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CLOCK RUNS OUT

People placed in navigation centers return to streets. | 6

CITATIONS FALLING

SFPD ticket fewer ‘quality of life’ infractions. | 4

DON’T COME BACK S.F. tries to stop encampments from popping up again. | 12

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SUMMER 2017 • ISSUE 22

NAVIGATING

HOMELESSNESS

WHICH WAY HOME?

Homeless campers on San Bruno Avenue in Potrero Hill began packing up at dawn in late May, before city crews came to haul away what they left behind.

LIMITED OPTIONS

Homeward Bound: Free bus tickets out of town to friends or family members who promise to take them in.

Navigation centers have taken in nearly 1,200 homeless people, increasingly from tent encampments. Though the original goal was to transition into permanent housing, fewer than one-quarter have ended up housed in the city.

Photo by Judith Calson // Public Press MORE PHOTOS: The nomads from “Box City,” Pages 6–7

As Shelter Wait Times Soar, Older Homeless in Housing Limbo By Sara Bloomberg // Public Press

Back to streets: When time is up, center residents must leave. Long-term supportive housing: Subsidized units, which offer on-site medical and social services.

Source: S.F. Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Illustration by Anna Vignet // Public Press

*2% Temporary housing

More Returning to Streets From Navigation Centers Bus Tickets Most Common ‘Housing’ Outcome By Noah Arroyo and Hannah Kaplan // Public Press

n March 2015, as he geared up for reelection, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced the creation of the city’s first navigation center, described as “a pioneering approach” to helping homeless people get off the streets and into housing. He would later call it “a national model.” Lee billed the navigation center as a place where people would stay for three to 10 days “before moving on to housing or residential treatment.” Unlike at the city’s shelters, entire tent encampments could enter the center. The homeless could come with their pets and possessions, and they faced no curfews. By getting services on site, they no longer had to trek to government and nonprofit offices. But what has come of the people who stepped into this novel experiment, in many cases expecting to depart the streets

for permanent homes? After two years, fewer than a quarter of the nearly 1,200 people who entered the first two navigation centers have been placed in verified long-term housing, a Public Press analysis of city records shows. Officials, however, have claimed a figure about three times larger. That is because they have been counting people who followed their time at the navigation centers with free bus tickets out of town, supposedly to live with family or friends — but with no guarantee of stability, and minimal follow-up. Increasingly in recent months, people who stayed at the centers have returned to the streets. More than one-quarter of all who have passed through since 2015 have become homeless again. These outcomes are due in part to management decisions by Jeff Kositsky, the first director of the Department of Home-

OTHER NEWS | SHARKS DYING Researchers try to find explanation for mass illness. | 10

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lessness and Supportive Housing, which began operating in July 2016 and inherited control of the facilities. Lee’s hopes for quick housing placements were wildly off the mark. Rather than days, finding a permanent home was taking an average of three months, and in some cases almost a year, the city controller reported last year. “The initial idea was that everybody who goes in is going to get access to housing,” no matter how long it took, Kositsky said. Last fall he imposed a 30-day time limit, freeing up beds the city could then fill with people from encampments that were being cleared, he said. This approach better integrated the centers with other services. Some providers and activists spoke out against the limit, saying it fundamentally altered the program’s original purpose. “That’s why it was called ‘navigation’ — it was to navigate people into housing,” said Laura Guzman, who helped manage the NAVIGATION continued on Page 8

LEGAL BUT PRECARIOUS Law for noncitizen voting in school board elections complicated by Trump stance on immigrants. | 11

or thousands of San Francisco homeless people, the city’s emergency shelter wait list has provided a temporary reprieve from living on the streets. But the wait time for a bed has hit a record high, as growing demand outstrips availability, city records show. The monthly median wait time for a 90day bed increased from 26 days in early 2014, when the city began posting data online, to a peak of 56 in February 2017. By April, it eased to 46 days. Among those waiting weeks on the list recently were a 97-year-old and three people in their 80s. They were just a few of the record number of homeless people

seeking a bed on a list that has become a fixture in the lives of many. The increasing wait for a shelter bed comes despite a relatively constant homeless population during the same period. The just-released 2017 biennial count came to 7,499, about the same as two years ago. A top city official said several factors may be responsible for the growing wait list. Sam Dodge, deputy director of the city Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said he suspected that not everyone on the list was unhoused. He said people repeatedly use the wait list for a complex set of reasons. SHELTERS continued on Page 3

STILL ON THE STREET

Elizabeth Stromer is homeless despite several stays at the navigation centers, she says. Photo by Noah Arroyo // Public Press PHOTO STORY INSIDE: Daily life on the streets, Page 3.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Short documentary features local activist’s life story. | 11

FAIR WAGES Legislative Women’s Caucus pushes bills for equal pay. | 10

HIGHLIGHTS from our nonprofit news partners. | 9

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SAN FRANCISCO

FROM THE EDITORS

A CITY IN FLUX

hen we published the first print

edition of the Public Press in the summer of 2010, San Francisco was a different city. That issue featured a story about vacant properties on Market Street and plans for a big development that had yet to break ground. The middle stretch of the city’s main drag had been stagnant for years. Speculators bought and sold parcels without making visible improvements. As we look back, it’s hard to believe how quickly things would change. The new tech boom arrived. Twitter came to town. Uber took to the streets. Salesforce grew and grew. Development frenzy followed. Blighted mid-Market buildings were renovated or replaced. Longtime low-rent businesses and nonprofits started moving out. Construction cranes shot up in SoMa, the Mission, Mission Bay, Potrero Hill, Dogpatch and Bayview-Hunters Point. Development generates excitement and energy and jobs — and sometimes unintended consequences. Now, backhoes trundle formerly secluded blocks, and homeless people who previously huddled there are forced to move … somewhere. In more than a dozen community meetings that our staff have attended across the city in the past year, we’ve heard neighbors share stories about proliferating tent encampments and wonder aloud why so many more people are homeless today. But as we’ve learned from the San Francisco Point-in-Time Homeless Count in 2017 — conducted one night in January, every other year — the number of people who lack permanent housing hasn’t changed much recently. This year,

their housing. According to a survey conducted with the Point-in-Time Count, 69 percent of respondents said they were living in the city when they became homeless, and 16 percent were living in nearby counties. Factors contributing to homelessness are diverse. But the high cost of living here makes it difficult to establish or reestablish a household. That’s something to which a lot of people can relate. As San Francisco’s population and economy boom, low- and middle-income families are moving out. In one of the wealthiest cities in the country, access to affordable housing is an existential concern for hundreds of thousands of people. The Public Press is nonpartisan — we don’t endorse candidates or political platforms, and we don’t advocate particular policies. Our goal is to produce investigative reporting and news analyses that give people information they can use to make decisions for themselves, their families and their communities. Investigating homelessness, a problem often — and erroneously — called “intractable,” takes hard work, compassion toward people who are suffering and an eye on decision-makers, who need to be held accountable for the welfare of our most unlucky and vulnerable neighbors while they strive to improve the quality of life for all San Franciscans. We hope you find this report enlightening and thought-provoking. We welcome your comments and questions: info@sfpublicpress.org.

7,499 homeless individuals were identified during the count, down slightly from 2015 and up 2 percent from the 2013 count. Overall, the number of homeless adults in San Francisco and the total city population are both up by about 12 percent since 2005. (Counts from 2005 through 2011 did not include a separate tally of homeless youth.) So, by the numbers, homelessness in San Francisco is not getting worse. Unless you’re one of the men, women

Photo by Daphne Magnawa // Public Press

and children living on the streets or in insecure housing. For each of them, this is as bad as it gets. In this issue, we examine the city’s efforts to help homeless people, through initiatives in place for years and ones that are expanding under the new Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Some are experimental, which can be challenging for the people seeking services and for those trying to administer them while working out policy kinks. Most of San Francisco’s homeless residents were here before they lost

Lila LaHood Publisher

PUBLIC PRESS INDEPENDENT NONPROFIT IN DEPTH The mission of the San Francisco Public Press is to enrich the civic life of San Francisco by delivering public-interest journalism through print and interactive media not supported by advertising. 44 Page St., Suite 504 San Francisco, CA 94102 (415) 495-7377 info@sfpublicpress.org Summer 2017 • Issue 22 (Vol. 8, No. 2) Published June 30, 2017

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Patricia M. Bovan Campbell • Kaizar Campwala David Cohn • Liz Enochs • Neal Gorenflo Kari Gray • Lila LaHood • Holly Million • Peter Scheer Marc Smolowitz • Michael Stoll

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Michael Stoll

PUBLISHER Lila LaHood

DIRECTOR OF MEMBERSHIP & COMMUNITY Daphne Magnawa

SENIOR EDITOR Michael Winter

ASSISTANT EDITOR Noah Arroyo

DIRECTOR OF DESIGN

Michael Stoll Executive Director

HyunJu Chappell // Magna Citizen Studio

PARTNERSHIP EDITOR Michele Anderson

REPORTER'S DREAM

Rock, Scissors...

