SF Leaders Working To Make Homelessness Invisible To APEC Attendees
San Francisco is facing a tricky situation as it prepares to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, the city’s biggest international event since 1945. On one hand, they’re rolling out the red carpet for foreign leaders, CEOs, and a horde of journalists. On the other, they’re dealing with a homelessness crisis that the city has been neglecting despite having a budget to fix it that has ballooned over one billion dollars.
You see, they can’t just kick homeless folks out without offering them a decent alternative. So, they’re getting creative. They didn’t have the budget to create special shelters just for APEC, but they’re opening up a 30-spot nighttime shelter near the summit venue. They’re also expanding existing shelters, adding around 300 beds over the next year, though they’re not sure how many will be available during APEC.
The city wants to make sure the areas around APEC are as homeless-camp-free as possible to impress the bigwigs and not reinforce the negative image of their tent-filled streets and drug problems. Mayor London Breed has a lot riding on this, as she’s up for reelection soon. If polls are to be believed, she’s probably going to lose.
City officials are doing what they can to connect homeless people with services, shelter, and housing. They’re sending out teams for “dedicated outreach interventions” around the conference.
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In practice, you can see the city’s approach when you look at places like Harrison and 13th streets. They used to be home to a sprawling tent city back in 2016 when the city hosted Super Bowl 50. This time around, city crews showed up early in the morning to help people living in tents there get into shelters. Not everyone is thrilled with the shelter option, though. Some, like James Greene, have had bad experiences in crowded shelters and prefer not to stay in them. He’s been in and out of prison, and he knows the drill. But the city’s hands are somewhat tied by that federal injunction. They can’t just clear out encampments without offering shelter and can’t enforce certain anti-camping laws.
However, there’s been a recent ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that’s given the city a bit more leeway. They’re allowed to enforce anti-camping laws against people who’ve declined shelter offers or have access to shelter. Still, during APEC, the police won’t be doing sweeps, and they’ll focus on helping rather than criminalizing homelessness.
But not everyone is happy with how this is playing out. Jennifer Friedenbach, from the Coalition on Homelessness, thinks the city is discriminating against homeless people during APEC. She believes the city should’ve provided hotel stays like they did at the beginning of the pandemic. The city, however, is doing its best with the shelter spaces they have, including some hotel rooms. James Greene, the guy who initially didn’t want to go to a shelter, ended up accepting placement in a hotel room as the city cleared his encampment. He was happy about it, even though he had to leave some of his stuff behind. The city van drove him and his girlfriend’s dog away to the hotel, and for him, that was a step in the right direction.
The truth of the matter is San Francisco has consistently dropped the ball on providing permanent housing. Drug addiction is a severe problem, and those suffering from drug addiction should have the option to receive services, but stable housing is foundation in creating an environment conducive to recovery. The City and County of San Francisco was recently instructed by the state of California to produce over 80,000 new housing units by the end of this decade.
The city is building roughly 8 per month. At that rate, San Francisco will have built less than 1,000 housing units by 2023: 960 to be exact.
Just a bit behind target.
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