Apparently peeing outdoors is not everyone's cup of tea.

A religious group and several local residents have sued the City and County of San Francisco over the new outdoor urinal in Mission Dolores Park, calling it a “shameful” invasion of privacy and decency.

The San Francisco Chinese Christian Union, along with several neighbors of the park, filed a 25-page civil lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court on Thursday alleging gender and disability discrimination, as well as violations of health and sanitation codes.

The urinal, which city officials call the “pissoir,” opened in January as the city's latest measure to combat public urination. It was part of a major park renovation that included new irrigation systems, playgrounds and restrooms.

The open-air urinal, next to a Muni streetcar stop, consists of a concrete slab with a drain and a circular fence that offers limited privacy. It is located near the southwest corner of the park, affectionately known as the “gay beach.”

The San Francisco Chinese Christian Union, described in the suit as a religious nonprofit organization that includes 15 churches, and other plaintiffs said in their suit that the “sewage hole” forces unsuspecting parkgoers to see strangers' genitals in a public park. It also discriminates against people who need to pee but don't want to do so outdoors, the suit says.

“The outdoor urination hole violates the privacy of those who need to use the restroom but must expose their bodies and endure the shame and humiliation of urinating in public,” the lawsuit states. “Seclusion when defecating is a societal norm and represents one of the most basic expectations of privacy.”

The urinal is also unfair to women, the lawsuit says.

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“The hole provided for outdoor urination is particularly egregious for women and girls,” the lawsuit states. Using this facility would subject women to “extreme embarrassment not experienced by men or boys who merely unzip their pants and pee all over the place.” [sic] when urinating.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative legal group that is pushing to overturn a state law that requires public schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms and play on sports teams of the gender with which they identify.

“If San Francisco wants to be truly progressive, it needs to have public parks that are accessible to everyone, not just certain groups,” Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said in an interview. “The city is not above the law. They put the urinal in a place where people will see it, whether they want it or not.”

The office of San Francisco City Attorney Dennis J. Herrera issued a cheeky statement in response to the lawsuit on Friday, titled “Isn't That a Urinal?!”, saying Dolores Park is “famous for its counterculture, rampant sunbathing, hash brownies, 'Hunky Jesus' and more.”

“If I had to predict the 100 things in Dolores Park that would likely most offend these plaintiffs, I would not have guessed this would be among them,” Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for Herrera, said in the statement.

The residents of the neighborhood had campaigned for the urinal, the statement said.

The prosecution pointed out in its statement that the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified the Pacific Justice Institute as an anti-LGBT hate group.

Dacus rejected the designation, saying it came from a “very far-left extremist organization” and said the city was “desperately trying to distract from the real issues” in the lawsuit.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Follow me at @haileybranson / Google+

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San Francisco's exasperated mayor said the time for compassion is over as she announced plans to tackle the city's homelessness crisis that has residents fearful for their safety.

Mayor London Breed announced that the city will take a “very aggressive” approach to removing the encampments from the streets that have blighted the City by the Bay for the past four years.

In certain parts of the city, including the troubled Tenderloin district, there is now so much misery and neglect that local businesses can no longer find staff and residents are forced to flee.

The increase in the number of homeless people, which currently stands at around 8,300, has brought with it a host of other related problems: the sidewalks are full of illegal drug dealers, fentanyl users, and violent and intimidating behavior is common near the tent camps.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the time for compassion is over when it comes to dealing with the city's homeless crisis, which has led to streets being littered with feces. Homeless people are considered part of the city's struggle with fentanyl problems in San Francisco.

“We have had to evolve from a compassionate city to a responsible city, and I have led the effort to ensure that we approach this issue differently than we have in the past,” Breed said Thursday in a shift in course on the issue.

“We will be very aggressive and forceful in moving the camps, which may even result in criminal consequences,” she said. The “clean-ups” are expected to begin in less than two weeks, once staff have been trained according to the new legal guidelines.

Her comments come just three weeks after the Supreme Court gave cities the authority to evict homeless people from encampments.