andrea carla michaels

Crossword Puzzle by ACROSS Andrea Carla Michaels 1. Jekyll's alter-ego 5. One of six for a hexagon 9. Places for murals ACROSS 61 Weaving machine 14. Work to get, as someone's 1 Jekyll’s alter ego 62 Instinctive impulse trust 5 One of six for a hexagon 63 Tragedy by Euripides based 15. Ireland's best-selling solo 9 Places for murals on the mythological tale of artist 14 Work to get, as someone’s Jason and his wife 16. "The X-ﬁles" extra trust 64 Strengthen, with “up” 17. "American Idol" host 15 Ireland's best-selling solo 65 Farm critters Seacrest artist 66 Billy Joel’s “The Downeaster 18. Food label ﬁgs. 16 “The X-Files” extra ___,” written for his daughter 19. "Secret" gift giver, maybe 17 “American Idol” host 67 Ajar 20. Emaciated one Seacrest 68 Verbalizes 23. "Enough already!" 18 Food label figs. 24. Scott of "Charles in Charge" 19 “Secret” gift giver, maybe DOWN 25. "Mighty" tree 20 Emaciated one 1 Parsley, sage, rosemary or 27. Thrifty competitor 23 “Enough already!” 2 “Divine Secrets of the ___ 34. Fend off, as mosquitoes 24 Scott of “Charles in Charge” Sisterhood” (2002 film) 35. Platoon or squadron, e.g. 25 “Mighty” tree 3 Wet blanket 36. Cry in a corrida 27 Thrifty competitor 4 Exalted 37. Breezed through, as an 34 Fend off, as mosquitoes 5 Part of former Yugoslavia exam 35 Platoon or squadron, e.g. 6 Kind of plumbing or pool 38. Mazda rival 36 Cry in a corrida 7 Actress Cannon once 40. Captain Hook's henchman 37 Breezed through, as an married to Cary Grant 41. Dent or scratch exam 8 Tranquility 42. Skirt length 38 Mazda rival 9 “Now where ___ I?” 43. Item often fetched 40 Captain Hook’s henchman 10 Where Nome is home 44. Cause of continental drift 41 Dent or scratch 11 Dryer buildup 48. Academic URL ending 42 Skirt length 12 “Dallas Buyers Club” Oscar 49. "Age of Aquarius" musical 43 Item often fetched winner Jared 50. Any brother in "Animal 44 Cause of continental drift 13 Break off Crackers" 48 Academic URL ending 21 Take a tumble 53. Incriminating records, or a 49 “Age of Aquarius” musical 22 Braga of “Kiss of the Spider linguistic hint to 20A, 27A, 50 Any brother in “Animal Woman” 44A Crackers” 26 Communications giant 59. Weapon of mass 53 Incriminating records, or a 27 Car window sticker destruction linguistic hint to 20A, 27A, 28 Word with grand or soap 61. Weaving machine 44A 29 Like some old alphabet 62. Instinctive impulse 59 Weapon of mass destruction characters 63. Tragedy by Euripedes based on the mythological tale of Jason and his wife 64. Strengthen, with "up" 65. Farm critters 66. Billy Joel's "The Downeaster ___", written for his daughter 67. Ajar 68. Verbalizes

WEB EDITOR 2

24 27

34 38

COPY EDITORS

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Judith Calson • David Gorn (KQED) • Emma Foehringer Merchant (Grist) • Pandora Young (Capital & Main)

49 53

ILLUSTRATOR Anna Vignet

CARTOGRAPHER

2. "Divine Secrets of the ___ 30 Caboose, e.g. Sisterhood" (2002 ﬁlm) 31 Chris Rock or Dave 3. Wet blanket 4. Chappelle Exalted 32 5. Smart Part ofguys? former Yugoslavia 33 6. Smell Kind bad of plumbing or pool 34 off aCannon freewayonce 7. Way Actress 38 Ask to borrow money from married to Cary Grant 39 Keats’ creation 8. Tranquillity 40 for jockeys’ 9. Supports "Now where ___ I?" feet 42 Sweatshirt size: Abbr. 10. Where Nome is home 43 Agitated state 11. Dryer buildup 45 Southwestern cuisine 12. "Dallas Buyers Club" Oscar

31. Chris Rock or Dave 46 Mister Right Chappelle 47 Crew members 32. Smart guys? 50 first word 33.Common Smell bad 51 Eve’s second-born 34. Way off a freeway 52 taxi 38.Took Askato borrow money from 54 Choir voice below 39. Keat's creation 40.soprano Supports for jockeys' feet 55 or lowdown 42.Gossip Sweatshirt size: Abbr. 56 at the state Met 43.Solo Agitated 57 of punk 45.Pop Southwestern cuisine 58 to Right a minimalist 46.More, Mister 60 bleat 47.Billy’s Crew members

winner Jared 50. Common ﬁrst word 13. Break off 51. Eve's second-born 21. Take a tumble 52. Took a taxi 22. Braga of "Kiss of the Spider 54. Choir voice below soprano Woman" 55. Gossip or lowdown 26. Communications giant 56. Solo at the Met 27. Car window sticker 57. Pop of punk 28. Word with grand or soap 58. More, to a minimalist 29. Like some old alphabet 60. Billy's bleat characters Craigslist Charitable Fund provides millions of dollars each year in30. grants to hundreds DOWN Caboose, e.g. of partner organizations addressing four broad The Reva and David Logan Foundation 1. Parsley, sage, rosemary or

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The San Francisco Foundation is an incubator for community investment, original ideas and passionate leadership in the Bay Area. One of the nation’s largest community foundations in grantmaking and assets, it has been the primary funder of the Public Press since 2009. sff.org

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Marcea Ennamorato

areas of interest: environment and transportation; education, rights, justice and reason; non-violence, veterans and peace; and journalism, open source and the Internet. craigslist.org/about/charitable

Richard Knee • Dean Takehara

WRITERS

Jane Adams (EdSource Today) • Sarah Asch • Zachary Benjamin • Sara Bloomberg • Hannah Kaplan • Katie Orr (KQED News/The California Report) • Scott Shafer (KQED News/The California Report) • Eric Simmons (Bay Nature) • Laura Waxmann (Mission Local) • Marylee Williams (KALW Radio/Crosscurrents)

John Angelico

Social justice, scholarship, the arts and investigative journalism. Dedicated to lasting support for the founders’ powerful and eclectic mix of grants. loganfdn.org

GRAPHIC ARTIST Reid Brown

CROSSWORD CONSTRUCTOR Andrea Carla Michaels

BUSINESS, OPERATIONS & WEB PRODUCTION

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PARTNERS FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE Bay Nature

A quarterly magazine exploring nature in the San Francisco Bay Area, dedicated to educating residents and celebrating the beauty of the surrounding natural world. baynature.org

EdSource

EdSource works to engage Californians on key education challenges with the goal of enhancing learning success. edsource.org

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An independent news organization covering San Francisco’s Mission District online and in print. missionlocal.org

KALW Radio’s “Crosscurrents”

A daily radio news magazine exploring context, culture and connection from around the Bay Area. KALW Radio 91.7 FM. kalw.org/programs/crosscurrents

KQED News, News Fix and The California Report

KQED has served Northern California for more than 50 years and is affiliated with NPR and PBS. KQED Public Television 9, KQED Plus public television, KQED Public Radio 88.5 FM. kqed.org California Humanities promotes the humanities in California in order to help create a state of open mind, and aims to inspire Californians to learn more, dig deeper and start conversations that matter among our dramatically diverse people. calhum.org

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. knightfoundation.org

PARTNERS HIGHLIGHTED IN ‘SHORT TAKES’ Capital & Main • Earth Island Journal • Grist • MapLight • Mother Jones • New America Media • PBS Media Shift • "Reveal” from the Center for Investigative Reporting

OTHER PUBLIC MEDIA & CIVIC PARTNERS

The Institute for Nonprofit News consists of 120 nonprofit, nonpartisan news organizations conducting investigative reporting in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. inn.org

Democracy Fund invests in organizations working to ensure that our political system is responsive to the public and able to meet the greatest challenges facing our nation. democracyfund.org

The Strong Foundation for Environmental Values makes grants to efforts that instill an ecological ethic in the individual and in our communities, and which encourage grassroots environmental action based on such an ethic. strongfoundationgrants.org

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SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 3

NAVIGATING

HOMELESSNESS

DAILY LIFE ON THE STREETS Clockwise from top: “Home Street Home,” an art installation on Division Street by Brian Singer. A man who declined to give his name grills outside his box house on Berry Street. Jonathan Mesa, inside his hand-made home. Damond Andrews, homeless for five years, cleans up debris near his outdoor living space on Brannan Street. Photos by Judith Calson // Public Press

Wait Time Rises With Demand for Shelter SHELTERS from Page 1

PERCENTAGE OF USERS BY AGE

“Sometimes it appears that people are making something work — either living with a family member or they found a temporary arrangement, whether an SRO [single resident occupancy] or other housing, and they’re nervous that it will disappear,” Dodge said in an interview. “So the reservation is a backup plan.” But the increasing backlog coincides with changes at the Mission Navigation Center, which the city opened in March 2015 as an entry point to guide people from the street to permanent housing. When the city reduced open-ended stays to 30 days in September 2016, staff referred some people to temporary shelter. (The 30-day limit has since been increased to 60 days.) The next month, the number of people on the shelter wait list jumped. It then fluctuated, before rising to its March peak of 1,163. Data from the city’s 311 call center show that half of the people who manage to get 90-day stays reapply multiple times because they are still homeless. Thirty-seven percent have registered two to five times, while 8 percent have joined six to 19 times over the same period. A handful have used the wait list 20 times or more. One person has signed up 24 times. The list, managed by the 311 call center and updated twice a day, is anonymous, publicly listing individuals by date of birth and a confidential identification number. A person listed must call within 10 days of getting picked or lose his or her place. If the person provided a phone number, the city texts or attempts to call. Otherwise, the only way to check one’s place is to call 311, access the list online or view updated bed availability at “various locations,” the instructions state. Privacy rules prevent identification of people receiving shelter, and the Public Press could not track down individuals for

90-DAY EMERGENCY SHELTER WAIT LIST Ages 18-24

25-39

40-59

60-79

80-100

2017 2016 2015 2014 0

50%

100%

Source: San Francisco 311 Call Center. Graphic by Sara Bloomberg and Reid Brown // Public Press

interviews. Of the people who signed up in May, about 30 percent were in their 50s, 15 percent were in their 60s and 3 percent were in their 70s. City records show that the now-97-yearold has, since 2014, entered the wait list twice a year. In early May, that person was No. 794 on a list of more than 1,130 names. Two weeks later, No. 473. By June 4, the person’s birthday, he or she was at No. 251. The reservation expired June 9, but the city confirmed that this person received a bed. Although the wait list is technically first-come, first-served, the city does allot a handful of shelter beds for people who are considered vulnerable, including seniors. “We do have some carve-outs within our shelter system for elderly and veterans, and people who are referred from the Homeless Outreach Team,” Dodge said. “We want to be fair and equitable, but it’s an important practical reality.” At the same time, someone listed as 87 years old was at position 989. Without referrals from the outreach team, people have to chance it, and hope to claim spots in time. Wait list policy also bars people from

signing up for another spot until the last day of their reservations, preventing double-dipping but also forcing people to find other arrangements or live on the streets between stays. “We would rather people get on the list when they still have shelter,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. Despite its problems, the 311 system is a vast improvement on the old process, when there was no centralized list and daily lotteries were drawn at each shelter. “We fought for the 311 system,” Friedenbach said. “We tried to make it easier for people.” The bigger challenge now, she said, is knowing how many beds are being set aside and how many are left for those who are on the wait list. For some homeless people, the wait list adds to the already significant stresses of life on the streets. Lynn Mahr, 57, has stayed in at least three shelters over the past three years. Her most recent stay, in May, lasted only four days. She said some of the other women were cliquey and mean, and called her names. The rules were restrictive. It was stressful. But life outdoors offers its own traumas. She said a man raped her in May at Ocean Beach. Though he was caught by good Samaritans, she said she feared he would be released from jail soon. Even if she wanted to stay in a shelter, the wait-list process is unforgiving. “You’re at number 1,000, and then once you’re up you only have 10 days,” Mahr said. “I didn’t know I came up and missed it by a few days.” Mahr has lived in San Francisco since 2006 but lost her housing and the Section 8 voucher that helped pay for it. City records show that she had a room in an Ingleside home until early 2015, when she lost an appeal involving a dispute with the landlord.

