Mayor London Breed said a “very aggressive” crackdown on San Francisco's homeless camps will begin in August after a recent Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for widespread enforcement.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that enforcing rules against homeless people sleeping outdoors does not violate the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause of the Eighth Amendment.

On Thursday, Breed welcomed the ruling and said the city plans to change its protocols and may begin imposing criminal penalties on homeless people.

“Thank God for the Supreme Court's change of ruling,” Breed said at an election debate hosted by a local firefighters' union. “Starting in August, we're going to be very aggressive and forceful in moving camps, which may even result in criminal consequences.”

A spokesman for the mayor's office said a more comprehensive plan would be available in late July or early August.

“San Francisco is a compassion-first city, and we will continue to lead with services, but we cannot allow people to turn down services and accommodations when they are offered and available,” the mayor's office said in a statement. “Our goal is to get people into their homes – camping or living on our streets is not safe for our community, our residents, and people who need support.”

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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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A beloved California aunt who helped send several of her nieces and nephews to college died Monday after a crazed homeless man pushed her onto a moving train, police reports said.

The 74-year-old woman was on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) platform at San Francisco's Powell Street Station when suspect Trevor Belmont allegedly pushed her into an oncoming train shortly after 11 p.m., BART police said.

The victim, identified by the coroner as Corazon Dandan, hit his head on the train and fell to the platform.

Corazon Dandan, 74, was killed Monday night when a homeless man allegedly pushed her onto a moving BART train. Family photo

She was taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where she later died, traffic police said.

Dandan, of San Mateo County, was on her way home from her job as a telephone operator at the Parc 55 hotel when she was killed, her nephew told the San Francisco Standard.

Alvin Dandan, a St. Louis doctor, said his aunt took the BART to work and back home every day and revealed his cousins ​​recently warned her against using the BART late at night.

Corazon, who was divorced and never had children, continued to work well past the usual retirement age even though she did not need the income, he said.

“She just loved working and being around younger people,” Alvin told the local news publication.

She also loved her many nieces and nephews, he added, and helped finance his medical studies and the education of several of his cousins.

Shortly after the fatal shove, BART police arrested 49-year-old Trevor Belmont, also known as Hoak Taing, at the Powell Street Station. Hearst Newspapers via Getty Images

“Great doesn't even describe how I feel about this woman,” Alvin DanDan told The Standard on Tuesday. “I wouldn't be here and a lot of my cousins ​​wouldn't be here. … She put a lot of people through school.”

Dandan landed in San Francisco from the Philippines in the 1980s “as a single, independent woman,” he added.

Alvin said he spoke to his aunt via text message the day she was murdered.

“She sounded cheerful,” he said.

Dandan's nephew, a doctor in St. Louis, said his aunt helped him finance his medical studies. AP

BART officers arrested the 49-year-old Belmont man shortly after the fatal shoving at the station. Police said the suspect, also known as Hoak Taing, was a “transient.”

Belmont was booked into the San Francisco County Jail on Tuesday morning. He remains behind bars on charges of murder and assault on an elderly person likely to cause serious injury.

Investigators have not yet determined a motive for this shocking crime and are continuing to interview witnesses and review surveillance videos.

The investigation is ongoing.

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Five years ago, a federal appeals court in San Francisco upended homelessness policies in California and across the West. In a 2018 ruling against the city of Boise, Idaho, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said cities could not enforce local laws against outdoor camping if they did not provide enough shelter beds for people living on the streets .

Since then, the ruling in that case, Martin v. Boise, makes it extremely difficult for cities to clear encampments in the nine states under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit. The decision has prompted state and local governments to address homelessness in new ways.

But billions in government spending have not yet solved the problem. And as tent cities have grown, political resistance has increased, even in cities dominated by liberal voters. Which brings us back to San Francisco.