“Building more housing won't solve the problem,” Breed said. “Thank God for the Supreme Court decision.”

In December 2022, a federal judge banned the city of San Francisco from clearing homeless tents, even though clearing encampments was not prohibited.

The judge ruled that city officials could no longer evict homeless people from public campsites unless they were offered adequate indoor accommodation.

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The city will take a more “aggressive” approach to removing tents and homeless encampments from the streets. San Francisco plans to clear several known homeless encampments starting in August.

Officers were also prohibited from issuing summonses or arresting people who refused to leave their seats.

But the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling gives the city more power to help with the clearing. Authorities plan to offer shelter and support to those affected.

The case was the most significant to be heard on this issue before the Supreme Court in decades, and came at a time when cities across the country are wrestling with the politically complicated question of how to deal with rising numbers of homeless people and community frustration over related health and safety issues.

“We will continue to lead the way with our services, but we cannot continue to allow people to do whatever they want on the streets of San Francisco, especially when we have a place for them to go,” Breed said.

Conditions have become so bad that residents are afraid to leave their homes and local businesses can no longer hire staff. The area in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco was considered the largest open-air drug market in the entire city.

In San Francisco, homeowners, businesses and local politicians are frustrated by the visible signs of homelessness, which include public streets blocked by tents and trash.

The crime-ridden downtown has seen many stores and restaurants close since the city's drastic decline, although Breed has tried to inflate the statistics, claiming crime rates have dropped in 2023.

In October 2023, it was reported that seven Starbucks stores plan to close as the city continues to struggle with crime, drug use, and homelessness.

In late August 2023, a video was released showing the recently closed Nordstrom flagship store in San Francisco, which was nearly empty after nearly three decades in business.

Homeless people gather downtown, pushing their belongings into shopping carts or sitting on duffel bags, waiting for city services such as shelter, food or clothing, or treatment for mental health and substance abuse problems.

Homeless people gather downtown, pushing their belongings into shopping carts or sitting on duffel bags. Pictured is a homeless person on the sidewalk. City workers clean the streets and remove tents and belongings belonging to homeless people.

Breed says she hopes to exonerate them all, but did not provide specific details on how she plans to achieve that goal. She will likely need the assistance of the police to do so.

The city calculates its homeless numbers every three months, and at the end of the last count in April 2024, a 41 percent decrease was seen compared to July 2023.

In April, 360 tents and structures were counted – a decrease from 610 last summer and 385 in the February count.

This is the lowest value the city has recorded since data collection began in 2018.

Breed said this decline is due to a number of factors, not least police enforcement of laws against camping, even though homeless people have adequate access to emergency shelters.

The city calculates the city's homeless numbers every three months and at the end of the last count in April, a 41 percent decrease was found compared to July 2023. Homeless are considered the city's struggle with fentanyl problems in San Francisco earlier this year. Sidewalks are cleaned in San Francisco's homelessness-plagued Tenderloin neighborhood

A September 2022 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said cities (generally) violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment when they punish homeless people for sleeping on public property or using blankets and pillows to protect themselves from the elements.

But earlier this month, a 9th Circuit panel ordered the injunction blocking the camps' evacuation to be lifted.

City employees must continue to bag and label property collected from homeless people.

This November, Breed faces a tough re-election battle as she faces three serious challengers who accuse her administration of failing to address the problems of homelessness, encampments and the open drug market.

With rising rents and a nationwide shortage of affordable housing, more than 100,000 people in California live on the streets.

Police are allowed to enforce laws against camping if homeless people have reasonable access to shelters. A San Francisco Police Department vehicle drives through a homeless camp being cleared in San Francisco. San Francisco is suffering from rising crime, an emptying downtown area, and residents moving to safer, cheaper areas.

Hawaii, Oregon and Arizona are among other Western states where more homeless people live outside in cars and tents than in shelters, despite billions being spent to reduce homelessness – including San Francisco's annual budget of $672 million.

The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is $3,000.

Advocates say many homeless people would rather stay outdoors than in shelters, where they face the risk of abuse or threats of violence.

