process.
This all leads to obvious questions for incoming Mayor Daniel Lurie, whose policies on homelessness are nearly identical to Breed’s.
Lurie promised to build 1,500 shelter beds in his first six months in office. But this is a daunting goal, considering how difficult it has been for the city to open even a single shelter facility. Headstrong locals are likely to protest new shelters in their neighborhoods. And even when facing threats of enforcement, many homeless people would rather sleep on the streets.
A looming budget deficit, made more dire by Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, will require Lurie to get creative. He says he will lean on private companies to achieve his goal, using his experience as CEO of Tipping Point, an anti-poverty nonprofit, to attain funding.
There’s no shortage of rich and powerful people in San Francisco who want to see progress on the issue.
Maybe 2025 is the year corporate America finally solves homelessness.