MORE ARE WAITING FOR SHELTER BEDS ... The length of the city’s wait list for 90-day shelter reservations has grown steadily since the system was introduced in 2014, even as the city has worked to bring different kinds of facilities online, data show. 1,200

90-DAY EMERGENCY SHELTER WAIT LIST, TOTAL USERS BY MONTH Nov. 2016: Proposition Q passed by voters; bans tents on sidewalks; gives

city authority to remove tents with 24 hours’ notice and an offer of shelter

1,000

4 2

800

1 March 2015:

600

June 2016:

First navigation center opens

2014

2015

May 2017:

Third navigation center opens

Sept 2016: Policy

Second navigation center opens

changes from open-ended to a 30-day limit on stays at the navigation centers

400

200

2016

2017

Source: San Francisco 311 Call Center. Graphic by Sara Bloomberg and Reid Brown // Public Press

... AND WAITING LONGER The time homeless people spent on the wait list for a 90-day shelter reservation has risen steadily since the system was put in place in 2014, peaking at 56 days in February. MEDIAN NUMBER OF DAYS ON 90-DAY EMERGENCY SHELTER WAIT LIST, BY MONTH 50

40 May 2014: 26

30 2014

2015

2016

2017

Source:San SanFrancisco Francisco311 311Call Call Center. Center. Graphic Graphicsby bySara SaraBloomberg Bloombergand andReid Reid Brown Brown // // Public Public Press Source:

As of early June, Mahr still had no shelter. City officials recognize that the root of the problem is the lack of affordable cityfunded housing for the destitute. Unless more short-term beds or permanent hous-

ing units open up, homeless people over 50 will continue to grow old on the streets. “The baby-boomer cohort has always been over-represented, and they’re aging,” Dodge said.

4 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017

NAVIGATING

A LEGACY OF CRIMINALIZING TRANSIENCE AND HOMELESSNESS 1850 “An Act for the Government and Protection of Indians” targets Native Americans in California. Billed as promoting apprenticeship, it lets authorities “hire out such vagrant within twenty-four hours to the best bidder, by public notice given as he shall direct, for the highest price that can be had, for any term not exceeding four months.”

1970s Federal and state cuts to housing and mental health services; economic downturn; unemployment and housing costs rise.

1855 Expanding the 1850 law, California enacts Anti-Vagrancy Act targeting MexicanAmericans.

1971 San Francisco bans living in vehicles parked on the street between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Amended in 1984.

1867 California passes Order No. 873, “To Prohibit Street Begging, and to Restrain Certain Persons from Appearing in Streets and Public Places.”

HOMELESSNESS

1996-2003 Mayor Willie Brown ends Matrix program and increases affordable housing, but also closes Mission Rock shelter to make room for a Giants stadium parking lot. Quality-of-life citations also rise. At the same time, homelessness spikes during his two terms.

1979 City prohibits obstructing streets, sidewalks and public ways, or remaining on private property after being asked to leave. Includes penalties for multiple offenses within 24 hours or within 120 days. 1980s City adopts “shelter-bed-and-a-sandwich” policy under Mayor Dianne Feinstein, which does not address the underlying issues of homelessness. 1981 Ban on structures, tents or modifications to landscape for housing in parks. Ban on sleeping in parks between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. Amended in 2008. 1981 Obstructing streets prohibited. 1986 Prohibition on drinking alcohol in public, except during city-approved activities such as a parade. Updated in 1997. 1988-91 “Beyond shelters” policy under Mayor Art Agnos. Aims to create the first city-owned shelters with on-site services, but the plan lacks resources and the shelters become overwhelmed in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

2000 Camping on Port Authority property prohibited. Sleeping on port property banned between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. 2001 Loitering within 10 feet of a public restroom prohibited. 1992-95 Mayor Frank Jordan’s “Matrix” program uses police as outreach workers. 1992 Voters outlaw aggressive panhandling via Proposition J, put on the ballot by Jordan. It prohibits harassing people by “closely” following them to solicit money or other goods after being explicitly declined. Repealed and replaced by Proposition M in 2003, after being ruled unenforceable. 1994 Jordan sponsors, and voters approve, ballot measure to prohibit loitering within 30 feet of an in-use ATM.

2002 Voters aprove “Care Not Cash” policy spearheaded by Supervisor Gavin Newsom. Welfare payments to homeless people are reduced to almost nothing in exchange for city-provided housing and services. 2003 Voters elect Newsom mayor and approve Proposition M, which he promoted. It bans aggressive panhandling and replaces a similar 1992 measure that courts struck down. Proposition M also replaces the 1994 ban on loitering near an ATM with a ban on soliciting within 20 feet of an ATM or checkcashing business. Law expands provisions to

Sources: San Francisco City Charter; University of California, Berkeley, Law School’s Policy Advocacy Clinic, “California’s New Vagrancy Laws,” 2015; Coalition on Homelessness, “Punishing the Poorest”; KQED, “Timeline: A History of San Francisco’s Unavailing Effort to End Homelessness,” 2016; San Francisco Public Library, Voter Guides

‘Quality of Life’ Citations at Record Lows By Sara Bloomberg // Public Press

ubilant in blue and gold, downtown workers made the post-work dash to bars or home to watch Game 1 of the NBA finals between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers. As everyone else buzzed by along Market Street, one man stood still. He held a handwritten sign and a paper cup, hoping someone would drop in a little spare change, maybe hand him a hot meal. For 17 years, Michael Kenny, 54, has lived on San Francisco’s streets, mostly in the Tenderloin. Nobody bothers him — not the police, not even outreach workers. Anyway, he prefers to keep to himself. “The police don’t bother me. Thank God,” Kenny said. For others living on the street, police are a daily presence whom the city has relied on as front-line responders to homelessness for decades. But even as police respond to more calls, citations have declined sharply in recent years, and the courts have been throwing out warrants for “quality of life” violations, quietly decriminalizing homelessness citywide, a Public Press analysis of police reports in 10 categories since 2003 shows. Citations for begging, which had been sporadic for years, peaked between 2007 and 2008 under then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, now the state’s lieutenant governor. As a city supervisor in 2003, Newsom sponsored a voter-approved measure to ban aggressive panhandling. Since June 2015, no begging citations have been reported. Nearly three-quarters of citations and arrests since 2003 have been for public drinking and intoxication. Under Mayor Ed Lee, they have declined 80 percent since late 2013. Tickets for general loitering began steadily declining after peaking at nearly 40 in January 2005. Since early 2010, Newsom’s final year, the monthly total has been fewer than five. Frustrated by seeing homeless people on sidewalks, voters approved Newsom’s November 2010 ballot measure banning sitting or lying in public spaces. Lee became mayor two months later, and during his first term “sit-lie” arrests quadrupled, from just under 200 in 2011 to nearly 800 in 2013. Just over 700 arrests were made the next year. But police started backing off sit-lie enforcement by 2015, and citations fell by two-thirds in the first year of Lee’s second term. In the first five months of 2017, only 43 were reported. A Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report commissioned in 2016 by then-District 1 Supervisor Eric Mar showed a 30 percent increase from 2013 to 2015 in the number of times police responded to quality-of-life calls. Fewer than 9 percent resulted in a citation or arrest in 2015. At the same time, judges started throwing out warrants for these types of nonviolent violations. That irked San Francisco Police Department brass, even though rank-and-file officers had been easing up on citations for years. A police spokesman told KRON 4 News in May that “police have no intention of issuing less of them” and that “citations can push the homeless to seek services through the court or nonprofit groups.” In an interview, police spokeswoman Grace Gatpandan said the department “understands that being homeless is not a crime” and that “the ultimate goal for the department is for these individuals to receive the services or medical care they need.” More calls to police or 311 do not necessarily mean activity is increasing, a top city homelessness official said. “There are more reports of certain things, and it doesn’t mean there isn’t more of it happening,” said Sam Dodge, deputy director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “It’s just being reported more because there was a change in

Arrests and Citations

200

Loitering near school

Begging

Loitering near public toilet

Obstructing way

Loitering near ATM

Civil sidewalks, a.k.a. “sit-lie”

Loitering

Drinking alcohol in public

Lodging in park

Intoxicated in public

150

Nov. 2003 Aggressive panhandling banned

Nov. 2010 “Sit-lie” law approved

100

Nov. 2016 Prop Q tent ban approved

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

Source: SF OpenData, police incident reports, 2003 to 2017. Graphic by Sara Bloomberg // Public Press

technology or demographics or community expectations.” While the number of incidents may not be rising, an increase in police calls does translate into time and money. The 2016 report, “Homelessness and the Cost of Quality of Life Laws,” found that the city spent more than $20 million on quality-of-life enforcement across six agencies in 2015; 90 percent of the cost was for police labor. The emergency 911 call center accounted for 9 percent of the cost, with fewer than 1 percent absorbed by the general 311 call center. “The Board of Supervisors should consider implementing a new strategy to address these issues that shifts response to quality-of-life incidents from the Police Department to other City agencies,” includ-

Mayor Lee eases get-tough approach favored by his predecessors and voters ing Homelessness and Supportive Housing, the report found. We must go back nearly 30 years to begin tracking the evolution of the city’s response to the homeless. In the early 1990s, Mayor Frank Jordan instituted the so-called Matrix program, which used police officers as outreach workers. Jordan had been the city’s police chief since the late 1980s under mayors Dianne Feinstein and Art Agnos. Jordan and his police chief, Anthony Ribera, targeted key districts and tourist areas to discourage

panhandling and loitering. “On Aug. 1, Mayor Frank Jordan launched a crackdown on street people,” according to a 1993 story in the Los Angeles Times. The effort gave the “homeless the distinct impression they are no longer welcome here. Since the operation began, police have arrested more than 400 people for crimes ranging from urinating in public to lodging in a city park, panhandling in an aggressive manner or obstructing a sidewalk.” Homelessness continued to increase throughout the mid to late 1990s and into the new millennium, when Willie Brown was mayor and Matrix was scrapped. In 2002, voters approved “Care Not Cash,” sponsored by Newsom. The new approach cut General Assistance stipends to several

