Dozens of people gathered outside of the Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco on Tuesday morning, to protest Governor Newsom and Mayor London Breed’s recent directives on “aggressive” homeless encampment sweeps.
“SF has already been sweeping three times a day. That hasn't worked either.”
This is Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness.
“We have over 700 supportive housing units sitting vacant, yet our local officials are choosing to arrest and cite people for being homeless instead of offering up those units. We have hundreds of public housing units that are sitting vacant. Yet our local officials are choosing to confiscate people's property, survival gear, medications, the last items they're holding onto after losing everything, instead of offering up the public housing units.”
Advocates say sweeping encampments just makes homelessness worse. Leajay Harper, who used to live at the Wood Street encampment in Oakland, spoke to KALW about her experiences with sweeps.
“It was the police driving down the street at eight o'clock in the morning saying, ‘You got 10 minutes to grab all your belongings. Caltrans is coming, they're coming to take everything away.’ Having friends losing the ashes of their relatives, losing valuable things.”
Leajay says she lost her identification in a sweep last year. And even though she’s been housed since December, she hasn’t been able to replace it.
“Within the social services system, you need an ID to pick up even your food stamp card. You might have services already, but to pick up your food stamp card, you need to have an ID.”
Newsom and Breed's directives are a direct result of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson. The decision allows cities to punish people for camping in public.
John Do is an attorney with the ACLU, he called these decisions deeply troubling.
“You know, the evidence is very clear what solves homelessness, and that is increasing opportunities for affordable housing. And so whether that is developing affordable housing, whether that is filling empty units that are currently available, increasing shelter subsidies, increasing, eviction protections, those are all proven methods of addressing the underlying issue of homelessness rather than just trying to move folks from there to there.”
Advocates are making a number of requests: Including asking the city to take action to fill its empty supportive housing units and invest in more affordable housing.