Homeless people who have pets, work night shifts, need mental health care, or suffer from substance abuse have a difficult time finding shelter.

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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) – On Saturday night, skaters raced at high speed down Church Street in San Francisco – next to Dolores Park.

They call it the “hill bomb” and it happens every year, but the San Francisco Police have tried to prevent it.

They set up barricades on several blocks of Dolores Street, but the skaters simply went down another street.

“I guess the police aren't as interested in this one as they were in Dolores,” said Amire Lofton, who attended. “Four skaters, they all said Church Street and they all just came here.”

RELATED: 'You could get arrested': SFPD warns skaters planning to attend Dolores Park Hill bomb blast

The police were on the mountain but did not intervene. They even blocked the road for the skaters.

Last year, San Francisco police attempted to prevent the Hill Bomb and a confrontation broke out between them and the skaters. Over 100 people were arrested for throwing objects at police and damaging a MUNI train.

Police Chief Bill Scott said this week he would not tolerate violence.

Many skaters feel the city should have worked with them to keep the event going while ensuring safety.

“The city was not warned about this event without adequate warning,” said Aaron Breetwor, a skateboard activist from San Francisco. “I was in contact with them a year ago trying to get them to make the event safer, even though there was no official organizer, and they had nothing planned other than this.”

RELATED TOPICS: What will happen at this year's Dolores Park Hill bombing? SFPD advises not to go

Breetwor claims skateboards are listed as a non-motorized, user-powered vehicle in the city's traffic code. He plans to continue talking with the city.

However, residents of the park were happy to see the police.

“It's about public safety. It's not about the kids not having fun,” said Chuck Louden, who lives near the park. “I'm glad to see them here today. We can work together to find a place that works for everyone, but this is about safety.”

We have reached out to the San Francisco Police Department to ask why they did not intervene in the bombing on the hill and are now waiting for a response.

Copyright © 2024 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

The post San Francisco’s Dolores Park Hill Bomb strikes over to Church Avenue after police barricade authentic location to skaters appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Giant panda “Yu Ke” eats bamboo at the Chongqing Zoo in Chongqing, China on April 6, 2024. (Photo by Li Hongbo/VCG via Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Two giant pandas will arrive in San Francisco by 2025, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by the mayor and the China Wildlife Conservation Association. But preparing a habitat worthy of a panda is a costly undertaking.

The cute animals, which are considered national treasures in China, will live at the San Francisco Zoo. Mayor London Breed spoke strongly in favor of pandas during the APEC summit in November and during her recent visit to China.

A baby panda climbs a tree at the Chongqing Zoo in southwest China on May 26, 2024. (Photo by CFOTO/ Future Publishing via Getty Images)

To raise enough funds in time for the 2025 goal, the mayor's office asked the Board of Supervisors' Committee on Government Audit and Oversight for an ethics waiver to allow city departments to solicit $25 million in donations from private charities.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the mayor's exemption on Thursday. Final approval is still required when the full Board of Supervisors votes on the resolution at its meeting next week.

Giant pandas eat bamboo at the Chongqing Zoo in Chongqing, China, May 2, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Mayor's office officials said: “The city's ordinance on fiat payments limits the ability of city officials and employees to solicit funds from philanthropists and other private entities. The ordinance provides a temporary exception for departments that may only raise funds through private donations to bring pandas to San Francisco.”

The donations will benefit the zoo, which is owned by the city and county of San Francisco and operated by the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society. Part of the $25 million will be used to “build or renovate a panda enclosure that promotes a safe and thriving environment, as well as for staff capacity development,” the mayor's office wrote.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed (Photo by LOREN ELLIOTT / AFP via Getty Images)

Breed, SFZS and the China Wildlife Conservation Association signed a memorandum of understanding in April outlining San Francisco’s panda plan:

• Implement international cooperation to protect giant pandas.
• The CWCA will support the SFZS in preparations for the construction of the giant panda facility, food supply, technical know-how and staffing.
• After the conditions for cooperation are met, China will send a pair of giant pandas to the San Francisco Zoo.
• Both sides want to officially sign an agreement “as soon as possible” “to ensure that a pair of giant pandas will be sent to the San Francisco Zoological Society & Gardens in 2025,” the letter of intent states.

