Dozens of Local Organizations Call on San Francisco to Embrace Common Sense Solutions to Homelessness
After nearly a year of San Francisco fighting these common sense solutions in court, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club and dozens of other community organizations are ready to see our leaders focus on real solutions that honor the dignity of San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents.
November 6, 2023
The Honorable London Breed
Mayor, City of San Francisco
The Honorable David Chiu
San Francisco City Attorney
CC: San Francisco Board of Supervisors
RE: Stop the Sweeps, Tackle San Francisco’s Homelessness and Affordable Housing Crisis
Dear Mayor Breed and City Attorney Chiu:
We urge you to abandon San Francisco’s failed “sweeps” policy and immediately redirect resources to proven approaches to address the root causes of our homelessness crisis.
Homelessness at the scale seen in San Francisco is really an affordable housing crisis. The City’s failure to make enough housing available means thousands of low-income residents have nowhere to go. Having failed to meet every state target for affordable housing production for decades, San Francisco is more than 60,000 affordable units short of what is needed for its population.
We urge City leaders to pursue the following strategies to dramatically improve San Francisco’s street conditions for everyone, including the thousands of individuals who lack appropriate housing.
Refurbish and Fill Vacant Supportive Housing Units and Prioritize Public Housing
The City has more than 800 vacant Permanent Supportive Housing units and many more empty public housing units that must be cleaned and repaired to be habitable. San Francisco must fix up these vacant units and continue to clear red tape to accelerate getting people housed.
Use Prop C Funding to Expand Capacity
A growing number of San Franciscans are becoming homeless simply because they can’t make rent. Prop C, passed in 2018, was intended to create more capacity in our system. The city should fully deploy Prop C funding to do what it was intended to do: expand housing units and subsidies, shelter beds, prevention efforts, and treatment.
Deploy Outreach Workers Instead of SFPD
Many elements of San Francisco’s street response is a failure. Policing poverty and displacing individuals from block to block with occasional offers of random services will never work. An effective street response requires outreach workers, not police, to follow a caseworker model. Outreach workers should build relationships with specific unhoused people and match them with appropriate shelter and services, up until and after they are housed. A “by name response” of this type is required to effectively address chronic homelessness.
Make It Easier for Unhoused People to Access Services
The City’s Coordinated Entry system, the main entryway to housing for unhoused people, has broad support for a full transformation. The system regularly leaves individuals languishing for months after being approved for placement. Recommendations to improve this system approved in March have not been implemented. The City should implement these changes immediately. In addition, the shelter system has only a small number of congregate beds connected to the newly created reservation system. All forms of shelter should be accessible to those seeking shelter.
Leverage Public Dollars to Expand Housing, Shelter, Treatment, and Prevention
The City must aggressively pursue state and federal funds earmarked for affordable housing and services and increase General Fund dollars to invest in proven solutions including housing, shelter, treatment and prevention.
Follow the Law: Bag and Tag When Sweeps are Unavoidable
In violation of San Francisco’s policy (and federal case law), City workers regularly confiscate and discard unhoused individuals’ survival gear – including medications, phones, computers and other work equipment – making it harder for these vulnerable people to find a pathway to housing and thereby perpetuating the homelessness crisis. The city must properly bag, tag, and store these items, to ensure that people can easily retrieve their property.
Embrace Universal Human Rights
San Francisco should embrace the human rights of unhoused people. Ensuring every resident has access to basics like bathrooms, showers, food, and water is the right thing to do. Doing so would also eliminate the side effects of homelessness that lead to deteriorating street conditions and reduce the need to use City resources to clean bodily waste.
In closing, San Francisco’s sweeps-focused approach to managing the homelessness and affordable housing crisis is inefficient and expensive. For the good of every San Franciscan – both housed and unhoused – the City must change course and do whatever it takes to stabilize individuals and families at risk of homelessness while offering effective systems to provide essential housing and services for those currently living on our streets.
Sincerely,
Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club
GLIDE
PODER
League of Women Voters of San Francisco
OPEIU Local 29
San Francisco Rising
Housing Rights Committee San Francisco
Episcopal Community Services
National Harm Reduction Coalition
Western Regional Advocacy Project
Larkin Youth Street Services
Hospitality House
San Francisco SafeHouse
Compass Family Services
The Gubbio Project
HomeRise
Hamilton Families
San Francisco AIDS Foundation
San Francisco Human Services Network
Lutheran Social Services of Northern California
Western Regional Advocacy Project
Calvary Presbyterian Church
Faithful Fools
California Interfaith Power and Light
Democratic Socialists of America San Francisco
Fivekeys
The People's Mission Coalition
3rd Street Youth Center & Clinic
Filipino Community Development Corporation
Homeless Prenatal Program
Community Resource Initiative
San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club
West Side Tenants Association
North Beach Citizens
YWAM San Francisco
Tenderloin People's Congress
Immigrant Legal Resource Center
Shanti
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus
San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project
Homeless Legal Services, UC Hastings College of Law
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Citizens Church San Francisco
Community Forward San Francisco
End Hep C San Francisco
San Francisco Gray Panthers
San Francisco Drug Users Union