Response to Governor Newsom & Mayor Breed’s Calls for Aggressive Encampment Sweeps

Over the last week, Governor Newsom and Mayor Breed have ramped up rhetoric calling for aggressive use of the new power granted to local governments under the Grants Pass decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruling stripped away constitutional rights of the unhoused, and allows criminal enforcement against homeless people for sleeping outside even if they are not offered anywhere to go. 

Nothing in the Grants Pass decision requires the city or state to ramp up criminal enforcement against people for being homeless. On June 28, 2024, I responded to Grants Pass decision in part by “urging my fellow city leaders to exercise restraint and not use this new power bestowed on the city by a right-wing court– the same court that overturned Roe v. Wade– to arrest and incarcerate people for being homeless.” Much as the city and state should not use the power granted by the Supreme Court to ban abortions, state and local governments should not be using the power granted by this Court to arrest and jail people for being homeless when they have nowhere to go. 

The Mayor recently promised that “very aggressive” encampment sweeps will start in August, and it appears they have now begun. And Governor Newsom has now called for encampment sweeps on state land, and has urged cities to do the same. Neither announcement comes with any funding for expanded shelter or housing or any plan to house people. The Mayor recently cut homeless outreach team funding. 

None of us are ok with a system where people are sleeping on our streets or in their cars. The Grants Pass decision, and now the Governor and Mayor’s reaction to it, will make the situation worse. Pushing people block to block and neighborhood to neighborhood does not solve homelessness. In fact it makes it worse for everyone. Housing people with the support they need solves homelessness.

Tragically, our society treats housing as a privilege for those who can afford it, not as a basic right for all. Economic hardship is the primary cause of homelessness. Criminally punishing people for being unable to pay high rents is especially cruel, even more so amidst a system where thousands of homes are kept vacant while people sleep on the streets. It would be like charging a poll tax and then criminally prosecuting those who don’t vote because they can’t afford to.  We are better than this. At least I hope we are.

Instead of press releases and tough talk by politicians, we need a state of emergency that allows every person who is unhoused to move into dignified shelter or housing. We need the state of California to support this effort financially. Our Mayor and Board of Supervisors should unite to push for that support from the Governor, especially now that he has weighed in to call for city action.

As we push for the funding for more shelter and affordable housing, San Francisco should also immediately launch an emergency large-scale Street-to-Home program focused on filling vacant units, expanding on the successful pilot that moved homeless people directly into vacant supportive housing rooms last year, following our Resolution demanding such action. This is how we scale up to meet the immediate need. We should immediately fill the 793 vacant supportive housing units and vacant units in other subsidized housing buildings, including public housing, tax credit buildings, and affordable senior housing.[1] In addition, the City should contract with willing private apartment owners to fill units that have been vacant for over six months. These owners will soon be facing a vacancy tax if they don’t fill their units, and should have a new incentive to work with the city.

This approach of filling vacant homes could quickly move people off our streets into homes, rather than pushing people neighborhood to neighborhood, block to block, or into jails. I urge the Administration to change course, scale up housing placements, and work with us to get people into homes. 

Nobody should be forced to sleep outside in our society. Let’s work together on real solutions to homelessness – filling vacant units as outlined above, ramping up street outreach, expanding shelter and housing capacity, connecting people with existing rental subsidies, and preventing homelessness through our tenant right to counsel and rent relief.

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[1] To the extent some of the vacant units need rehab, the City can partner with the Building Trades to put people to work rehabbing the units so they are ready for immediate occupancy.