Michael Kenny, 54, has lived on San Francisco’s streets for 17 years. “The police don’t bother me,” he said. Photos by Sara Bloomberg // Public Press

thousand homeless San Franciscans in exchange for more housing, shelters and services. The aim was to take away cash payments often used to buy alcohol and drugs, and push people into treatment and stable housing. In November 2003, voters chose Newsom to succeed Brown and approved his toughon-panhandling measure, Proposition M. Citations issued for begging started ramping up by fall 2004, and peaked in 2007 and 2008 under Police Chief Heather Fong. Citations for loitering and obstructing sidewalks also peaked during Newsom’s and Fong’s tenures. Public drinking and intoxication citations remained more or less steady through 2012, then briefly spiked for about a year. Newsom promised to abolish chronic homelessness within 10 years, a formidable goal that remained unrealized during his two terms ending in 2010, when he was elected lieutenant governor. In 2004, then-Deputy Chief of Police Greg Suhr implemented a homelessness unit called Operation Outreach to deal with quality-of-life issues. Officers focused on connecting homeless residents to services and collaborating with other agencies to address people’s needs. It was supposed to produce more outreach, less enforcement. But even with Newsom’s policy shift to a housing- and services-first approach, Operation Outreach did not significantly dent the homeless population. Now, under George Gascón, the District Attorney’s Office has set up community courts to divert low-level offenders from jail. While Gascón was police chief, before 2010, the city launched its Community Justice Center, which serves the Tenderloin, Civic Center, Union Square and SoMa. The program refers homeless defendants to CITATIONS continued on Page 5

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 5

NAVIGATING

cally through June 2017. 2013 Parks are closed from midnight to 5 a.m., though sleeping in them is banned from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. 2013 Large vehicles are prohibited from being parked on streets between midnight and 6 a.m. in designated areas, particularly around city parks.

HOMELESSNESS

2016 Voters approve Proposition Q, sponsored by supervisors Mark Farrell, Scott Wiener, Katy Tang and Malia Cohen. Officially the “Promotion of Safe and Open Sidewalks” law gives city agencies authority to remove tents from public thoroughfares, but also requires officials to give tent dwellers 24-hours notice and offer them housing. No new funding for the creation of housing or shelters is included.

all public spaces, including Muni and BART, and provides option for substance abuse or mental health diversion through the Department of Public Health.

They administer antidote to save lives

2004 Mayor Newsom announces 10-year “housing-first” plan that lays out a goal to end homelessness within a decade. Homelessness drops, then levels off.

By Marylee Williams // KALW/Crosscurrents

2010 Voters approve “sit-lie” law, titled “Promotion of Civil Sidewalks.” It prohibits sitting or lying on public sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., with exceptions for certain activities deemed lawful, such as emergencies, parades, use of wheelchairs and strollers, and sitting on public benches or chairs. Citations jump nearly 400 percent between 2011 and 2015, then drop dramati-

Citations Drop As City Eases Enforcement on The Street CITATIONS from Page 4

social services and other agencies. Since Lee took office in 2011, the homeless adult population has grown 8.2 percent, to 6,986, according to biennial counts through 2017, which was released in early June. That represents a rise of 11.8 percent since 2005 — matching the city’s overall growth during the same period. Lee increased spending on homelessnessrelated programs by 54 percent during his first elected term as mayor, when he focused heavily on growing the local tech sector and expanding affordable housing. In 2016, he created a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Last January, Police Chief William Scott was sworn in, replacing Suhr, who had resigned several months earlier after a series of scandals including several policeinvolved shootings. In May, the Police Department announced a new homeless unit consisting of 10 officers trained in critical-response techniques. It builds upon Operation Outreach. The city has at least 23 quality-of-life codes on the books — Mar’s report lists 36 — including drinking in public (except during permitted public events), obstructing a sidewalk and sleeping in a park between certain hours. Other violations include trespassing, living in a car, erecting a structure to live in a park, obstructing streets and sidewalks, loitering near an ATM or public restroom, aggressive panhandling, creating a public nuisance, urinating in public, parking large vehicles where prohibited, and smoking in city parks and recreational areas. Out of more than 14,000 citations, 68 percent were related to public drinking and intoxication. Of those 9,500 incidents, most involve a small number of the same people day to day, according to officers on the street. Panhandling accounted for 6 percent and general loitering made up about 5 percent of all reports since 2003, the earliest data available online. “Drinking in public is a detention. SFPD does not always cite/arrest people,” Gatpandan wrote in an email. “Individuals in violation of this penal code can either go to the hospital to receive care, be released to the care of another (friend, family, etc), or be held at the station to be released when they sober up.” Only about 3 percent of the citations fall into five other categories: obstructing a public way, loitering near an ATM, loitering near a public toilet, loitering near a school or playground, and “lodging” in a park. City code prohibits erecting tents or any structure, or “modifying the landscape” for housing in a public park, as well as sleeping in parks between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. Parks are officially closed from midnight to 5 a.m. Proposition Q, which voters passed in November 2016, bans tents and structures on sidewalks, a response to the proliferation of encampments. Opponents argued that it did not create tangible solutions — neither housing nor funding for services — and would only give police officers more authority to target homeless residents. But no citations had been issued by late June, records show. Dodge said this detail deserves another look. “One thing that’s underappreciated in Prop. Q is that it is a noncriminal offense,” he said. Obstructing sidewalks and other public ways, however, is an infraction. The most such citations — just 26 — came in June 2004, under Newsom and Fong. Enforcement dropped to nearly zero for four years until late 2008, when the Great Recession hit and Newsom was in his second term. Police steadily reported sidewalk obstruction incidents between 2010 and 2013, but since then enforcement has been sporadic, with fewer than five incidents reported in

The Real First Responders To Heroin Overdoses Are Other Users

Illustrations by Anna Vignet // Public Press

Easing UpUP onON Public Drunkenness EASING PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS CITATIONS PUBLIC INTOXICATION AND OPEN CONTAINER, 2003-2017 Citations forFOR intoxication and open containers, 2003–2017 Public drinking and intoxication violations, almost ost 70 percent of all citations and d quality-of-life arrests since 2003, 003, have declined 75 percent ercent since late 2013. Maps ps show concentration of activity and changes over time.

High Density

Low Density

2014 - 2017

2011 - 2013

2005 - 2007

2008 - 2010

2003 - 2004

Source: SF OpenData, police reports, 2003-17. Map by Marcea Ennamorato using © Mapbox, © OpenStreetMap

any month. Much like the “sit-lie” rule, Proposition Q, sponsored by Supervisor Mark Farrell, bans blocking public thoroughfares. While sit-lie prohibits sitting or lying on a sidewalk, it also prohibits “any object placed upon a public sidewalk” between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., with a few exceptions made for benches, medical emergencies and “assistive devices” such as wheelchairs. But obstructing streets and public sidewalks has been illegal since 1979. Criminal records and outstanding warrants often prevent homeless people from qualifying for the scarce supply of permanent supportive housing units. “Sometimes one of the biggest problems

for people is their past history, when they were unstable,” said Rodrigo Avila, a former caseworker at the Mission Navigation Center. Something might have happened several years ago that led to a criminal record, but “that kind of thing is still a big barrier for a lot of people when they’re trying to get housing now that they’re more stable.” The last time Kenny stayed in a shelter was 15 years ago. He hated the curfews and the obnoxious, sometimes dangerous, behavior of other residents. For sleep? “Anywhere I can lay my head down,” he said. How has he survived on the streets for so long? “Just panhandling.”

A security guard rousts a man outside the S.F. Design Center. Photo by Judith Calson // Public Press

line is forming outside Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. People are waiting to get dinner or to be sent to another shelter for the night. But that’s not what Jana Lee* is here for. (*Note: We’ve changed one of the names in this story due to the sensitive subject.) It’s also syringe-access night at Glide, and Lee is getting a prescription refill. Glide volunteer Kevin Smith asks for her name, jotting it down in a binder. Every Tuesday evening from 7 to 9, anyone can come for free “longs,” “bee stingers” and — in Lee’s case — a naloxone refill. She used her last dose of the anti-overdose drug this morning to save her friend’s life. “He’s coming down on his usage, but he gets really strong stuff when he does get it and he’s just been going out, like, he’s been O.D.-ing,” Lee said. Naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, is what Lee used to save her friend from a heroin overdose. Naloxone can reverse the effects of a potentially lethal heroin overdose. Before administering naloxone, Lee did something called a sternum rub. Rubbing someone’s sternum — in the middle of the chest — is a common way to check whether someone is having an overdose or just nodding off. After trying the sternum rub, Lee realized her friend was having an overdose, and she put her naloxone to use. Rather than injecting it, she used a nasal device. She says she’s not comfortable using a syringe. “Those are really hard for me to use because — I don’t use needles myself, but a lot of people around me do,” Lee says. Lee is worried that it will take her too long to draw naloxone into the syringe. But Glide doesn’t have the nasal injectors tonight. All Lee can get are “musclers,” large syringes used to inject naloxone into the thigh muscle. Glide’s and four other syringe access programs in the city get their supply of naloxone from the DOPE (Drug Overdose Prevention and Education) Project, which collaborates with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The project started more than 10 years ago, and it has responded to the nation’s increase in opioid addiction and overdose deaths. Eliza Wheeler is the project manager at DOPE. “It’s just pure public health,” Wheeler says. “It’s the clearest. You give people this tool, you teach them how to use it, they use it — they avert a death potentially.” DOPE uses what’s called a standing order to buy naloxone and make sure it gets to organizations such as Glide and their volunteers, who then give it to people like Jana Lee. This means a doctor needs to write only one prescription, but that prescription allows people trained but not medically certified to give out the drug. They’ve been doing it this way since 2010. Prior to that, a doctor or nurse practitioner had to be present to refill and issue naloxone prescriptions. Wheeler says this has dramatically increased the amount they can distribute. Wheeler points out that for overdoses, opioid users or people close to drug users are the real first responders. “So people tend to use drugs with other drug users,” she says. “They don’t use drugs with police officers and their parents for the most part. … And also drug users had been witnessing overdoses and responding to overdoses for as long as there were overdoses, trying their best to revive their friends and family or whoever it was: their partners — strangers, sometimes.” Wheeler herself has used naloxone several times over her 20 years of needleexchange and harm-reduction work. Harm reduction is a philosophy focused on making drug use safer for those unable or unwilling to stop. The emphasis is on reducing negative consequences, rather than trying to stop people or punish them for drug use. Giving naloxone directly to users fits into this approach. Wheeler says some people are so scared of punishment, they might not contact first responders in an overdose situation. “That’s really a powerful fear, powerful distrust of a system that is very real for people,” she says. She’s personally seen cases where an overdose is occurring, but people are too scared to call 911. “I’ve heard parents — like, not drug users, parents — afraid to call 911 for their child. They would rather have their own naloxone to revive their kid who struggles with substance use than call 911, because they’re just afraid of how their kid will be treated, or will they be arrested and they don’t want them to go to jail,” Wheeler says. DOPE and the city health department collect data at access sites for research on program effectiveness. Between 2010 and 2015, reported overdose reversals in San

