San Francisco city attorney refutes homeless advocates’ claims on encampment sweeps

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco officials are firing back at homeless advocates who claim the city is violating a preliminary injunction that prevents workers from clearing encampments until it has thousands more shelter beds. 

The Coalition on Homelessness and other plaintiffs first sued the city last fall, alleging that San Francisco sweeps encampments to drive out homeless people. It argued that forcing people to move without guaranteeing appropriate shelter violates their constitutional rights. 

Federal Judge Donna Ryu ruled in the nonprofit’s favor in December 2022, blocking the city from clearing homeless encampments. The San Francisco coalition also claimed that city workers are violating its own bag and tag policy of safekeeping belongings it seizes for up to 90 days.

This week city attorney David Chiu filed a brief to clear the record. 

“After a thorough examination, the City found that Plaintiffs’ claims were riddled with falsehoods and irrelevant information that cannot legally support the relief they are seeking,” said Chiu in a press release. 

Chiu told KPIX 5 the city has gone to great lengths to comply with the injunction, and that doing so has hampered the city’s ability to make progress. 

“Here are the facts. San Francisco spends hundreds of millions of dollars every year addressing the plight of homelessness on our streets by paying for affordable housing, for shelter beds, and comprehensive services. We have workers that are reaching out to thousands of unhoused individuals every single year, and this order has made it much more difficult to address the homelessness crisis on our streets,” he said. “It frankly puts San Francisco in an impossible situation.” 

Mayor London Breed on Saturday tweeted that the injunction should be overturned while the city fights the lawsuit in court. 

“Thank you @DavidChiu and your team for continuing to fight this lawsuit. Cities can’t operate this way. San Francisco leads with offers of shelter, but when people refuse to accept these offers, they shouldn’t be allowed to remain on the street,” she tweeted. 

She added that since 2021, outreach teams have engaged with more than 11,000 people on the street. Less than half, nearly 4500, accepted a placement off the street. 

In the last five years, the city has increased the amount of shelter and housing for the homeless by 50%. 

“One of the issues in this lawsuit is what constitutes whether someone is ‘involuntarily homeless.’ We don’t think that if a person refuses shelter or a person has alternative shelter that that should prevent us from being able to address the situation on our streets,” said Chiu. 

The Coalition on Homelessness said city workers are often not offering the appropriate support services and shelter beds. 

“I think the overall point is that the city is going into encampments forcing people to move without having shelter or housing or any other kind of offers of beds to folks, under the threat of criminalization and illegally confiscating people’s property,” said executive director Jennifer Friedenbach. “The overall sentiment of the laws in places are really about…it’s cruel and unusual punishment to criminalize someone when they have no other choice but to be on the streets.” 

Chiu said since the order went into place a half a year ago, homeless advocates have not been able to show a single instance of the city arresting anyone under any of the relevant laws.

Further, he said the Healthy Streets and Operations Center (HSOC) has conducted 233 operations during this time period and placed 957 formerly unhoused persons into shelters, hotels, and other forms of housing. In many instances, Chiu said homeless advocates are unwilling to admit that unhoused people regularly refuse the city’s offers of shelter. 

“For example, one plaintiff has been offered shelter multiple times, including an offer to live in an individual ‘tiny home’ cabin, which is typically considered a preferable shelter placement. But the plaintiff said he would have to check with his lawyers and then eventually refused the shelter space,” he said in a press release. 

Chiu said city workers often encounter dangerous and disturbing situations where law enforcement is needed at encampment operations. 

“We have an incredible crisis of homelessness on our streets, and it is continuing to create significant public health issues, public safety issues for residents in San Francisco, and it’s made it very difficult for us to get help to the people who need help,” said Chiu. 

Regarding the city’s bag and tag policy, he said city workers encounter items “co-mingled or littered with needles, human waste or other health risks,” which presents health and safety risks. In these cases, workers are allowed to throw away the entire pile of belongings. 

“This mayor is doing what other mayors across the country and other mayors in San Francisco have done, and that is shifting blame from their own shoulders onto the backs of homeless people whose backs frankly are already sore from sleeping on the sidewalk,” said Friedenbach. “She’s the mayor of a relatively affluent city, and I would like to see her prioritize investments in solutions we know work.” 

The city is still waiting for a decision on its appeal.