Breed previously said, “The agreement to welcome giant pandas to San Francisco was just a first step for us. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to raise the necessary funds and build the enclosure at our zoo that will serve as their home and delight residents and visitors. I am confident we will receive strong philanthropic support from the community, which enthusiastically supports San Francisco and our new panda friends.”

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The city has not yet announced exactly when the new parking restrictions will go into effect, but new signs have already been put up reducing parking times. Residents living in RVs in the area received a flier stating that “enforcement of the four-hour parking time limit will begin soon.”

“We can't pay the rent,” Leticia, who lives in a mobile home on Winston Drive with her two children, said at Tuesday's SFMTA meeting. “We need a safe place. We have nowhere else to go. My two daughters go to school and I need a safe place for both of them.”

Marlon Arostegui speaks at an SFMTA board meeting at San Francisco City Hall on April 16, 2024. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)

However, during the SFMTA board meeting on Tuesday, Director Jeffrey Tumlin said the city will not “take any action to enforce these new signs” until a street paving program nearby is completed and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing can conduct additional rounds of education with mobile home residents.

Parking and traffic safety enforcement will be increased throughout the city in the coming weeks as the city hires more parking attendants, Tumlin said.

Several speakers protested the decision on Tuesday, saying they were unable to move their vehicles because they were at work during the day. Others needed help repairing a mechanical problem in order to drive.

Many said they cannot afford the $92 fine the city imposes for cars that are not running, and they fear the tickets could exacerbate their housing problems.

SFMTA Board Chair Amanda Eaken (center right) and others listen to comments from the public during an SFMTA board meeting at San Francisco City Hall on April 16, 2024. (Martin do Nascimento/KQED)

Across San Francisco, RV residents are facing similar problems. About 35 RV residents faced displacement when the city announced it would enforce parking restrictions near Bernal Heights Park.

Some neighbors complained that the vehicles were clogging the street and sidewalk around the park, but a group of neighbors who already have homes have also banded together to delay enforcement until residents find an alternative place to go.

The San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing has been working with people living in mobile homes on Winston Avenue for months to find housing and other solutions for people who want to stay in their mobile homes.

The department had previously told KQED that it was looking into possible locations where Winstron residents could safely park their RVs, but no such location has yet been found.

An SFMTA street cleaning ticket sits on the windshield of a motorhome on Winston Drive in San Francisco, California, near San Francisco State University, on Oct. 17, 2023. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

“They're going to displace a lot of families. They say this is for public safety. But where are these people going to go after they're displaced? We're not thinking about that,” Yessica Hernandez, an organizer who has worked with families in Winston Drive, said during the public hearing. “We have a huge homelessness problem in San Francisco and we're not going to get rid of it by implementing four-hour parking restrictions.”

Many residents who spoke at City Hall on Tuesday said they felt helpless and had few options left.

“We need you to give us a safe place to move to,” Walter Mejia, who has lived in a mobile home on Winston Dr. for three years, said through a Spanish translator during Tuesday's board meeting. “We don't have the resources to pay these tickets.”

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• John and Matine Yuksel moved from San Francisco to the Midwest in 2020.

• The brothers and business partners lived in Iowa and Cincinnati while founding their startup.

• Sometimes they miss living in California, but love the friendly people and affordable prices of Cincinnati.

This essay is based on a conversation with John Yuksel, 33, and Matine Yuksel, 29, two brothers who moved from San Francisco to Dubuque, Iowa, in 2020 to start Beltways, an accelerated pavement company. The brothers then moved to Cincinnati in 2022. Their company is based nearby in Northern Kentucky.

John: We are children of immigrant parents who grew up in southern Arizona.

I always knew I wanted to be close to my brother. He's my only sibling. After college, we lived in San Diego for a few years and then moved to San Francisco in 2018.

