San Francisco, CA
San Francisco mayor orders city to offer bus tickets before housing for homeless – Washington Examiner
San Francisco Mayor London Breed ordered city officials on Thursday to offer homeless people one-way bus tickets out of town before providing other services like housing or shelter.
Breed said the number of homeless people moving to San Francisco from other states and counties has grown from 28% in 2019 to 40% of the total homeless population in 2024.
“We’ve made significant progress in housing many long-time San Franciscans who became homeless,” Breed said in a statement. “But we are seeing an increase in people in our data who are coming from elsewhere. Today’s order will ensure that all our city departments are leveraging our relocation programs to address this growing trend.”
Specifically, the order mandates that all city and contracted staff who engage with individuals experiencing homelessness must offer relocation as the first option. It also requires all first responders to provide information handouts on the city’s relocation services and a contact number. It also establishes a tracking system with publishable data to measure the effectiveness of the city’s various homelessness programs.
“San Francisco will always lead with compassion, but we cannot allow our compassion to be taken advantage of,” Breed wrote in the order. “This directive will ensure that relocation services will be the first response to our homelessness and substance use crises, allowing individuals the choice to reunite with support networks before accessing other city services or facing the consequences of refusing care.”
The mayor’s new executive order marks a shift from how San Francisco currently handles its homeless population.
The change in strategy follows a June 28 Supreme Court ruling that gave city officials more power to crack down on people living on public streets and in parks. San Francisco officials are also ramping up the number of citations and arrests against homeless people who refuse to move indoors.
Breed’s new directive is her latest effort to clean up the streets of San Francisco, reduce crime, and address the overdose crisis. She is in the middle of a tough re-election fight and has taken a much more aggressive approach to the problems.
While the program of busing people out of San Francisco has been on the table for years, it saw a drastic decline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is just a fundamental attempt of the mayor to cover up failings of her administration and rebrand something that had already been made permanent,” said Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who authored legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors earlier this year to expand the city’s flagship relocation assistance program. “It’s very telling that this announcement comes two days after there are videos and reports of people being pushed off the streets, arrested and stripped of belongings, without anywhere to go.”
Safai was referencing a Tuesday report from the San Francisco Chronicle about Ramon Castillo, a 48-year-old homeless man living in the Mission District. A group of San Francisco police officers came by his tent asking if he wanted shelter, and when he refused, they took him into custody.
Castillo was arrested, detained for 20 minutes, given a misdemeanor citation for illegal lodging, and released.
While he sat in the back of the squad car, public works employees came and threw out nearly all of his belongings.
Castillo’s arrest and trashing of his belongings came two weeks after Breed, a Democrat, announced the city would launch a “very aggressive” crackdown on homeless encampments. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, issued an executive order on July 25 that gave local authorities the green light to start sweeping encampments.
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Homeless advocates and other critics have slammed sweeps, arguing they are ineffective.
One day after Castillo was arrested and his belongings were thrown away, three new tents lined the same block.
After Sunday’s 3-0 loss to the Washington Nationals, the San Francisco Giants headed back to the West Coast. They’re going back to the Bay Area, too.
The Giants have a date with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game series at Oracle Park starting Tuesday night.
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So, San Francisco probably wanted to get out of Washington, D.C., with a win. That didn’t happen at Nationals Park on Sunday afternoon.
Nationals reliever Andrew Alvarez, the third pitcher used by the team on Sunday, picked up the victory with 4 1/3 innings of work. Giants starter Robbie Ray absorbed the loss, falling to 2-3 this season.
Ray worked six innings, giving up seven hits, three runs (all earned), walking one, and striking out seven Nationals. If the Giants’ offense had found a way to tack on some runs, then Ray’s outing wouldn’t have looked so bad.
The Giants’ bats, though, had eight hits. The big number for Giants manager Tony Vitello to look at in the box score after this one was, well, pretty big. San Francisco left 10 runners on base on Sunday, going 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position. This indicates that San Francisco had plenty of opportunities to score some runs.
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They just didn’t get the job done.