In recent weeks, a related legal battle – the latest in a series – has sparked an uproar that went so far that San Francisco Mayor London Breed was at a rally outside the federal courthouse last month as homeless advocates demonstrated , of corpses called near.

Even some San Franciscans are confused by the excitement. Here are some frequently asked questions about the situation.

What's this about?

The Coalition on Homelessness, an advocacy group, filed a federal lawsuit a year ago claiming that enforcement of San Francisco's public camping laws was unconstitutional because the number of people sleeping rough – nearly 4,400 each night at the most recent count – is widening The number of available animal shelter beds has been exceeded. In December, a federal judge issued an emergency order temporarily banning enforcement of city laws against encampments, raising the stakes as winter approached.

What do the two sides say?

San Francisco officials say the city's homeless situation is fundamentally different than that in Boise. The city has spent billions of dollars on housing and services for the homeless and created thousands of emergency shelters and housing units. But many campers refuse to sleep in available beds, the city says. Local laws prohibiting sleeping outside only apply for about four hours a day, not around the clock.

Advocates for homeless San Franciscans say the city has made little real effort to provide adequate housing and has instead criminalized homelessness. The fight comes as the cost of living in California continues to rise and affordable housing remains scarce.

Why has the rhetoric increased now?

The city this summer asked the Ninth Circuit to change the federal judge's interim order. One day in late August in San Francisco, as a three-judge panel heard the arguments, city officials and housing advocates staged dueling protests outside.

Breed, who had just returned from a ceremony to open an Ikea store in a commercially fragile part of the city, called it “inhumane” not to move people out of the tent camps. “We found bodies,” she shouted. “We found a dead baby in these tents.”

The same day, Gov. Gavin Newsom — a former mayor of San Francisco — announced that the state would send cities and counties an additional $38 million to “clean up encampments,” accusing the courts of “causing costly delays.” .

How did tech executives get involved?

Two days later, Elon Musk and other tech personalities on homeless plaintiffs represent Bono. Newsom, who is not normally a friend of Musk, later said on X that Musk “raised a key issue” and that the federal courts were the problem.

The governor, a liberal Democrat who is widely considered a 2028 presidential candidate, told The San Francisco Chronicle that he was once so frustrated with legal decisions protecting camps that he considered approaching the judiciary directly to deal with complaints from the to be dealt with by the public. “I literally talked about putting up a big sign with the judge's phone number saying, 'Call the judge,'” he said.

Anthony York, a Newsom spokesman, compared the governor's current stance to his previous criticism of conservative federal judges who have sought to overturn gun controls in California – another group of “ideologues” whose decisions threatened public safety.

What's new?

It is unclear when the Ninth Circuit will rule on the city's full appeal of the injunction. But late Tuesday, the court denied the city's request for modification, clarifying that homeless campers who are offered housing can be asked to move.

The next written arguments in the lawsuit are scheduled to be filed later this month, and it is unlikely there will be a hearing before then. Still, the outcry, even from Democrats like Breed and Newsom, is a sign that political pressure is increasing to reconsider the jurisprudence that emerged from the Boise decision.

Breed is fighting for re-election in 2024 and her poll numbers are declining; Political rivals see a great chance of defeating them. Critics on both ends of the political spectrum accused Breed and Newsom of trying to shift responsibility for the homeless problem to the courts.

For more:

Locke Historic District.Credit…Sarah Stierch/Wikimedia

Where we travel

Today's tip comes from Joe Macpherson:

“One of the places we like to visit during a fishing trip to the Delta is Locke, also known as the Locke Historic District, an unincorporated community in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta on River Road. The 14-acre town was first founded as a Chinese community between 1893 and 1915. There are a few restaurants, gardens, shops, museums and Strange Cargo, a funky old bookshop which, if open, is worth a visit.”

Tell us about your favorite places in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We will report more about this in future editions of the newsletter.

And before you go, some good news

While the Strokes have become something of a shorthand for New York's downtown rock scene of the early 2000s, on the opposite coast, in Southern California, the group is enjoying a new fan base that is distinctly Californian.