Death: San Francisco is incredible. I've never seen such a diverse environment there and it's a world-class environment for companies, especially in technology.

John: Matine worked for Walmart e-commerce and later got a job at Apple. I worked as a lawyer.

We paid an incredibly high rent, but had the best view of the Pacific and saw the sunset outside our windows every night.

But San Francisco was in the apocalypse. During COVID, the streets were empty. It felt unsafe. My car was broken into several times.

Death: COVID helped us rethink and reprioritize things. Instead of working on bringing the next generation iPhone to market, I wanted to build a new product that few people have ever heard of.

John: Beltways is actually our father's dream. Forty years ago, he lived in Istanbul and realized that today's forms of mobility were not moving people efficiently. He came up with a modular design to make pedestrian routes ten times faster.

John and Matine Yuksel with their parents.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

My brother and I always wanted to do something together and years after our father came up with the idea, we started looking into it.

Death: We founded Beltways in July 2020. We quickly realized we had to move out of San Francisco. It would have been far too expensive to do what we needed to do there.

John: It wasn't the right place for our startup. We're a large hardware manufacturing startup. It made much more sense to be near industrial technology clusters. We wanted to be in the Midwest, where manufacturing is still profitable.

Death: John met someone with experience in the sidewalk business and he offered us a deal in Iowa.

We moved to Dubuque, Iowa in 2020

John: It was a very small town in the middle of the cornfields, an hour and a half from any airport. Dubuque is a beautiful, quiet town on the Mississippi. We could drive anywhere in the city in two minutes.

We practically lived in a mansion. We had a three-story, four-bedroom house for half the price of our condo in San Francisco.

Death: The snow was definitely a change. We got our share of physical activity by shoveling snow.

It was a different way of life. We had to be focused and Iowa was good because we didn't have too many distractions. The two years we spent in Iowa flew by.

The brothers said they had to adjust to small-town life after moving to Dubuque, Iowa.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

John: We built the prototype for the fastest walkway in the world when we lived there. It was a thirty-meter-long system and earned us our first VC check.

This was a huge milestone for us. We put all our money into this company. We quit our regular jobs. We refinanced our house. There was nothing more fulfilling than turning our father's invention into a commercial venture.

Death: It was a surreal day when he came out and rode the system for the first time. It was the icing on the cake to see his enthusiasm for something he dreamt up so many years ago.

John: We had to look for a new location for our company. The next step was to pilot our walkway. We were invited by several airports to do a pilot demo of our system.

We knew that CVG Airport in Cincinnati had a real track record of innovation and startup support. The area was also beneficial for manufacturing. It's super cheap. The facility we're currently in is just a little more expensive than my rent in San Francisco and is 20,000 square feet.

We moved to Cincinnati in 2022

John: We even moved our parents here. We wanted our father to work with us and be a part of the company personally. Our parents live three floors below us in our building in the Mount Adams neighborhood.

When we moved to Cincinnati, we felt like we were back in a big city after two years in Iowa. We have big sports teams and a big major airport. The climate is much more temperate.

The winters have been pretty mild so far. The spring is lush and green. You can kayak down the rivers and there are great hiking trails nearby. The air quality is great. And the summers aren't 120 degrees like Arizona.

I met my partner and now I have a child who was born here in Cincinnati. The city has become home for us. The company is here, the whole family is here.

John and Matine Yuksel enjoy a football game in Cincinnati.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

Sometimes we miss living on the coast. California is a beautiful place. We love the climate and the diversity of the people. San Francisco is where technology starts and flows out. It really is the birthplace of many amazing things.

Death: But the tech scene in Cincinnati has also been very good to us. It's growing. It's a tight-knit startup community. From the moment we got here, the community was so welcoming.

John: And it's much cheaper here.

Bringing our father's dream to life was incredible

Death: We started Beltways in a modest garage in Tucson, where my brother built prototypes himself. Now we're in a 20,000-square-foot facility here in Northern Kentucky, right next to our first airport customer. And we manufacture in the USA.

John: Our goal is to become an official partner of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and to provide temporary high-speed transportation.

