San Francisco Mayor London Breed breaks funding promise for homeless shelter in Tenderloin district

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has pulled the plug on a homeless center in the heart of the city as part of sweeping midyear cutbacks. 

The move isn’t sitting well with homeless advocates and community organizations that have spent years planning the new center where the city’s homeless would be able to get food, a hot shower, connect to social services, and spend the night. 

The city had pledged to fund the Tenderloin Urban Rest and Sleep Center, but Breed, citing cutbacks across the board in anticipation of a steep budget shortfall, has reneged on the promise.  

Breed announced the midcycle budget cuts as her administration attempts to pass its next budget in July. That has translated into hitting the pause button on programs like the homeless center which had been funded in the previous budget but have not yet launched. 

“The reductions leave intact basic city services and priorities so we can continue making progress on hiring police officers, expanding shelter beds, advancing behavioral health initiatives, and cleaning up our streets,” Breed, who is up for reelection, wrote to department heads when announcing the cuts. 

San Francisco has long struggled with homelessness. In the Tenderloin district, it is common to see piles of needles, waste, and human agony on the streets. Plans for the Turk Street center had been modeled after a program in Seattle that the nonprofit group leading the plans for the San Francisco project said was a success. 

“It’s not just about giving them a bed,” Filipino Community Development Corporation founding director Lorenzo Listana told the San Francisco Examiner. 

Listana said the ultimate goal would be to help people experiencing homelessness find stability and eventually permanent housing. The center, which had been in the works since 2019 and secured its financial commitment from the city in 2023, was on track to serve “dozens of people a day” and “help replace some of the services lost when The City closed the Tenderloin Center in late 2022.” The new center would have also operated 24 hours a day and accommodated about 20 people overnight. 

Despite the setback, Listana has vowed to keep moving forward with the project.

“Whatever it takes, we will do it, with or without the city’s support,” Listana told the newspaper. 

Earlier this week, outreach workers fanned out across the city to count the homeless as part of a federally mandated study. While the results of the tally won’t be released for another few months, it could have broad implications for Breed and her reelection campaign. 

In November, she ruffled feathers when she claimed that 65% of San Francisco’s homeless population rejected shelter when it was offered to them by the city’s street outreach team in October. In September, 60% purportedly said no to shelter. Breed’s office received a lot of blowback on the statistics it cited and how it was collected. 

Still, the city has seen some modest movement in decreasing homelessness. 

Two years ago, the city was one of the few in the state to post a decline in its homeless population. The city counted 7,754 homeless people, a 3.5% overall drop from 2019 and a 15% drop in unsheltered homelessness, which means people living on the streets. Breed attributed the drop to her administration’s dedication to getting people off the streets. 

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However, if the numbers show an increase this year, candidates jockeying for her job will almost assuredly ask why San Francisco’s persistent homelessness crisis and drug epidemic have gotten worse under her watch. 

Breed’s office did not respond to an email seeking further comment.