OCTOBER 1, 2023 (48hills.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mayor London Breed has announced that the city plans to resume enforcing laws governing homelessness in San Francisco in the latest development in a lawsuit against San Francisco for how it conducts operations on street homeless encampments<\/a>, <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a Medium post<\/a> on September 25, Mayor Breed said that a district court order from last December has prevented the city from enforcing several of its homelessness ordinances\u2014while allowing street cleaning and clearing blocked sidewalks\u2014but lawyers for the Coalition on Homelessness and seven unhoused plaintiffs dispute that assertion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe only limitations the city has faced since a federal court injunction was issued last December are against displacing and punishing homeless individuals just because they have nowhere else to go,\u201d said John Do, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. \u201cSan Francisco has always been free to enforce any other criminal laws, or to address homeless encampments because of any genuine health and safety concern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu\u2019s December\u00a0court order<\/a>\u00a0cites\u00a0Martin v Boise,<\/a><\/em>\u00a0a landmark federal case that prohibits citing or arresting people sleeping outdoors if no shelter is made available to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city claims it offered encampment residents shelter when it cleared camps, but that homeless people frequently declined those offers. However, the court rejected this argument and noted that it had no basis in the record before the court. The city was unable to provide any evidence that it offered shelter prior to citing or arresting unhoused individuals at least 3,000 times for homelessness-related offenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, plaintiffs have noted that the city only tracks the number of shelter placement in encampment operations, and routinely categorizes all those for whom they have no shelter beds available as refusing shelter, whether they have refused shelter or not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These statements stem from the sides\u2019 dueling interpretations<\/a> of a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month on what constitutes \u201cinvoluntary homelessness.\u201d The circuit court denied a motion<\/a> to modify the injunction without prejudice. Despite losing on the motion, City Attorney David Chiu declared victory when the coalition\u2019s legal counsel concurred that anyone who can access or has means to obtain shelter doesn\u2019t fit the definition of \u201cinvoluntarily homeless.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mayor Breed\u2019s statement echoed Chiu\u2019s earlier remarks on this supposed clarification of when an unhoused person declines a specific offer of shelter placement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n As of press time, the 9th Circuit has not published<\/a> any authorization for the city to continue enforcing bans against sitting, sleeping or lying down on its public rights of way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The coalition\u2019s lawyers maintain that as long as unhoused people lack an opportunity to have a roof over their heads, ticketing and jailing them amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, and that confiscating their possessions in sweeps is illegal search and seizure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The city\u2019s recently reactivated waitlist<\/a> for shelter reservations has about 400 people on it, even as the city\u2019s unsheltered population is above 4,000, according to its estimates from 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zal Shroff, the plaintiffs\u2019 lead attorney, said that this demand for shelter flies in the face of the city\u2019s claims of widespread refusal of its services. \u201cHundreds of people are on a new, growing waitlist for shelter beds right now, with thousands more lacking appropriate options for shelter or housing,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the city has nonetheless closed its same-day lines for shelter, where hundreds of individuals were turned away each day because of the city\u2019s dearth of available shelter options. The idea that unhoused people are refusing shelter in large numbers is completely unfounded and contradicts the evidence submitted to the court that underpins the injunction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In another legal action with potential impact on San Francisco, Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a \u201cfriend of the court\u201d brief<\/a> to the Supreme Court on September 22 asking the court to review a similar 9th Circuit decision on a case in Grants Pass, Oregon<\/a>. The former mayor criticized the ruling on this case and in Boise, Idaho<\/a> as leaving cities \u201cparalyzed\u201d in enforcing homelessness ordinances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In those cases, the 9th Circuit determined that the government cannot arrest poor people for sitting, sleeping or lying down in public when there is no real alternative. Three days later, San Diego, Seattle and Honolulu, as well as other cities and conservative organizations, filed a separate brief<\/a> to the nation\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the parties don\u2019t reach a settlement, a trial date is set for 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article was originally published in Street Sheet, a publication of the Coalition on Homelessness, one of the parties in the lawsuit. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Homeless people still have no path to shelter as mayor moves to evict them and take their possessions. By TJ JOHNSTON OCTOBER 1, 2023 (48hills.org) Mayor London Breed has announced that the city plans to resume enforcing laws governing homelessness in San Francisco in the latest development in a lawsuit against… Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-1024x744.png\")
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