Since the Bay Area began sheltering in place in mid-March, San Francisco’s homeless plan has been marked by a struggle to move people out of group shelters and off the streets, where the coronavirus can spread quickly among the homeless, who are at higher risk of illness and death because of age and underlying medical conditions.
The following timeline, starting with the March 16 shelter-in-place order, highlights the progress and pitfalls of the city’s attempts to protect at least 8,000 homeless people across town, which doesn’t include nearly 20,000 more in single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels with communal spaces that make social distancing difficult.
We will update the timeline occasionally, with the latest news at the top. Please email us with feedback or suggestions.
September 9: The California Supreme Court upheld SF’s Prop C, which voters passed in 2018 expecting about $300 million a year for homelessness services and housing. The tax on businesses earning more than $50 million in gross receipts was held up because it didn’t quite reach two-thirds approval that many tax measures must hit. Mayor Breed and some allies had opposed it, and Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff countered with big public push. The money will help the city boost its upcoming $13.6 billion budget.
September: The city opened a sanctioned tent site at 1515 South Van Ness, which, like the site in the Haight, is slated to become affordable housing in a few years.
August 28: The city cancelled plans to put a Navigation Center at 33 Gough St.
August 27: City officials confirmed to The Frisc that the city would not rent more hotel rooms beyond the nearly 2,400 under lease. The mayor’s budget proposal for 2021–2022 is counting on city voters in November to unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for permanent housing for currently homeless people. It remains to be seen if temporary alternatives like tent sites and large shelters could keep people safe as the COVID pandemic stretches on.
August 1: At the start of August, the RV park at Pier 94 had 127 homeless people in residence. Nearly half had attended the first meeting of a drug treatment class offered by Mother Brown’s, a Bayview nonprofit that moved quickly to set up a tent site and food kitchen when COVID hit. “They’re off the street, they want to get off the drugs, and they want to do what’s right for themselves,” Mother Brown’s executive director Gwendolyn Westbrook told The Frisc.
July 21: The mayor’s office announced that it would push ahead with plans to move 4,500 unsheltered people into permanent supportive housing in the next two years, an implicit acknowledgement that there would be no major expansion of the hotels-for-homeless emergency program.
July 16: The city reported a 75% reduction in tents on Tenderloin sidewalks, surpassing the goals set by the settlement of the UC Hastings lawsuit. Many of the tent occupants had moved into the neighborhood’s three sanctioned tent sites or into hotels. (Note: As of August 28, there have been no further updates.)
June 16: The Frisc reported that city officials had quietly begun asking nonprofit services to help the city run the hotels that were being leased to shelter homeless people from COVID infection.
June 11: A batch of 2019 texts from Mayor Breed, ordering the police to clear homeless people from sidewalks, emerged just before Memorial Day but were quickly overshadowed by the murder of George Floyd. The mayor soon announced plans to shift responsibility for many homeless-related calls to health workers and other non-police personnel. The Frisc also put the mayor’s use of police in a broader context: San Francisco’s historic (and often racist) opposition to low-income housing in many neighborhoods has fueled our homelessness crisis.
May 30: As the city prepared to open a sanctioned tent site in the Haight-Ashbury, merchants led by Amoeba Records filed a lawsuit, then quickly backed away after heavy criticism. Tents lined several stretches of sidewalk in the neighborhood, prompting both optimism and skepticism that the tent site would help the situation.
May 26: SF’s Navigation Centers, special homeless shelters that function more like supportive housing, do not worsen crime rates in their surrounding neighborhoods, The Frisc reported. Currently closed because of COVID-19, the centers are a key part of the city’s homelessness strategy, acting as a bridge between street homelessness and housing. More are slated to open, depending on pandemic conditions.
May 22: The Federal Highway Administration revoked approval for a planned Navigation Center in the Bayview because of its location under Highway 280, a decision that could jeopardize other homeless shelters, as well. A spokesman for the mayor told the Chronicle that the city will forge ahead with the Bayview plans.
May 22: The city has leased more than 3,000 hotel rooms for homeless people and frontline workers who need to quarantine. About 1,200 are occupied by homeless and marginally housed people, most of whom have not tested positive for COVID-19.
May 22: The McDonalds site remains empty; flyers around the neighborhood said the “Safe Sleeping Village” will open the week of May 24.
May 20: The Public Press reported that a large percentage of hygiene stations and toilets set up for unhoused people were closed, missing, or lacked essentials.
May 15: With the Civic Center campsite open and staffed with services, the city said it would soon open a second site at the former McDonalds at Haight and Stanyan Streets.
May 6: After UC Hastings law school and others sued over conditions in the Tenderloin, the city unveiled a plan that includes sanctioned camping in Civic Center and sidewalk marks to help with social distancing. Officials said the neighborhood has seen a 285% jump in tents and makeshift shelters since January.
May 3: With sanctioned tent sites slow to materialize, community organizers set up a site for 40 tents in the Bayview that they will provide with food and other services.
April 29: The city earmarked Pier 94 as a site for homeless people from Bayview-Hunters Point to camp in RVs, which have been sitting idle for more than a month.
April 29: The mayor warned that out-of-towners were coming to San Francisco to lay claim to open hotel rooms, feeding into the oft-contested “magnet” theory that the more services a city offers, the more homeless will show up. The city’s most recent count, in 2019, showed that 70% of the city’s homeless were in San Francisco before they lost housing.
April 25: In a Medium post, Mayor Breed wrote that she won’t sign the supervisors’ legislation demanding that the city open more than 8,000 hotel rooms by April 26. She also wrote that 1,536 rooms have been secured for the homeless, and that the city was working to open sanctioned camping sites and deploy 120 RVs and trailers.
April 21: The city’s top homelessness official wouldn’t commit to the sanctioned use of public spaces for pitching tents, despite an increase in camps on sidewalks.
April 14: The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved legislation ordering the city to lease more than 8,000 rooms by April 26, with 7,000 reserved for homeless people, regardless of age or health status.
April 10: Officials reported that 68 residents and 2 staffers at MSC South, the city’s largest shelter, have tested positive for COVID-19. The caseload later topped 100. Officials said MSC South will be converted into a “recovery center” for people convalescing from COVID-19.
April 8: Rhorer said about 2,000 rooms are under contract, with fewer than 180 occupied by homeless people. The city’s new target: lease 7,000 rooms total.
April 6: The city scrapped the Moscone plans after a photo in Street Sheet showing the Moscone hall floor causes an uproar.
April 1: The city’s point man on hotel leasing, Trent Rhorer, said 1,000 rooms are under contract, with 123 occupied, and promised 1,500 more within 48 hours, but said the city doesn’t want to rent too many rooms at once out of “fiscal prudence” and other factors. Rooms remained prioritized for people who have tested positive or needed shelter after COVID-19 treatment.
March 27: The city prepared to open Moscone West to help spread out the shelter population and allow for social distancing.
March 23: The city said it was negotiating leases for thousands of hotel rooms, with priority for homeless people, SRO residents, and frontline workers who need to quarantine because they tested COVID-19 positive or are awaiting test results, and need quarantine. Unhoused people without a positive test (or not tested at all) were expected to stay in congregate shelters. Several supervisors worried about inadequate distancing in shelters and said they want rooms open to all homeless people regardless of COVID status.
March 20: With a second round of tent donations in the Haight-Ashbury, more homeless received equipment to abide by the city’s “one per tent” rule.
March 16: The shelter-in-place order exempted the homeless yet “strongly urges” them to find shelter and for government agencies to help.