Settlement Gives San Francisco 5 Weeks to Clear Most Homeless Tents From Tenderloin Sidewalks

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- It is the epicenter of San Francisco's homelessness crisis and a situation that has become notorious around the world. Now, there is a legal deadline for the city to get people off Tenderloin District sidewalks where the number of tents has exploded in the past year and a half.

The coronavirus has only made that situation more dire. Living with what they call "nightmare" conditions, UC Hastings and a handful of Tenderloin residents sued the city of San Francisco in early May. A settlement announced Friday requires the city to take action.

"People that I talk to in the Tenderloin who work here, who live here, are just joyful," said Randy Shaw, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. "They are gleeful. They never thought they would see this day and so they're looking for a brighter future."

Long frustrated by the crisis on these streets, Shaw is bullish about the settlement. It requires 70 percent of the tents in the neighborhood be removed by July 20. The 30 percent remaining must eventually be removed as well.

"It shouldn't take a lawsuit for the city to do its job," said District 6 supervisor Matt Haney. "If this means that we get some more urgency and people get off the streets and we address the unconscionable situation in the Tenderloin right now, I think it could be a good thing."

Haney has mixed feelings. He's worried that only 30 percent of those on the street are eligible for hotel rooms now held by the city.

"They're still relying on the same criteria for who gets to come inside, which is: you have to be over 60 years old or have an underlying medical condition," Haney explained. "That leaves out thousands of people."

"Our primary frustration with the Tenderloin plan is it was developed without any collaboration with the unhoused community themselves," said Jennifer Friedenbach, head of the Coalition on Homelessness.

The coalition has been calling for hotel rooms. They are not satisfied with a plan to move the remaining homeless into more safe-sleeping sites like the one now outside the main library.

"What needs to be done is we need to make sure that the entire unhoused community can move off of the street and have an opportunity to shelter in place like the rest of San Franciscans," Friedenbach said.

The job of placing the eligible into hotel rooms started Thursday but there are reports that some are reluctant to accept the offer. That will present another challenge for the city now that a deadline is looming.

For those who reject shelter, Shaw said: "If you do not want housing and you do not want to move into one of the shelter areas they are creating and you say 'no, I just wanna risk the health and safety of the Tenderloin residents by living on the sidewalk,' you can't do that. It's against the law and it's not acceptable anywhere else in San Francisco."

There are more than 400 tents along sidewalks in this neighborhood. In just over a month, some 300 of them must be gone. How likely is that to happen?

"I think there's some chance that they make this announcement, that they're going to hit those goals and -- because they haven't broadened the criteria and they haven't secured enough hotel rooms, because they haven't filled the empty ones -- that they fall far short," Haney warned.

"I am 100 percent confident," Shaw said. "Because the economic and legal consequences to not do so would be severe. I don't have any doubt that that goal is going to be met."

The deadline for 70 percent of tents to be gone is July 20. Outreach teams continue to work their way through the list of those who meet the criteria for a hotel room and the city is working to identify the next safe-sleeping sites.