Juicebox, Southern California's premier Strokes tribute band that draws enthusiastic multi-generational audiences, is leading something of a Strokes resurgence on the West Coast. The group's fans, as well as most of its members, are predominantly Latino.

As Eric Ducker wrote in the New York Times last week, the Strokes themselves have a large presence in Latin America, and it follows that Los Angeles, where more than 4.9 million people identify as Hispanic or Latino, has many Latino Strokes should have fans. But the band's particular appeal among first-generation Americans, Ducker writes, is also tied to their story of self-invention, an appealing message for those who have complicated feelings about their identity and the culture to which they belong.

“As people have moved away or outgrown certain subcultures or music scenes, it seems like in Los Angeles, Latinos have moved in to take the reins,” says José G. Anguiano, professor of Latina/o studies. said about the resurgence. “What's really cool is that they're taking the reins, not just in terms of being a fan, but fronting these tribute bands and producing their own music. They participate fully in these subcultures in every way.”

The post California Democrats Need Courts to Let Them Clear Homeless Camps appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco has stepped up efforts to put its best foot forward for APEC, including clearing homeless camps in neighborhoods surrounding the conference.

This activity has raised questions about where the homeless go and what is being done to get them the help they need.

Michael Hudson has been living near Market Street for several months. He says he just found out about the APEC conference.

ALSO READ: More stories from the APEC summit

“This is the third time they have kicked us out. And this time they didn’t allow us to put our tents back up,” Hudson said.

He said he lost many of his belongings during the last move.

“They threw everything in a big truck, took it and hauled it somewhere,” Hudson said. “They're supposed to keep it for us, and that's what was written on the paper they gave us. But when I asked, no one could find any of my things. They're just harassing us more and coming out and arresting people.”

ALSO READ: What you should know about APEC-related road closures and impacts on public transportation in San Francisco

The Coalition on Homelessness says more help should be available for unhoused people living in the APEC safe zone.

“We have been pushing for them to release more resources,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “What we've seen is that the main shelter that people can just walk up to and leave – on Dolores Street – doesn't allow people to sleep there. It only allows people who have been expelled from the APEC zone to sleep there.”

SFMTA APEC INFO: APEC Travel and Transit Information | Interactive map | Impact on Nob Hill | SoMa Impact

Friedenbach said her organization learned of the Dolores shelter plan on Wednesday.

“We would like to see the city add more beds and perhaps provide some hotel rooms or accommodations in a church. But we would increase capacity to offset the displacement that people are facing,” Friedenbach said.

KPIX reached out to the city for comment on these concerns and received an email that stated, in part, “The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing does not provide special housing for APEC.”

It was noted that some recently funded sites are already available, such as the Interfaith Winter Shelter. Around 300 additional beds will be available in three adult accommodations between November and December.

As for Hudson, he doesn't know where he'll sleep the rest of the week.

“I’ll drop my stuff off at the shelter down there, but I don’t sleep there,” he said. “It’s dirty and people cough on you everywhere.”

More from CBS News

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SAN FRANCISCO – City officials in San Francisco are preparing to move forward with sweeping homeless encampments after receiving the latest legal guidance as a years-long battle over the issue plays out in court.

San Francisco officials say the majority of homeless people in encampments who are offered housing routinely turn it down. But now, because of new judicial guidance in an ongoing federal case, these people can't just stay on the streets.

ALSO READ: San Francisco NoPa residents install planters to prevent homeless camping

On any given day, residents say Willow Street near Van Ness is lined with trash and tents.

“People who know Willow, it's become really notorious. And for two years it's been really, really bad and it's extremely unsafe,” said Ricky, an area resident who did not want to reveal his last name for privacy reasons. “We see that a lot of electricity is stolen. We see fires. We saw vandalism.”

On Monday evening, a neighbor also filmed a rare drug discovery on the street.