Francisco increased fourfold. It’s hard to know what this number actually means: Is it because there’s more drug usage now or because they are doing a better job tracking naloxone they give out? Regardless, Wheeler says, for her there is no question the program is worth it. “I mean, if it cost a million dollars it would still be cost-effective,” she says. “We spend a million dollars in this world on a whole lot less than a human life.” The price of naloxone keeps going up, which makes doing this work more difficult. According to Wheeler, DOPE doesn’t purchase the nasal device Lee prefers, because it’s doubled in price. Still, she tells people not to worry about the supply running out. “I can’t guarantee what kind of naloxone you’re going to see when you open that box,” Wheeler says. “But you’re always going to see some.” The DOPE project and similar organizations have special contracts to get naloxone at discounted rates, and they also get donations. But they’ve still had close calls. Earlier this year, DOPE’s purchasing contract was put on hold for legal review, and Wheeler couldn’t purchase naloxone.

“It’s just pure public health. It’s the clearest. You give people this tool, you teach them how to use it, they use it — they avert a death potentially.” Eliza Wheeler, DOPE project manager

A Glide volunteer holds a vial of naloxone, which can reverse the effects of a potentially lethal heroin overdose. Photo by Marylee Williams // KALW Crosscurrents

“I think that when we finally got that order placed, when the contract got approved, we had maybe 50 vials left or something like that, like something crazy. I couldn’t sleep. Yeah. It was really stressful,” she says. But for Wheeler, that stress is for a worthy cause. She says reversing an overdose is not only about the person whose life is saved but also about the impact on the person who administered naloxone. “You’ll hear stories of, ‘Oh I saved someone, I can’t believe I saved someone, I was like a superhero,’” she says. “Maybe for that moment they feel slightly less like a piece of trash, which is what the world treats them as for most of their waking hours.” Lee echoes this idea. She says being able to save her friend’s life has definitely had an impact on her. “At least you know there’s a good reason for you to be on the planet, because you can help someone else,” Lee says. The emotional impact of saving someone’s life hasn’t been quantified or studied. But the DOPE Project isn’t focused on that aspect. It’s about getting naloxone to the people who need it. KALW’s “Crosscurrents” is a daily news magazine exploring context, culture and connection from around the Bay Area.

Discarded needles used to inject opioids are common sights in the Tenderloin. Photo by Judith Calson // Public Press

6 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017

NAVIGATING

HOMELESSNESS

Homeless people build shelters out of found materials. From left: Cheree Munson, Elizabeth Kidd and Jonathan Mesa went to a navigation center expecting housing, but ended up back on the streets when the city limited stays to 30 days.

Story by Hannah Kaplan Photos by Judith Calson // Public Press

hey are impossible to ignore: encampments dense with people, tents, jerrybuilt box homes, detritus, building supplies and personal belongings. Ever since the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing formed in July 2016, it has set its sights on removing encampments and getting their inhabitants off the streets. At last count, there were 55 camps citywide. By mid-June, the department had cleared 12 and given many of the former residents slots in the city’s three navigation centers, which offer sleeping quarters, social services and, possibly, placement in long-term housing. Their time at the navigation centers was temporary, however. Initially open-ended, stays at the centers were cut to 30 days last fall. Data show that more than two-thirds of people from the encampments returned to the streets after brief stays at the facilities. The story of one large camp, known as Box City, reveals the impact this policy has had on residents. Many believed the navigation centers — touted as a model of moving people from “street to home” — would lead to long-term housing. But they were left demoralized and jaded about the government’s ability to help them. Box City formed in the aftermath of the city’s sweep of Division Street ahead of the 2016 Super Bowl festivities. More than 100 tents were cleared after the city Department of Public Health declared them a hazard. About 20 displaced residents departed together to build Box City at Seventh and Hubbell streets, on the western edge of the Mission Bay neighborhood. At its peak,

SWEPT AWAY, AGAIN AND AGAIN The former residents of Box City have experienced repeated clearings by city workers. The caravan of movable structures and tents has wandered throughout interstitial and industrial sections of the Mission, SoMa and Potrero Hill for a year and a half, ever since the city cleared sections of downtown for the Super Bowl street party in early 2016. They have cycled through the navigation centers, later rejoining the tribe as permanent housing remains elusive. Left, top to bottom: Notice to vacate the area. Outreach workers speak with homeless man. Middle: Arteaga Flowers helps his sister move. Boxes being dismantled. Right, clockwise: Jonathan Mesa puts wheels on his box for moving. Possessions packed for travel. Englebert Cabrera’s hands attaching wheels. One of the camp’s watchdogs.

about 30 people called the camp home. Last January, the city disbanded Box City — “resolved” is the official term — and placed more than 30 inhabitants in the Mission District navigation center, one of two operating at the time. For Cheree Munson, the break from the streets was bittersweet. “It was like a vacation, kind of,” she said, holding back tears. Munson has been living on the streets for two or three years. “I’m tired of this. This isn’t me,” she said. “I used to live in Twin Peaks. I had a car in the garage when I first moved here. I just messed up.” The center’s no-drugs policy and its overall environment, which was less restrictive than a city-run shelter, helped Munson fulfill her longtime goal of getting off heroin, at least temporarily. Like others from Box City, Munson was told by staff that her stay would be temporary but that she could remain while she waited for a bed in the shelter system. That bed, too, would be hers only temporarily — 90 days, as soon as she had reached the top of a wait list that exceeded 1,000 names. But she said her time at the center ended without warning. While still far down the list, Munson was roused by the center’s staff one morning in February. She was told to gather her possessions and leave immediately. Her destination: a different interim shelter that could hold her over until her wait-list number was called. But when she arrived, she said, the front-desk staffer told her there was no bed for her. Confused and defeated, Munson returned to the streets. She retrieved her old box house — a simple but sturdy plywood shelter — from Amy Farah Weiss, founder of the nonprofit Saint Francis Homelessness Challenge, who paid to store five homes at Pier 50 when Box City was dismantled.

(The rest were destroyed.) Munson set up her box beneath the junction of U.S. 101 and Interstate 80, a 10-minute walk from the old Box City. She was in familiar company. On a morning in April, Munson pointed to a row of boxes lining the sidewalk behind her near the intersection of Alameda and Vermont streets, at the foot of Potrero Hill. “Yeah, this is most of us,” she said, referring to eight other former Box City residents who entered the center and left when their time was up, returning to former circumstances. “We are all from navigation.” The people camped near Munson told the Public Press they were disappointed that the navigation center gave them only brief reprieves from homelessness, rather than the housing they initially expected. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing would not disclose the outcomes for Box City’s residents, citing privacy laws. Randolph Quezada, the department’s spokesman, said that even with names removed from the data, it might be possible to determine the identities of the former residents. City records from February described 31 people as having originated from Box City, 23 of whom left the navigation center to return to the streets. The rest transferred to the Civic Center Hotel, another navigation center, for more services. Of those who returned to the streets, 12 “left voluntarily.” Nine left after reaching the end of their temporary stays; one left because of “community/staff violence”; and one departure was marked “other.” Munson said that after leaving the Mission Navigation Center she felt hopeless about her prospects of permanently escaping homelessness. “It’s harder this time around because the letdown is so much worse,” she said. “We

NOMADS BY THE BAY Homeless Camp Faces Cycle of Displacement

were promised all these things, and they just don’t seem to care.” Munson recalled that when the Homeless Outreach Team came through Box City, staff encouraged residents to enter the navigation center because it might lead to housing. When asked about how the department works with encampment residents, and whether staff temper the expectation that navigation center stays will lead to long-term housing, Quezada declined to comment on commentary from homeless individuals. “I can’t control what people think,” he said. Sometimes, he said, misinterpretations

can occur: “Maybe I tell you one thing and you hear something else. Maybe you hear what you want to hear. I don’t know. But what I do know is that the team is focused on building trust.” The disappointment of returning to the streets — and the stress caused by daily logistical uncertainties — has tempted Munson to return to drugs, she said. “We decided getting clean was something we wanted to do, but out here you just want to give up again,” she said, referring to herself and her girlfriend, Elizabeth Kidd, who also went from Box City to the center and back to the streets. “And I’m not going

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 7

NAVIGATING

HOMELESSNESS

From left: Sean Pico became homeless in San Francisco after coming here to take care of a friend who had cancer. In May, he was living in a box near Sheryl Roxas, Engelbert Cabrera and “Bad Boy” Edwin Marangco, formerly of Box City.

to lie; I’ve messed up a couple times since being back out here.” In late May, Munson and her friends had to choose again between staying on the streets and another 30-day stay at the navigation center. That’s because the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing had “resolved” the new, smaller encampment. Other encampments are clustered in the vicinity, and Quezada said all would be disbanded, possibly by midJuly. In the meantime, the department has set up hand-washing stations and portable toilets for the occupants, he said. Spanning half a block in the Mission Bay neighborhood, Box City consisted of more than 20 small wooden houses made from found materials, as well as portable toilets that Weiss provided. It was an unremitting contrast to the pristine University of California-San Francisco medical center campus across the street, and a spectacle to Seventh Street motorists and Caltrain passengers rolling along the tracks beside the camp. Edwin Marangco, known to friends as “Bad Boy,” was one of the Box City founders. It started with only a few boxes and gradually grew enough to merit an official name, which he wrote on a sign that he posted in front of the homes. Marangco said he hoped it would bestow legitimacy so that “the city wouldn’t call us an encampment no more.” The name came in handy. “Sometimes we would order a pizza and they would ask where to deliver it, and I would tell them ‘Box City’ and it worked,” Marangco said. Members were encouraged to build their own box homes, which would withstand the city’s unpredictable weather while being aesthetically pleasing, Weiss said. They prepared meals together and created rules, such as rotating cleaning duties to keep

BOX CITY RESIDENTS MOVE A group of people vacated Division Street to form Box City along Seventh Street. Many then stayed briefly at the navigation center, thereafter moving to other areas in dwindling numbers.