Let’s go to the bottom of the fifth with the Giants and Nationals in a scoreless tie. With nobody out, the Nationals’ Keibert Ruiz connected for his third double this season. Nasim Nuñez scored to put Washington up 1-0.
With one out, Curtis Mead sent a Ray pitch over the left-field wall, a two-run blast that gave the Nationals a 3-0 lead.
San Francisco had a scoring threat in the top of the eighth inning. With runners at first and second base and nobody out, Casey Schmitt grounded into a double play. Matt Chapman, who was on second base, went to third. But the Giants were unable to bring him home.
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Rafael Devers and Drew Gilbert went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Giants, producing half of the Giants’ hits.
The Giants fall to 9-13 this season, sitting in fourth place in the National League West Division. The Nationals’ record goes to 10-12, good enough for third place in the National League East Division.
All eyes now turn toward Oracle on Tuesday night. It’ll be a chance for two longtime rivals to renew their rivalry.
Baseball fans know that the Giants-Dodgers matchups usually are must-see TV.
That’s probably going to be the case once again as Giants fans watch their team battle the Dodgers. Those lucky to have tickets to the three-game series at Oracle Park will show up in Giants colors, hoping to see Los Angeles head back to Southern California with either a series loss or a Giants’ sweep.
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Buckle up, Giants fans. It’s about to get rowdy at Oracle Park.
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The 4,140-sq-km bay is the largest estuary on the west coast of the US. Before 2018, this species of whales wasn’t known to stop seasonally or consistently in the bay, bypassing it on their migration route down to Baja California and back up the Arctic, said Josephine Slaathaug, who led a recent study on gray whale mortality in the bay.
One of San Francisco’s busiest freeways remained shut down Saturday, creating major traffic delays and dampening business for some local restaurants and shops.
All eastbound lanes of Interstate 80 just before the Bay Bridge are closed as crews work around the clock to rehabilitate the roadway. The 55-hour shutdown, which began on Friday night, is scheduled to last until Monday morning in time for the commute.
The closure has forced drivers onto detour routes, leading to heavy congestion for those trying to reach the East Bay, including Oakland and Berkeley.
The impact is being felt beyond the roadways.
At MoMo’s, a restaurant across from Oracle Park, staff found business noticeably slower.
“A little bit more mellow than usual. We usually see a little bit more foot traffic, a little bit more people on Saturdays,” said Daniel Bermudez, executive chef at MoMo’s.
Bermudez believes the freeway closure may be discouraging visitors from coming into the city this weekend, despite favorable weather.
“The weather is beautiful today. It’s nice and sunny. So we have plenty of tables outside,” he said.
With the San Francisco Giants playing an away game, the restaurant had hoped fans would still gather to watch, but turnout during game time remained light.
“This is kind of like our off-season Saturday. A lot slower than our baseball weekend,” said Casandra Alarcon, general manager at MoMo’s.
Other small businesses in the Mission Bay and South of Market neighborhoods reported similar trends, saying most of their customers are regulars who live nearby rather than visitors.
“A little bit slower for sure. Before, we had tourists come and walk to the baseball park,” said Ajaree Safron, manager at Brickhouse Cafe & Bar.
Caltrans has shut down eastbound lanes between 17th and 4th streets to repave the 71-year-old roadway. The goal is to extend the life of the Bayshore Freeway by another decade.
City and transportation officials said the timing of the closure was intentional, noting fewer major events scheduled in San Francisco this weekend, aside from the Cherry Blossom Festival.
Westbound lanes remain open, and officials said traffic heading into San Francisco from the East Bay has not been significantly affected.
“Getting into the city, it wasn’t too bad. Regular [traffic], what we expect on a Saturday morning,” said visitor Andrea Inouye.
While the closure has posed challenges for businesses, some workers said they are taking it in stride.
“Hopefully, it’s not for too long and we get past it, and get back to our normal routine,” Bermudez said.
Despite early concerns about widespread gridlock, transportation officials said the region has avoided the worst-case scenario. Traffic remains heavy in areas near detours, but the anticipated “carmageddon” has not materialized, in part because many drivers chose to avoid the area or take public transit.
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