Cincinnati is a great place to raise a family and run a business, and we can see ourselves staying there for the foreseeable future.

But our ultimate goal is to make our sidewalks commonplace and to spread this technology around the world. Wherever we need to go to make that possible, we will. This is bigger than us.

Read the original article on Business Insider

The post We’re millennial brothers and enterprise companions who left San Francisco’s tech bubble for the Midwest manufacturing scene. We by no means would have been capable of afford to launch our startup in California. appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

San Francisco has long been a beacon for liberal politics and social causes. But lately, the constant spread of viral videos of car break-ins and car thefts has put the city on something of a mid-course correction.

In addition, the recalls of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin and three San Francisco school board members, as well as the recent passage of measures strengthening police powers and requiring drug enforcement, have heightened the sense that something is changing in San Francisco.

Scott joins them Heather Knight, New York Times San Francisco bureau chief, who recently wrote a profile of Garry Tanthe controversial head of a prominent Bay Area venture capital firm, and Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle, reporting on an attempt to move the Republican Party in San Francisco toward more moderate positions.

The post The Cash Behind San Francisco’s Transfer to the Political Center appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Santa Cruz-popular Humble Sea Brewing Co. is making a big move to a new city. The brewery will open its first taproom in San Francisco, taking over a space in the tourist-popular Pier 39 development, SFGATE reports.

The brewery's new location is slated for Pier 39, room N-111-1A, and will open sometime in July, marketing director Lee DeGraw told the outlet. It will be a sprawling 80-seat taproom and plans to partner with a yet-to-be-determined restaurant for the food component. The brewery takes over the former Wines of California Wine Bar, which closed in 2019, and has its own patio.

This move to San Francisco is the latest in a series of expansions for the brewery, which most recently added its fourth taproom location in Alameda Point in May 2023. The brewery also has taprooms in Pacifica and Santa Cruz Wharf, as well as the brewery's flagship location in Santa Cruz. The brewery's Felton location closed in August 2023. The brewery has had its sights set on San Francisco for the past five years, they told SFGATE, and it's an ambitious move for a business that started in owner Nick Pavlina's grandmother's house.

The news comes at a time of turmoil in the San Francisco and Bay Area beer scenes. In July 2023, San Francisco's oldest brewery, Anchor Brewing, ceased production after more than a century of producing its legendary steam beer in the city. New Belgium also closed its massive San Francisco waterfront taproom in February 2023, while popular San Francisco brewery Cellarmaker moved production to the East Bay after acquiring Rare Barrel in 2022.

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Ferris wheel leaves Golden Gate Park

Teams have begun dismantling a giant Ferris wheel in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

SAN FRANCISCO – Teams have begun dismantling a giant Ferris wheel in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

The Ferris wheel that stood in the center of San Francisco is getting a new home.

The 150-foot-tall SkyStar Ferris Wheel has always been a popular attraction for those seeking breathtaking views, and now it's moving to the city's waterfront.

Although the bike has only been an attraction in Golden Gate Park for a relatively short time, many residents already fondly remember its rides.

“Absolutely fantastic,” said Coral LeBlanc. “It was right after they set it up, two grandkids, a daughter and a dog, and we were able to get on with it, it was really cool.”

The Ferris wheel was originally brought to Golden Gate Park three years ago.

“So the Ferris wheel came in 2020 as part of the park’s 150th anniversary,” said Daniel Montes of the San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks. “So it was a really exciting time for us. Three years later it leaves us and we are sad to see it go. But the good thing is that it will stay in the city.”

The bike's final ride took place last weekend, and crews have been working overnight dismantling it to prepare it for its move across the city.

The wheel will be rebuilt at Fisherman's Wharf, where the Port of San Francisco will work with SkyStar to place it in a parking lot near Boudin Bakery ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit.

In its new waterfront location, the Wheel offers breathtaking panoramic views of the bay and downtown from an entirely new perspective, a view that visitors find enticing.

Jake Abbott of Muskegon, Michigan expressed his excitement: “Yes, absolutely, a way to see the bay and all the sights in one go. It would be cool to see her on a Ferris wheel.”