DIVISION & 13TH STREETS

DE HARO & BERRY STREETS

MISSION NAVIGATION CENTER

ALAMEDA & VERMONT STREETS

HU HUBBELL & 7TH STREETS ST

HyunJu Chappell // Public Press; MapStylr

the space in and around their boxes from overflowing with garbage and disturbing outsiders. Besides stability, Box City gave residents a sense of security. When someone was away, neighbors guarded against theft. Kidd, who has been living on the streets for about three years, felt that the community provided protection. “People became like your family,” she said. “If you’re out here by yourself, it’s kind of risky.” “We looked after each other,” said Jonathan Mesa, a former Box City resident, “but it’s hard now that we are all scattered.” He and the others, gathered at Alameda and Vermont streets, did not know where 17

former neighbors were living after departing the navigation center. Jacob Young, another former resident, said the primary flaw of the navigation center was that it disrupted the relationships that developed at Box City. “We came in and they separated everybody,” he said. “They don’t understand the community aspect of us.” In September, the Mission Navigation Center stopped allowing people to stay indefinitely — for as long as was necessary to address the factors that kept them on the streets. Instead, the center enacted 30-day limits, though people could stay longer if doing so would bridge the wait times to get into 90-day traditional shelters or obtain other services. In April, the navigation centers began experimenting with 60-day stays to make them more appealing. The shift to shorter stays freed up slots that could go to new arrivals from encampments throughout the city. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing focuses on camps that have at least six tents or box homes, have existed for at least a month and present health, safety or other significant community concerns. Camp residents are always offered temporary slots in the navigation center, but they may also opt for treatment programs or temporary shelters, Quezada said. People can bring tents, boxes or other possessions with them to the center as long as there is space. They may also bring pets. “We expect most people to come with us, to move into the navigation center. But, yes, people can say, ‘No thanks, man,’” Quezada said. “We work really hard to make this stuff compelling. And that you’re going to want to do it. But we can’t compel.” Records show that former residents of encampments who move to the Mission center are not likely to end up in long-term

housing in San Francisco. Instead of being a likely route to longterm housing, the navigation center has become “another type of temporary shelter,” Weiss said. “It makes it appear that there is progress — if someone thinks progress is tents disappearing from outside their homes and workplaces. It’s really just temporary relief.” Like others, Mesa was discouraged about being homeless again just months after his stay at the navigation center. “I liked them, I liked it there,” he said. “I just don’t like that I’m back out here.” “Yeah, me too,” said Marangco, sitting beside him. One major benefit of the navigation center — a point emphasized by Mayor Ed Lee at its opening — is that it provides access to social services. Staff members sign people up to receive CalFresh (formerly known as food stamps), cash aid and Medi-Cal, health care for Californians with low incomes. And they get a respite from the stress of the streets. Roland Limjoco, a former Box City resident, received an Electronic Benefit Transfer card that functions like a debit card, making him eligible for CalFresh. The card provides $194 a month for food, and he may use it after leaving the center. But, Limjoco said, “They told me I have six months on this before I have to apply again. So that will end this July.” “I don’t even know where to go to renew it. They didn’t even tell us,” he added. Limjoco has been looking for a job but had difficulty securing a permanent address to list. So when the Encampment Resolution Team came through Box City in January, he hoped this would be his long overdue chance to enter the workforce. “Some people just want to stay in a box and are happy staying outside,” he said.

“But for me, my goal is to get a job and to stand on my own two feet again.” His last full-time job was at Old Navy in 2005, when he lived in a shelter secured through the general-assistance program. One requirement for the aid was that residents of traditional shelters attend regular meetings, which often conflicted with his long hours. When he chose work over the meetings, he lost his general assistance, a place to stay — and his job. “‘When you have a place to stay, come find me,’” Limjoco recalled his supervisor saying before letting him go. “And it has been a long time since I’ve had a place to stay.” Without an address, finding a new job has been impossible. So, for money, he collects cans and bottles in a big bag that he wheels to a recycling center. Would he enter the navigation center again? “I’d love to,” Limjoco said. “But no, I’m going to stay in my box.” He suspected that another temporary stay at the center would be too short to land a job and save money. “Navigation helped people with some things, but why not help them until the end, why stop in the middle?” he wondered. Marangco, however, thought his odds at landing a job were better if he re-entered the center. “We’ve been stuck here looking for good work so we can pay our rent, but you can’t out here,” he said. Mesa was dejected. “I was expecting too much, I guess. In a way, I knew we would end up back on the streets. Who would really help you out like that and give you a place to stay, right? It’s too good to be true.” On May 23, at 6:30 a.m., city crews arrived to clear the little village once again. Gathering their belongings, the nomads wheeled their homes a few blocks away.

Far left: Roland Limjoco makes money selling bottles and cans he collects in a big bag. On moving day, he tidies up and packs his bike into his box in Potrero Hill.

Top right: Some campers regroup three blocks away on De Haro Street before settling down a block farther on Berry Street.

Top and near left: City workers sweep up debris, leaving little trace of the camp.

Bottom right: Jonathan Mesa (right) gets help pushing his box home to a nearby street.

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100

HOMELESSNESS

NO CITY HOUSING FOR THE MAJORITY

1,192 Total Exits, by Month From all navigation centers

People have exited the navigation centers at an accelerating clip. Since the centers opened, most people have left through the Homeward Bound Program. In recent months, more have returned to the streets, while fewer have been housed.

100

570: Homeward Bound Exits

299: Placed in Housing

132: Chose to leave

Citywide program provides bus tickets out of town.

323: Return to Streets

27: Temporary housing, including shelters and treatment programs

191: Were asked to leave

272: Placed in long-term, subsidized housing

40 40

2015

2016

2017

2015

2016

2017

2015

2016

2017

2015

2016

2017

Sources: San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing data from April 2015 through April 2017. Graphic by Noah Arroyo and HyunJu Chappell // Public Press

More Going Back to the Streets Than Into Housing NAVIGATION from Page 1

first center, in the Mission District, until leaving the post in May. She said that she knew it would cause her staff to regularly send people back to the streets. “I was really upset,” said Guzman, who was also director of the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center. “I’ve never stopped voicing my dissatisfaction.” Bevan Dufty, who as City Hall’s previous point man on homelessness proposed the navigation center, declined to offer an opinion on Kositsky’s move to clear camps more quickly, which shifted the concept away from primarily placing people in longterm homes. “I’m not going to throw a brick right at this moment,” said Dufty, a former city supervisor who is now a BART board member. “I think in a better world we would focus on housing. But I understand that accumulating that housing is very, very difficult.” In an interview this spring, Kositsky downplayed the importance of the navigation centers to the city’s overall plans to reduce homelessness. He said he did not want to “obsess over one little piece of the system, because navigation centers do not exit people from homelessness, they’re a path Jeff Kositsky, towards that.” Homelessness Kositsky said that and Supportive by the end of July he Housing director would publish a multiyear plan for reforming the city’s social services and housing system, with the goal of reducing the homeless population. His team has analyzed 10 years of data to identify which programs, including the navigation centers, traditional shelters or long-term housing units, should be expanded, and to what extent. How will the city pay for this? “We’re going to come back in 2018 with a ballot measure,” either a bond or a new tax, he said. That funding would be in addition to the $246 million that Lee has proposed for the department in his latest budget.

$22 MILLION MORE In June, as other agencies faced cuts, Lee proposed giving Homelessness and Supportive Housing $22 million more than the department received in fiscal year 2016–17, which ended July 1. A $5 million cut would come the following budget year. And yet, for all the city’s money and efforts, the homeless population has risen over 12 years. There were 6,986 adults in 2017, an increase of almost 12 percent from 2005, according to San Francisco’s biennial point-in-time street counts. Since Lee came into office in 2011, the homeless adult population has grown 8.2 percent. Homeless youths, who since 2013 have been counted separately, fell nearly 44 percent in the past four years, from 914 to 513. San Francisco’s housing options for the homeless continue to lag demand. Randolph Quezada, spokesman for the homelessness department, said there is enough space in shelters designed for homeless families, and no one is turned away. Citywide there are 1,203 traditional 90-day shelter beds for single adults and 7,066 supportive-housing units, where residents receive medical and social services and are tracked, data from late May show. That leaves thousands without beds or rooms of their own. In addition to new shelters and supportive housing, the new budget would pay for additional navigation centers. The three that are operating have a total of 232 beds. A fourth center, on South Van Ness Avenue, was scheduled to open in late June, adding 120 beds. It is to close after only six to nine months, as other centers open. By next year, the original Mission center will also close. The mayor’s office projects that the annual cost to operate all navigation centers will surpass $17 million by 2018. The San Francisco model has caught the attention of two other cities. Seattle is opening its first center this summer, and the mayor of Berkeley proposed one in March. The navigation centers may even have international appeal.

“Somebody sent me a photo of a presentation in Dubai where they were talking about navigation centers,” Kositsky said. “How cool is that?” The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said that in the months after the 30-day limit was imposed, the navigation centers have made headway in getting the homeless off the streets. By January 2017, more than 1,150 “highly vulnerable people” had entered, “and 72 percent of these guests have exited to housing,” according to a statement. But that statistic contains a big caveat: It counts people as “housed” if they received one-way bus tickets across California and the country through San Francisco’s Homeward Bound program. If the homelessness department had counted only people who ended up in San Francisco’s long-term supportive housing, then the placement rate would fall to 27 percent. Homeward Bound, which aims to place homeless people with those willing to support them, is a major component of City Hall’s overall strategy to combat homelessness. Since it was launched by former Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2005, about 10,000 people have used it, typically 800 to 850 people a year.

