Inside San Francisco's Election Season Crackdown on Homeless People

With elections less than 100 days away and voter ire about homelessness at a fever pitch, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have unleashed “very aggressive” sweeps of homeless settlements across San Francisco—despite widespread evidence that the so-called “encampment resolutions” cause extensive harm and do not lead to shelter or housing for homeless people.

At 11:00 am on Monday July 29, a Haight District resident witnessed Department of Public Works trucks on Hayes Street “piled high with belongings,” preparing to roust a homeless settlement. The witness, who requested anonymity, said they “tried to warn another camper one block away but no one was ‘home’ in the tent,” which DPW teams soon removed and discarded in trash trucks.

“This event will surely break him,” the resident told us via Facebook messages. “He has been among us for one month trying to keep it together.” Just two weeks earlier, “he left his tent overnight to visit a friend. The friend overdosed and died… After all he’d been through, he was trying to keep the sidewalk clean and tidy.”

The resident explained, “Neighbors on my block of Hayes and Clayton have been trying to help stabilize these folks get to a better place. It speaks volumes that they are camped literally in front of our homes and multi-unit buildings and that most of us are NOT calling the cops or 311 but rolling up our sleeves…Today’s raid was cruel and pointless and a group of about 35 human beings just “followed orders.”

“Pushing people block to block and neighborhood to neighborhood does not solve homelessness.”

In another “encampment resolution” this week, advocates witnessed a homeless woman being removed from a spot on Division Street under a freeway overpass. She had moved her carts with belongings and bedding outside the announced sweep zone, but DPW “followed her outside the sweep zone” and began seizing her belongings, according to Lukas Illa, human rights organizer with the Coalition on Homelessness, who witnessed the encounter.

“DPW workers seized her cart and mattresses,” Illa told us. “She was crying, saying, ‘This is the only thing protecting me from the concrete, please…’ But they removed her mattress and took it away.”

Illa added: “I’ve watched a woman jump into a [trash] crusher to get her purse, and their phone fell out. People have 30 minutes to pack up their entire lives. If they can’t pack it up, they have to watch things like personal memorabilia, family photo albums, medications, get crushed and destroyed.”

The ramped-up sweeps, ordered by Newsom and Breed after the Supreme Court’s June 28 Grants Pass decision, brought condemnation from national homeless advocacy groups. The National Health Care for the Homeless Council said it is “appalled” by Newsom’s executive order, which “authorizes statewide encampment sweeps of unhoused people while making no requirements for connecting people to permanent housing. Thousands of low-income Californians are now subject to even greater rates of harassment, arrests, and fines—simply because they have nowhere else to go.”

The human effects of the sweeps are extensive and well-documented, the council has found.

A 2023 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, “Involuntary displacement of people experiencing homelessness may substantially increase drug-related morbidity and mortality” by removing people from both their communities and outreach workers. Using simulated models of 23 U.S. cities and data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers estimated “between 974 and 2,175 additional overdose deaths per 10,000 people experiencing homelessness” over a 10-year period.

Another study in 2023 found that sweeps “always resulted in the loss of the personal property,” and “occurred across seasons, hazardous weather, and without offers of alternative shelter.” In interviews and surveys, sweeps were noted to be physically, psychologically, and socially destructive,” leaving homeless people “feeling anger, loss, and hopelessness,” and further marginalization. Coalition Director Jennifer Friedenbach told us via email, “Sweeps are killing people and sweeps exacerbate homelessness. We need effective solutions such as filling the almost 800 vacant permanent housing units and rental assistance to keep San Franciscans in their homes.”

The reality, according to Friedenbach: “Previous evictions of people living in encampments have failed to reduce the number of people forced to sleep outside in our state nor in our city. Displacing, destabilizing, and dispossessing people without real offers of permanent housing makes homelessness worse.”

Despite the concerns, the city’s Healthy Streets Operation Center, which coordinates San Francisco’s homelessness initiatives, “plans to clear almost 100 tents and structures” this week, Mission Localreported.

According to SFPD Public Information Officer Robert Rueca, the sweeps have resulted in nine arrests since July 29, including some on warrants and for “illegal lodging.” So far, “No one has been booked into county jail just for illegal lodging,” Rueca told us via email. “A subject with the sole charge of illegal lodging is cited and released from the scene, which is still technically an arrest.” In the four months since April of this year, SFPD encampment sweeps have led to 162 arrests, according to Rueca.

The San Francisco Chronicledocumented one such arrest, when police detained and cited 48-year-old Ramon Castillo and “discarded most of his belongings.”

A photo is shown from a November 14, 2022 action at city hall by Stolen Belonging and the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness. (Photo: Steve Rhodes)

It’s unclear exactly how much city funding and staff are being devoted to the sweeps. According to Department of Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon, “On a typical day we have 14 to 16 people focused on encampment cleaning operations.” In a text, Gordon added, “Our crews work very hard every day to clean the City’s streets and public spaces… As a department, we are part of the city’s ongoing multi-faceted encampment-response operation that includes offers of shelter and services.”

Even while promoting stepped-up sweeps, the Mayor’s Office insisted in a statement this week, “San Francisco is already doing what the governor is calling for. Our city encampment teams and street outreach staff have been going out every day to bring people indoors, and to clean and clear encampments. This is why we are seeing a five year low in the city’s tent count on our streets.”

Breed has simultaneously claimed that high percentages of homeless people refuse shelter and that “nearly 500 encampment operations” in 2023 helped more than 1,500 people into shelter. Advocates dispute these claims, pointing to city Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing data showing long daily waiting lists for shelter beds.

While HSOC claims there are 300 shelter beds available for homeless people displaced by the sweeps, Friedenbach told us that’s misleading. “Every day, beds in the system turn over and every day they are filled. But many are set aside for different groups,” and are not actually available for people removed from their encampments.

Illa noted that even when city HOT team or other outreach workers may offer shelter beds, they “do not have access to the city shelter beds list, they do not even know what’s available. They’re offering things that do not exist.” Even for those who do refuse a shelter offer, “There are a million reasons why people don’t want to separate from their dog or their partner or give up their belongings for one or two nights in a shelter.”

According to Friedenbach, “We have hundreds of public housing units sitting vacant, yet our local officials are choosing to confiscate people’s property, their survival gear, their medications, their last items they are holding onto after losing everything; instead, why not offer them a place to live?”

Prior to the ramped-up sweeps, Mayor Breed cut funding and staffing for The City’s Homeless Outreach Team services, The SF Standardreported. While some funds were moved to the nonprofit Urban Alchemy’s “HEART” project, advocates insist city HOT Team workers “are more qualified… to move people into shelter and housing.” The Standard wrote: “Additionally, the advocates allege that HEART’s data paint a questionable picture about its effectiveness.”

Two mayoral candidates blasted the sweeps.

Board of supervisors president Aaron Peskin stated, “Policies to address homelessness must be humane, lawful and effective—not implemented just because someone’s job is on the line.” Peskin’s statement added, “In an effort to get reelected, Mayor Breed and former Mayor Mark Farrell are advocating for failed policies from the past that simply sweep our homeless problem from one neighborhood to another, without any long-term solutions.” Peskin advocated policies “to fight evictions, increase the amount of rent-controlled options, construct at least 2,000 shelter beds, and create affordable housing. We also need to establish supportive housing units that are equipped to handle mental and behavioral health issues.”

Candidate Daniel Lurie also criticized Mayor Breed for the sweeps, posting on X: “Mayor Breed has had six years to build the beds and clear encampments. Instead, she spent it making excuses and finally, in an election year, this is what she came up with? A rushed sweep with no real solution to actually keep people off the streets. Our city needs leadership that chases results, not headlines. Pushing the encampments from one block to another didn’t work when Mark Farrell tried it as temporary mayor, and it’s not working now. We must build the shelter beds, create paths to services, and expand Homeward Bound.”

Supervisor Dean Preston also strongly criticized the sweeps for undermining solutions to homelessness: “None of us are okay with a system where people are sleeping on our streets or in their cars. The Grants Pass decision, and now the governor and Mayor’s reaction to it, will make the situation worse. Pushing people block to block and neighborhood to neighborhood does not solve homelessness. In fact it makes it worse for everyone. Housing people with the support they need solves homelessness.”