Jillene Abbott also shared her excitement: “If there was a view of this beautiful ocean, I would definitely go out and see it if I could ride the Ferris wheel.”

As for the length of time the wheel will stay at Fisherman's Wharf, the port is anticipating a six-month time frame, but remains open to extensions.

SkyStar has stated its commitment to remain in the city until March 2025.

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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — If you've visited San Francisco in the last week, it's likely you've noticed fewer homeless people near the Moscone Center and downtown.

Since APEC began, the streets are cleaner and the homeless population is no longer as visible in downtown San Francisco.

The San Francisco Standard took over the warehouse at Van Ness Avenue and Eddy Street two months ago. A completely different look this week. Plant boxes are now on the sidewalk. A mile from APEC.

Minna Street between Seventh Street and Julia Street with several tents, two months ago. Deleted this week. Less than a mile from APEC.

All of this leads to the question: Where did the homeless in San Francisco go? We found many of them on Willow Street.

MORE: Living Room on the Embarcadero: The Story of a Homeless Man in SF

Luz Pena: “Where were you before you came here to Willow?”

Cody Jost: “Harrison and 5th Street. A little further down”

Pena: “Has the city moved you?”

Jost: “Yes, pretty much. They close off certain streets and tell you to move on. Basically they control everything. They tell you where to move and all you have to do is get up and go.”

Before APEC, Cody had set up camp two blocks from the Moscone Center.

Over the last week, U.S. Secret Service has restricted access around the Moscone Center. Cody said city workers showed up and offered him housing. He took it.

Pena: “What did you notice a month before APEC?”

“About a month before APEC began, there was targeted engagement with the city and the homeless. People who were homeless in the south of the market. Many of these people came to the Tenderloin and told us they were given options for housing,” said Terry Giovannini, St. Anthony’s chief program officer.

St. Anthony's has been keeping an eye on the housing need in the Tenderloin. There was an upward trend this week.

“Many of the people who remained on the streets in SOMA were asked to move. Many of the people asked to relocate were offered housing. Those who have chosen not to seek accommodation are looking for alternatives during APEC,” said Giovannini.

MORE: SF will step up clearing of uninhabited camps after court resolves, officials say

In a statement, the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing acknowledged that efforts change when events like APEC take place:

“We want to do our best. Targeted outreach will focus on the conference environment and providing safe spaces for people experiencing homelessness will be a priority.”

Businesses in the Tenderloin are happy that more homeless people are now housed in shelters, but are worried about what will happen when APEC is over.

“We will definitely keep pushing. We are all voters. The property owners, the businesses, we are the mayors, voters, we are the city of San Francisco and they need to listen to us,” said Rene Colorado, executive director of the Tenderloin Merchants Association.

HSH also said that although there was no dedicated shelter capacity for APEC, the day APEC began in San Francisco, the city opened winter shelters and added 300 beds to the shelter system.

Full HSH statement:

“San Francisco’s work to combat homelessness is a priority 365 days a year. We are on the streets every day, sheltering people every night, and moving people out of homelessness every day. Our best efforts will be focused on the conference environment and providing safe spaces for people experiencing homelessness will be a priority be. The SF Homeless Outreach team will connect people experiencing homelessness to services, shelter, and housing assessments in real time. HSH does not provide specific housing for APEC. We are not expected to provide additional shelter capacity during the Summit, which will support us during APEC and throughout the winter: The Interfaith Winter Shelter will run from November 10, 2023 to March 24, 2024 and will provide shelter capacity for Increase people who are homeless during the challenging winter season. Further expansion of accommodation capacity in three shared accommodations for adults. This expansion was funded in the last budget cycle and is scheduled to come online in November and December 2023. This capacity is not yet complete. We estimate this will add 300 beds to the shelter system. As always, addressing homelessness requires a comprehensive and compassionate approach. The APEC Conference provides an opportunity to highlight San Francisco’s commitment to this problem and demonstrate our city’s innovation, resilience and determination to find lasting and meaningful solutions.”

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