ALSO READ: Newsom says California will intervene in the lawsuit and stop San Francisco from clearing encampments

Last month, Mayor London Breed posted a video on X of her visit to Willow Street, showing workers cleaning up. She said the goal is to get people into shelters and off the streets.

For the entire year, an injunction has prevented the city from enforcing certain laws against those who refuse protection on our streets.

The good news: A recent clarification from the court now shows us the way forward.https://t.co/PJpjeNWhXa

— London Breed (@LondonBreed) September 25, 2023

In a series of posts on a path forward for us.

Residents said the camps returned the next day.

“It gets better for a day or two, but then it goes back to normal,” Ricky said.

Mayor Breed said San Francisco has finally received clarity from the Ninth Circuit – the city will be allowed to enforce a series of laws against sitting, lying and sleeping on public streets and sidewalks for people who refuse shelter @KPIXtv 11 p.m. pic.twitter. com/hMc2gv5bv9

— Betty You (@bett_you) September 26

The Ninth Circuit provided clarity about who is considered “involuntarily homeless.”

“If city workers offer concrete offers of available housing to homeless individuals and they refuse that offer, then the law can be enforced against them. “They are not allowed to pitch their tent on the street,” said city attorney David Chiu.

ALSO READ: Federal judges won't change San Francisco's ban on clearing homeless camps on appeal

Chiu said this development means people should see fewer camps and cleaner streets over time.

However, the lawsuit filed by homeless advocates is still pending, and the ban on clearing encampments until there are more homeless beds than homeless people remains in effect. But the mayor said there is now a path forward to enforce laws against those who are voluntarily homeless.

“I would say it's really good that they sorted that out. Firstly, many of these people need a home. So pushing them and telling them there's a home for them would help a lot,” Ricky said. “But those who don't want to be moved, we believe… a lot of them cause a lot of trouble.”

ALSO READ: Searching homeless camps is just one aspect of a system that isn't working for SF residents

Since KPIX first reported on Willow Street nearly two years ago, a new encampment has sprung up a block away on Eddy Street on Van Ness Street. Residents say it has only grown.

“The residents – we talked about it. Now there are no more excuses, now at least some of it needs to be cleaned up,” Ricky added.

Chiu said city departments are working on logistics for the upcoming evictions.

Meanwhile, a trial date for the federal case has been set for late next year.

More from CBS News

Betty Yu

Betty Yu joined KPIX 5 as a general assignment reporter in November 2013. She spent two years as a reporter at WTVJ, the NBC-owned station in Miami, before moving to San Francisco.

The post San Francisco to start out clearing some homeless encampments below new courtroom steering appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

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.”

If you're using the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

Copyright © 2024 KGO-TV. All rights reserved.

The post APEC 2023: The place did San Francisco’s homeless go throughout summit? This is what we uncovered appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Less than a block from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that brought thousands of diplomats and leaders from around the world to San Francisco, a young man in the middle of a drug addiction lay curled up while a city worker calmly carried a broom and dustpan the downtown plaza near Fifth and Mission streets was swept.

In a nearby alley, a half-dozen people crowded around a light pole and walked past butane lighters, some slowly falling asleep after inhaling milky-white puffs from glass pipes.

Around the corner, directly opposite a heavily guarded entrance to the summit, a man in a dark hoodie slept on the sidewalk, resting his head on a bright orange backpack, while foreign emissaries in neatly pressed suits strode past.

If you've been following much of the coverage leading up to APEC, you might have come to believe that San Francisco has at least temporarily cleared its downtown of scenes like this, hoping to show the world its best face in the relentless “Doom.” Loop” narrative around post-pandemic challenges is being flipped.

But even though the city pushed homeless people out of the designated peak safety zone around Moscone Center, many didn't get far.

“People were just forced out into the alleys,” said Javier Bremond, a human rights activist with the San Francisco advocacy group Coalition on Homelessness. “And a lot of people are under the highway.”