BY THE NUMBERS 2017 homeless population: 7,499 • 6,986 Adults • 513 Youths (ages 18–24) • 4,353 Unsheltered • 3,146 Sheltered • 69% Lived in S.F. at time of becoming homeless • 55% Lived in S.F. 10 years or more Population changes 2005-2017 • 12% increase citywide • 12% increase in homeless Budget for homelessness services • Fiscal year 2016–2017: $224 million • Fiscal year 2017–2018: $246 million Temporary housing for the homeless • 3 navigation centers offer 30- to 60day stays to most people: 232 beds • Traditional shelters for adults offer 90-day stays: 1,203 beds • Family and child shelters offer 60- to 180-day stays: 59 units + 116 emergency beds Sources: San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing biennial Point-in-Time Count, U.S. Census Bureau

EFFECTIVENESS NOT MEASURED Tickets go to people whose friends, family or other contacts commit to hosting them upon arrival. Staff make follow-up calls to the hosts in destination cities three times within a month of the arrival date to see if the travelers made it safely. Staff may make additional calls, though they are not required. By spring 2016, after the Mission Navigation Center’s first full year of operation, the city Controller’s Office reported that 42 percent of clients departed through Homeward Bound. Through April 2017, that proportion had grown to 48 percent — 570 people since the center opened. Nonetheless, 12 years after Homeward Bound began, the city still does not measure the program’s effectiveness at getting or keeping people off San Francisco’s streets, or whether it has changed over time. Quezada said call data have not been compiled or analyzed. The busing program is a crucial resource to people in dire situations, Guzman said, but counting its clients as housed would be “an illusion.” “We don’t know if the people are going into any type of housing that can be permanent,” she said. Kositsky said his department would soon differentiate in future reports between people who receive bus tickets through Homeward Bound and those placed in housing in the city. He said the busing program is an asset to the city not only because it can reunite loved ones, but also because it unburdens social service agencies. “From a systemic level, anybody that we can divert out of our system means that there’s going to be more flow in the system,” he said. “More people get shelter, more people get housing, fewer people become chronically homeless.” The Homeward Bound staff recently suggested offering free bus tickets to residents of supportive housing, freeing up units for others. “I thought that was a brilliant thought,” Kositsky said. “Maybe now that they’ve stabilized more and maybe they’re not using drugs, or they’ve got their addiction under better control. Maybe that’s more of a possible thing.” The department is changing how it tracks and makes referrals for social services delivered to the homeless. Fifteen databases are being combined into one, the Online Navigation and Entry System, over 18 months. That will enable staff to more easily monitor usage trends, and will cut down on the steps clients must take to obtain services, Kositsky said. When the new tracking system is operational, Kositsky said, he would consider expanding the Homeward Bound verification checks to one year. “If they didn’t stay housed for a year, then I would say it was not a success, even if they don’t come back to San Francisco,” he said. Those struggling with homelessness tell personal stories that challenge the notion that busing programs lead to permanent housing. In conversations with people living on the streets, a Public Press reporter heard of instances of some having used

ments is just totally unacceptable behavior.” But the time limits caused more people to become homeless again. “For folks where we don’t have a clear pathway to housing, because we don’t have Homeward Bound for them or we don’t have housing for them, we’re not going to let them stay there forever,” Kositsky said. While people are at the Mission center, they have access to caseworkers, medical services, CalFresh subsidized food, cash assistance — and of course a roof over their heads. The time limit is waived for people waiting for temporary shelters or other services. In April, the limit was expanded to 60 days, after encampment dwellers told city staff that one month was not enough to get them to leave their tents. The new Encampment Resolution Team was charged with collecting people’s information over many weeks and preparing them to enter the Mission center, treatment programs or temporary shelters as appropriate. Once at the Mission center, people were screened. Those with serious health problems who had been on the streets the longest were transferred to the Civic Center Hotel, the second navigation center. There they received services while waiting, without time limits, to be placed in supportive housing. “We want to focus our most expensive intervention on the people who have no other pathway,” Kositsky said, referring to supportive housing.

SHORTER STAYS, FASTER EXITS

Shy Brown has stayed at the Mission Navigation Center four times. She was an intern for Street Sheet newspaper. Top photo by Judith Calson; bottom photo by Noah Arroyo // Public Press similar programs in other cities, sometimes lying to secure free travel. One such participant is Memphis Lamb, who came to San Francisco seven years ago with his husband through a Boston busing program called Lift. Lamb did not know a soul in San Francisco, so he hired someone on Craigslist to call the program’s staff and pretend that he would house the couple upon arrival. “It was honestly some strange man that we paid,” Lamb said.

RETURNING TO S.F. HOMELESS Kelley Cutler, an organizer at the Coalition on Homelessness, said she often meets people who have used the San Francisco busing program, and end up back in the city, homeless. “We ask if they’ve ever utilized the Homeward Bound program and a lot of them have,” she said. From its early days, the Mission Navigation Center was effective at its original mission: giving special attention to the people in encampments and getting them housed. Aside from the people who used Homeward Bound, the center’s guests most commonly ended up in long-term support-

ive housing, data show. But in recent months, many more have ended up back on the streets. A year after the navigation center opened, service providers complained that it was giving former encampment dwellers priority access to that scarce housing, putting everyone who applied through other services and access points at a disadvantage. The providers requested a more level playing field. That fall, Kositsky instituted the 30day time limit at the center as part of a strategy to make the selection process for supportive housing more equitable. That fulfilled another goal of his: bringing people from tent encampments into the center more quickly, so they could receive services and camps throughout the city could be dismantled. “I think that we have a crisis on our streets in the form of the encampments,” Kositsky said. “We know you’re somebody’s son or daughter, and you’re our brothers and sisters, but you can’t make everybody else’s lives miserable. You can’t create unsafe situations, you can’t block sidewalks, you can’t defecate on the street, you can’t drop your needles wherever you want. And grouping together in these large encamp-

His strategy paid off. People passed through the navigation centers at a faster clip, with a higher percentage coming from encampments. Monthly exits peaked in January 2017 at 88 people, nearly half from camps. But the time limit made housing prospects bleaker for everyone else who entered the Mission center. From its March 2015 opening through August 2016, the month before the limit was imposed, 91 people left without a destination noted in city records. Then, from September through April, 232 exited without placement. Staff assume all of these people returned to the streets. Some homeless people said they were caught off guard by the shifts at the Mission center. In January, navigation center staff gave Elizabeth Kidd and Cheree Munson slots after notifying them and other residents of Box City, a large homeless encampment in the Mission Bay neighborhood, that their makeshift structures would soon be removed. Upon arrival, they were surprised when staff offered help applying only for temporary shelter beds, not long-term homes. “I had the understanding that after this we would go into housing,” Munson said, pointing to a large sign at the center’s entrance. “It says it right there.” “SAN FRANCISCO NAVIGATION CENTER: STREET TO HOME.” Zachary Benjamin and Liz Enochs contributed to this report.

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The Tech Sector's Secretive Alt-Right Followers Readers of “The Right Stuff” website long knew that founder “Mike Enoch” had two main interests: technology and white supremacy. Posts on the neo-Nazi site have included discussion of “a new blogging platform built on node.js,” while less-techie content has alluded to the “chimpout” in Ferguson, Mo., putting Jews in ovens, and Donald Trump’s “top-tier troll” of Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day. In January, Enoch was outed as Mike Peinovich, a Manhattan software engineer. His unmasking highlighted a lingering question about the racist far-right movement that rose to prominence with Trump’s election: What support might the so-called alt-right have among techies? Mother Jones, sfpr.es/mj-silicon-valley

GoDaddy Works With Neo-Nazi Site Via Subsidiary

Are Floating Solar Panels Energy’s New Frontier? In generating solar power, you are limited by the size and heft of big solar panels. Solar entrepreneur Troy Helming, head of San Francisco-based Pristine Sun, has a new idea: floating panels on water. He’s considering wideopen and unused water surfaces across the state, including reservoirs, agricultural holding ponds and wastewater treatment pools. Those areas represent thousands of acres of potential solar sites. California leads the nation in setting up floating solar. In Sonoma County, for example, solar panels are about to go online at a wastewater treatment facility.

Above: A wastewater treatment facility in Sonoma is one of many potential water sites for solar panels in California, which leads the nation in setting up floating solar. Left: Troy Helming, CEO of Pristine Sun. Photos by David Gorn // KQED

KQED/California Report, sfpr.es/kqed-float-solar

George Estrada

Photo by Pandora Young // Capital & Main

Corporate Lobbyists Deliver Big Cash to House Democrats Corporate lobbyists are taking on a larger role in the Democratic Party’s fundraising efforts as it seeks to regain control of Congress, according to documents reviewed by MapLight and International Business Times. The cash infusion comes as House Democrats face pressure to break from their party and support Trump administration initiatives that could benefit the lobbyists’ clients. A filing by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee shows that four corporate lobbyists raised more than $380,000 for the organization — the primary campaign arm for Democratic House candidates — between January and March. The three-month figure is nearly four times the amount lobbyists raised for the committee during the entire 2016 election cycle. Maplight, sfpr.es/maplight-lobbyists

Estrada had taken a ride on what some call the “solarcoaster,” joining an industry that has provided jobs and opportunity to tens of thousands of workers across the country, even as it has recently faced mass layoffs and employee lawsuits — raising concerns about how fairly workers in a fastgrowing, Wall Street-fueled industry are being treated. Capital & Main, sfpr.es/cm-solarcoaster

steps to reduce the alcohol level of some wines, avoiding the tax, would no longer need to go to that expense. “Overnight,” said Michael Scippa, public affairs director for the Bay Area-based advocacy group Alcohol Justice, “people would have about 18 percent more alcohol in the same glass of wine they’re now drinking. The health implications of that are serious.” Fair Warning, sfpr.es/fw-hi-alcohol

“It’s a classic example of these big corporations caring about one thing, especially if they are filing IPOs [initial public offerings] on the stock exchange. They care about the shareholder’s bottom line.” Nicholas De Blouw, employment attorney

Agronomist George McFadden uses aerial imagery to help farmers save water.

If you’ve ever worried about IRS imposters phoning you, the reliable advice was the time-honored consumer protection adage: “The IRS will never call you.” Well, taxpayers, that’s not true anymore. The Internal Revenue Service is phasing in the use of private-sector debt collectors to pursue tax delinquents. New American Media, sfpr.es/nam-irs

In 1835, the New York Sun, a leading New York City newspaper, printed an elaborate six-part series about exotic animals living on the moon purportedly discovered through a gigantic newfangled telescope.

The Green Rush has hit Humboldt County. Pot is this region’s newest extractive industry, and it is adding to the environmental damage left by decades of logging. The proliferation of indoor and light-deprivation growing has made three harvests possible every year. Marijuana prices have dropped, so only big players with gaggles of employees and heavy financing can prosper. Companies designating themselves LLCs (limited-liability corporations) are buying parcels from aging baby boomers who can no longer compete in the slumping market. Overseas buyers and East Coast profiteers grab properties as soon as they go on the market, and sellers receive cash offers from Las Vegas high rollers emboldened by Nevada’s new medical marijuana empire. Earth Island Journal, sfpr.es/eij-pot-rush

“People will eventually figure out there aren’t really animals on the moon.” Rich Shumate, media historian

Beware: That IRS Call May Not Be a Scam After All

Tax Break for High-Alcohol Wine Sours Health Advocates Fake News Isn’t New. History Offers a Way to Fight It. Winemakers could soon receive a tax break that would spur production of higher-alcohol wines, a move that would help their bottom lines but has health advocates seeing red. The proposal would cut taxes by 50 cents per gallon on wines with high alcohol content. Wineries that now take

GoDaddy secures more than 70 million domain names. Photo courtesy of Reveal

Green Rush: Humboldt County Has a New Extractive Industry

Solarcoaster: Promise and Pitfalls of Rooftop Solar Jobs In 2012, George Estrada landed a job as a solar installer at SolarCity, a San Mateo company cofounded by Elon Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive. But four years later, after SolarCity had exploded in size from 2,500 employees to more than 15,000, Estrada quit, disillusioned by what he says was the company’s focus on meeting sales goals over workmanship and the well-being of its employees.

Despite saying it wouldn’t host the Daily Stormer on its platform, GoDaddy does offer the neo-Nazi website another service. GoDaddy is the domain name registrar for the Daily Stormer through its subsidiary Domains by Proxy. The Daily Stormer’s domain registration information can be found via a lookup tool such as that operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Named after the German Nazi-era tabloid Der Stürmer, the Daily Stormer is a prominent player in the online white supremacist ecosystem. Publisher Andrew Anglin regularly posts attacks against racial, ethnic and religious minorities. Reveal, sfpr.es/reveal-godaddy

Photo by Emma Foehringer Merchant // Grist

Through the Wringer: Lessons From California’s Water Crisis

To boost circulation in 1835, the New York Sun concocted this “ruby amphitheater” of exotic creatures it said was spotted by telescope living on the moon. Public domain image Somebody at the Sun (just who remains a mystery) made the whole thing up, in an effort to goose circulation. The hoax did eventually unravel, although the newspaper never retracted the story. Today, we are battling similarly fake news, yet even in

our “post-truth” world, it is still virtually unthinkable that a major newspaper in a major U.S. city would publish information that it knew to be demonstrably false. Media Shift, sfpr.es/ms-fake-news

After enduring a harsh five-year drought, California was drenched by torrential rain this winter. Yo-yoing between extreme stretches of parched and sodden will become more common in a warmer world. And climate is far from the only change facing California — technology is transforming the state’s economy, while immigrants continue to reshape its cultural fabric. As these forces converge, residents are coping with water shortages in surprising ways. Where trend-setting California goes, the rest of the country may follow. Grist, sfpr.es/grist-water

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Sharks Are Dying By the Hundreds In San Francisco Bay Researchers are unable to figure out the 50-year-old mystery of mass die-offs By Eric Simons // Bay Nature

undreds of leopard sharks and bat rays have washed up dead or dying on the San Francisco Bay shoreline this spring, the second year in a row of mass elasmobranch death in the bay and the third major die-off in six years. But for the first time since an unusual shark stranding was first reported in the East Bay a half-century ago, scientists say they’re close to an explanation. “I look at it as a 50-year-old shark murder mystery, and we are hopefully closing in on the killer,” said California Department of Fish and Wildlife senior fish pathologist Mark Okihiro, who has led the stranding investigation. The 2017 die-off started in mid-March and has been concentrated around Foster City and Redwood City, with additional reports from Hayward, Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. Okihiro, who is based in Southern California, hiked 5 miles of shoreline around Foster City in the last week of April and found 24 dead or dying leopard sharks and two dead rays. The event is ongoing and appears to be “heating up some,” he wrote in an email.

“I look at it as a 50-year-old shark murder mystery, and we are hopefully closing in on the killer.” Mark Okihiro, California Department of Fish and Wildlife pathologist “It’s the dead shark capital of California,” said Sean Van Sommeran, the executive director of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation in Monterey, which tracks strandings. “It’s major, major, major.” Shark die-offs in the bay go back to at least 1967, when then-East Bay Regional Park District naturalist Ron Russo reported the deaths of more than 725 sharks and rays on the Alameda shoreline over two summer months. More recently, Van Sommeran said, there were big die-offs reported in the South Bay between 2002 and 2006. The next major event came in spring 2011, when the foundation tracked several dozen deaths in Foster City, San Mateo, Sausalito and Mill Valley. The timing of the most recent outbreaks offers a clue to the cause, Okihiro said: Leopard sharks come together to spawn in shallow water in the spring and early summer, exposing them to more toxins than they’d see in the deeper parts of the bay where they spend most of the rest of the year. The problem, though, has been in figuring out exactly where and when the die-offs were happening, the necessary first step to figuring out why they were happening. “No one’s looking at it consistently,” Okihiro said. “It’s not like we could plot out, there were 2,000 leopard sharks that died in 2011 versus 250 in 2012. There is no one

HOW TO HELP If you see a stranded or dying shark, call the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s CalTIP hotline (888-334-2258) or contact the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation (831-459-9346). Or take a picture and upload it to iNaturalist.org, which is tracking leopard sharks and bat rays.

with the job of tabulating leopard shark and bat ray death. We’re doing this all on the fly, on a shoestring.” In 2016, Van Sommeran said, a new dieoff caught researchers off-guard. This year his team caught wind of the strandings as they started, and so were able to map them as they happened and ship fresh shark carcasses to Okihiro to examine. Okihiro performed necropsies on 26 sharks in April, including what he labeled the “patient zero” for this die-off, a leopard shark recovered from a beach near San Francisco International Airport by a California Fish and Wildlife warden on April 9. That shark and another collected a few days later had signs of a brain infection that had caused them to become disoriented and swim onto shore. So did seven more sharks that Okihiro necropsied after his shoreline walk in late April. With meningitis established as a cause of death, Okihiro next took samples from tissues and fluid around the sharks’ brains. When he put samples from the first two sharks into petri dishes, fungal colonies grew, leading him to think that a stillunidentified fungal pathogen had caused the infections. But a UCSF analysis of the brain fluid of three sharks showed another pathogen from a different kingdom: Miamiensis avidus, a kind of protozoan that has caused repeated mass deaths in hatchery white seabass, Okihiro said, including a 2010 epidemic that killed more than 250,000 fish. “The bottom line is that I now view the fungal isolates as playing more of a secondary role in the epizootics, and that protozoa were probably responsible for most of the deaths in 2006, 2011 and 2017,” Okihiro wrote in an email in late May. How either pathogen might have made it into the sharks’ brains in the first place says a lot about the complicated modern bay. Two centuries of development and fill mean that most of the flow of water along the bayshore is controlled — in flood-control channels, managed wildlife ponds and man-made lagoons like those surrounding the houses in Foster City. That often-stagnant water has become, Okihiro said, like a “giant broth culture” for fungi, and when the water conditions are right the fungal pathogens go nuts and “explode into billions of infective particles in the water column.” Big rain events then push a toxic plume of pathogens out into the wider bay — just as large groups of sharks are coming into

Above: A dying leopard shark on the beach in Foster City in April. Far left: A photo of the unidentified fungal pathogen from the brain of a dead leopard shark, which California Department of Fish and Wildlife pathologist Mark Okihiro took from the shark’s brain and grew in the lab. Left: Dead and dying leopard sharks and bat rays on the beach near Foster City. Photos courtesy of Mark Okihiro // California Department of Fish and Wildlife

shallow water to spawn. The pathogens, Okihiro said, seem to enter through a shark’s ears or nose, and then travel up a set of ducts into the brain — a pathway recently uncovered by Long Beach State University shark biologist Chris Lowe. Van Sommeran said he thinks the sharks and rays are also harmed by poorly designed tidal gates around the bay, which were built to control the flow of water around urban areas. Particularly in Redwood Shores and Foster City, he said, tidal gates close in anticipation of rain (to keep tidewater out so ponds and canals can absorb runoff rainwater and houses don’t flood) — but in doing so, they can trap sharks and rays in stagnant and increasingly toxic water. “It’s like a tourniquet,” Van Sommeran said. “The pH gets off, dissolved oxygen diminishes, temperature and salinity skyrocket and the sharks begin to die within a day or two. Then when the backwash of

“Not only do we undervalue women in the workplace, but we undervalue the work that women do.” Susan Eggman, assemblywoman

urban and suburban runoff fills in, it’s just nasty. The sharks are getting all kinds of infections.” Jared Underwood, a refuge manager at the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, said in an email the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has installed fish screens on its tidal gates in the refuge to avoid trapping animals, and that the refuge has not received any reports of shark or ray strandings this year. Leopard sharks are the most common shark in the bay and are frequently spotted in shallow coastal waters from Baja California to southern Oregon. Like many sharks, they’re long-lived and slow-growing, making mass mortality events particularly concerning for shark researchers. “They’re beautiful sharks, they’re kind of a signature species of California and San Francisco Bay in particular,” Van Sommeran said. “Leopard sharks, in the big picture, are vastly diminished from like the 1950s. They used to be typically 5-6 feet

Bay Nature is a quarterly magazine exploring nature in the San Francisco Bay dedicated to educating residents about and celebrating the beauty of the surrounding natural world.

Equal Pay Eludes California’s Working Women, Lawmakers Say By Katie Orr // The California Report via KQED News

Assemblywoman Susan Eggman announces the economic equity priorities of the Legislative Women’s Caucus. Photo by Katie Orr // KQED

long, and common. It’s hard to find one 4 feet long now.” Strandings probably represent a fraction of the sharks that have actually died, since sharks that die in open water simply sink. