Tentless Amid Encampment Crackdown, Unhoused San Franciscans Brace for Storms

Updated 1:45 p.m. Thursday

As storms continue to pummel Northern California, unhoused San Franciscans and their advocates fear the city’s aggressive removal of tents and structures in recent months leaves people especially vulnerable to the elements.

Although officials say they won’t do full sweeps in the storms, the city has already removed 2,465 tents and structures between Aug. 1 and Nov. 17, according to the Department of Emergency Management.

But advocates and residents say that hasn’t necessarily translated into fewer people living on the streets. Instead, people experiencing homelessness have dispersed, moving to less visible corners of the city with fewer belongings.

“Homeless community members are having their survival gear ripped from them, ensuring that those folks are staying wet,” said Lukas Illa, an organizer with the Coalition on Homelessness.

The Healthy Streets Operations Center (HSOC), which coordinates clearing encampments, has conducted more than 240 sweeps since July 1. During the storms, that team will focus on removing “soiled materials” and making sure sidewalks aren’t blocked, said a spokesperson for the Department of Emergency Management.

While that is underway, the city’s Homeless Outreach Team will hand out emergency blankets and ponchos and check unhoused residents for signs of hypothermia, according to a memo the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Services (HSH) distributed to providers this week. The city is also opening four temporary drop-in shelters through Friday.

Christin Evans, vice chair of the city’s Homelessness Oversight Commission, said the response seemed contradictory.

“There are some wet weather protocols in place to try to address people’s safety needs, but you can see the lack of cohesiveness in the city response,” she said, “that one department would be taking away people’s survival gear and the other would be trying to stand up limited emergency options for people to try to stay dry.”

During a sweep on Tuesday, before the storm moved in, Jorge Luis Sanchez, 42, took an outreach worker up on his offer of shelter. He had grown tired of being forced to move and build new shelters every few days.

“The street’s no good,” Sanchez said in Spanish. “It’s really cold, too.”

He took a few belongings from the home made of pallets and tarps he was sharing with a friend before heading to the nearby Division Circle Navigation Center, where he was promised a bed.

However, most of the people outreach workers approached during Tuesday’s sweeps turned down similar offers. One man said his mental health condition made it untenable for him to sleep near others in a group shelter; another said he’d rather brave the weather than follow shelter rules.

David Nakanishi, HSOC manager, said this scenario is becoming increasingly common. As the city has gotten more aggressive in its crackdown on tent encampments, Nakanishi said people with substance use disorders and serious mental health issues are the ones who most often refuse to come inside.

“It’s the people who don’t want to go in who are left back out here,” he said.

Since Aug. 1, police have cited or arrested 417 people for lodging without permission. HSOC teams made 478 shelter placements in that time, while 1,482 offers were declined.

Illa, the Coalition on Homelessness organizer, said those who remain outside also have fewer tarps, jackets and other gear to help them weather the storms, adding that people pushed to the fringes will have a harder time making their way to the city’s storm resources.

The Interfaith Winter Shelter program isn’t set to open until Nov. 25, but the city’s drop-in shelters this week are Next Door, open to walk-ins from 1:30 p.m. to midnight; the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center, which is offering warm meals between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.; MSC-South, open 1 p.m. to midnight; and Sanctuary, open 1:30 p.m. to midnight.