A homeless encampment is seen along Leavenworth Street in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco on Wednesday, November 8, 2023. Thousands of CEOs, world leaders, protesters and others will soon descend on San Francisco to attend a high-profile global trade summit, giving the struggling city a chance to turn around its image as a declining economic power. As hosts, San Francisco and the city's partners clean sidewalks, remove graffiti and place homeless people in indoor shelters. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Of course, city officials have cleared many encampments, scrubbed major roads and promised to open some new shelters. And places where outdoor drug use is typically common, such as the Powell BART station and United Nations Plaza near City Hall, have been noticeably quiet in recent days.

“They definitely relocated people from the areas where the fancy people were supposed to live,” said homeless man Zach Wiseman, 28, sitting hunched over a suitcase next to a bus stop across from the APEC entrance on Mission Street. “Get dressed up for the show, and when it’s over you can go back to whatever.”

Nevertheless, it was difficult to avoid human suffering during the conference.

On Thursday, a delegate from Thailand waiting to enter a summit checkpoint said he had heard about San Francisco's problems with homelessness but was still shocked to see how many people were languishing on the streets.

“I didn’t believe it at the time until I saw it myself,” he said, declining to give his name while representing his country in an official capacity. “It's sad to see, especially because I've lived here before. It was a romantic city.”

San Francisco officials did not immediately respond to questions about the city's response to homelessness during APEC.

Bremond, the advocate for the Coalition on Homelessness, noted that the city's efforts to keep homeless people out of major events are nothing new, pointing to encampment clearances in 2016 when San Francisco helped host the Super Bowl, an event that brought the local population into the national spotlight.

Late last year, the coalition obtained an injunction against the city that restricted officials from clearing many encampments for months. But in September, a federal court clarified the order, allowing the city to dismantle encampments as long as officials first provide homeless residents with a homeless bed.

At last count last year, an estimated 7,750 homeless people sleep outdoors or in shelters each night.

Bremond said he was disappointed that APEC organizers and federal officials did not do more during the summit to help set up shelters, such as temporary motel rooms for displaced homeless people.

“How many billions were at this conference?” Bremond asked. “To them, it would be like dropping a quarter on the floor.”

The city doesn't have nearly enough shelter beds for everyone, although homeless people often refuse shelter for a variety of reasons, from safety concerns to reluctance to comply with curfews.

Tracy Phan, 38, begged shoppers for change outside a Walgreens on Market Street and said she had seen more people this week staying at the city group home where she sleeps most nights.

The conference might have something to do with it, she said. But the weather also begins to change as the winter months approach.

“It’s raining,” Phan said, “and it’s cold out here.”

The post The place did San Francisco’s homeless folks go throughout APEC? Not very far appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

A homeless man who beat a former San Francisco city official with a metal pipe was found not guilty of assault charges on Friday, capping a case that had drawn national attention as a symbol of the city’s crime and homelessness problems until a public defender unearthed a surprising back story.

The defendant, Garret Allen Doty, 25, faced as many as seven years in prison had he been found guilty of the charges that stemmed from an altercation in San Francisco’s wealthy Marina district. On the evening of April 5, police responded to a neighborhood resident, Don Carmignani, 54, who had a fractured skull and severe injuries to his face that required more than 100 stitches. Multiple witnesses identified Mr. Doty as the assailant, and police arrested him minutes later.

But the public defender in the case, Kleigh Hathaway, determined that Mr. Carmignani had sprayed a canister of what appeared to be bear mace before Mr. Doty attacked him. Ms. Hathaway surfaced eight unsolved cases in which pepper spray or bear mace had been used against homeless people in the neighborhood. It was enough, she felt, to argue that Mr. Doty had responded in self-defense.

Jurors ultimately agreed on Friday.

“This case shows us that the citizens of San Francisco can still tell the difference between right and wrong,” Ms. Hathaway said afterward in an interview.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office said that it respected the jury’s decision and declined to comment further.

In April, Mr. Doty had recently moved to San Francisco from Louisiana and was living in a tent on the sidewalk near an apartment owned by Mr. Carmignani’s parents. After the attack, he was arrested and was charged with three felonies: assault with a deadly weapon, assault with force likely to produce grave bodily injury and battery causing serious bodily injury.

Mr. Carmignani was a cannabis entrepreneur who had briefly served on the San Francisco Fire Commission, an unsalaried panel. He also owns a number of properties around the city, including a building in the Financial District that houses a dispensary and an Italian sandwich restaurant.

Neither Mr. Doty’s defense lawyer nor the district attorney’s office disputed what had happened between the two men that evening in April: Bystanders with cellphones had captured videos that showed Mr. Doty striking Mr. Carmignani with what looked like a pipe, while Mr. Carmignani had his hands up in what seemed a defensive manner.

But there was less clarity about the motive for the attack — and especially about what had transpired in the moments just before witnesses had started recording video on their phones. After he was released from the hospital, Mr. Carmignani told a local television station that the beating reflected broader trends in the city.

“You have animals on the street saying they’re going to rape your daughter and kill your mother,” he said at the time. Various media outlets, including Fox News and local television stations, covered the story as an example of “lawlessness” in San Francisco and California at large.

But the picture was soon muddied by witness testimony. A Marina resident, Kristin Onorato, told the police that she had seen Mr. Carmignani tell Mr. Doty that he would “kill” him if he did not move his belongings from the sidewalk. When Mr. Doty refused, she said, Mr. Carmignani sprayed him with a canister of bear mace — a faster-ejecting, higher-capsaicin version of pepper spray.

The case turned out to hinge on that canister. Looking through a crime database, the police found eight prior reports, dating back to 2021, in which a suspect had sprayed a homeless person in the Marina with a chemical substance.

“I believe the suspect is targeting the unhoused population for reasons unknown,” one officer had written at the time.

The descriptions of the suspect varied, but several of them were broadly similar to Mr. Carmignani’s physical appearance: a white man weighing between 250 and 300 pounds, standing about six feet tall.

Though nobody had been charged in the spray attacks, Ms. Hathaway used them to attempt a risky strategy: trying to link Mr. Carmignani to the prior incidents in order to demonstrate that her client, instead of being the aggressor, was acting to defend himself against a man who was believed to be a neighborhood vigilante.

At trial, Mr. Carmignani’s former mother-in-law testified that the individual seen in a blurry cellphone video of a prior bear-mace attack “looks like Don,” according to The San Francisco Chronicle. His ex-wife, Yvette Corkrean, now a Republican candidate for the California State Senate, testified that Mr. Carmignani had beaten her.

Kourtney Bell, an assistant district attorney, tried to persuade the jury that Mr. Carmignani’s history was not on trial in the case. Mr. Bell acknowledged that Mr. Carmignani was the initial aggressor, but said that Mr. Doty’s attack was an excessive form of revenge against him.

The San Francisco Police Department has opened an investigation into Mr. Carmignani in connection with the prior attacks.

San Francisco’s homelessness problem has attracted particular scrutiny since the beginning of the pandemic. The homeless population has not changed much since 2017 — hovering around 7,800, of whom some 4,400 are unsheltered. But a number of factors have contributed to a rise in anxiety, including overdoses and street-crime incidents that regularly go viral.

The still-unsolved attacks in the Marina point to a less headline-grabbing reality, that violent attacks against the homeless have also become a part of life in California cities. In 2021, a homeless man died from burn injuries in San Francisco after his sleeping bag was set on fire. In November, three homeless men were shot dead while they slept on the streets of Los Angeles.

In April, weeks after the incident in the Marina, a homeless man named Banko Brown was shot in the chest and killed while attempting to steal candy from a Walgreens in San Francisco. In that case, the district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, declined to charge the security guard with murder, determining that he had acted in self-defense.

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A San Francisco man camped across the street from a school displaying signs offering “free fentanyl for new users,” and a previous pedophile conviction has been arrested after attempting to dodge city efforts to move him on.

San Francisco police officers told Joseph Adam Moore to leave Ninth Avenue and Geary Boulevard by 12:15 p.m. Friday. Moore, 46, had already taken down his free fentanyl sign but refused to move. He has lived opposite the Stella Maris Academy K-8 Catholic school for the best part of two years.

“Go f*ck yourself,” Moore told police after 11 a.m. “You’re a corrupt piece of shit.”

Officers on the scene said they have been responding to Moore’s encampment two to three times daily since Moore erected signs soliciting drugs outside his encampment.

If Moore refused to remove his belongings by 12:15 p.m., police would cite him as a nuisance under PC 370, a misdemeanor, and release him at the scene, according to Lt. Wayman Young.

RELATED: San Francisco Homeless Man Camped Outside a School With ‘Free Fentanyl’ Sign Is Convicted Pedophile

Joseph Adam Moore moves his belongings from the sidewalk to an outdoor planter on the other side of the sidewalk to evade city efforts to move him on. | Source: Garrett Leahy/ The Standard

Minutes before the Department of Public Works was set to swoop in and remove Moore’s belongings, he moved them a few feet away and evaded city efforts to get him away from the school.

But police then arrested Moore in relation to a pending probation violation, Young said.

Richmond police station’s Captain Chris Canning said Moore is on probation for violating a stay-away order. The order was issued last year after Moore created a nuisance by camping behind a San Francisco firehouse, Capt. Canning said.

Supervisor Connie Chan, who represents the area, thanked Capt. Canning for his help removing Moore from the area.

“Captain Canning and his team organized an undercover operation to investigate the individual posting the signs,” said Chan in a statement. “Officers engaged with the individual and encouraged the removal of the signs and the structure.”

The area has since been power washed and cleaned of any obstructions, Chan said.

READ MORE: San Francisco Homeless Encampments: Tensions Boil Over on One of City’s Busiest Streets

Signs reading “Meth for stolen items” and “free fentanyl 4 new users” sit atop Joseph Adam Moore’s encampment on Ninth Avenue north of Geary Boulevard in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood. | Source: George Kelly/The Standard

Moore previously told The Standard he was serious about giving free drugs away as his signs said, but said he was not a user himself.

After his arrest, Moore’s belongings were bagged up and removed by DPW workers.

A DPW worker puts Joseph Adam Moore’s belongings into a black plastic bag to be stored by the city—including the “meth for stolen items” sign. | Source: Garrett Leahy/The StandardPolice tell Joseph Adam Moore he has until 12:15 p.m. to remove his belongings from Ninth Avenue near Geary Boulevard. | Garrett Leahy/The Standard | Source: Garrett Leahy/The Standard

“Our goal was to get the signs down and to maintain the safety of the children and the neighborhood, and that seems to have been accomplished,” Peter Marlow, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, said. “We’re working with the police to see that any laws affecting that are carried out.”

Moore and police officers told The Standard Friday morning that Moore had been punched by a concerned parent of a student at the academy. No further details were released by police when contacted for comment.

Convicted Pedophile

Joseph Adam Moore stands beside his encampment on Ninth Avenue north of Geary Boulevard in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood. | Source: George Kelly/The Standard

California’s Megan’s Law website lists Moore as a San Francisco transient convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years of age in 1997 and released in 2002. San Francisco Superior Court documents show Moore has been arrested five times in the city since 2007 for allegedly failing to re-register his address as a sex offender every 30 days. 

A Santa Cruz Sentinel article from 1997 reports Moore was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old girl in Santa Clara County before being released from custody and then having sex with a 15-year-old in Santa Cruz behind a set of bathrooms on Seabright Beach.

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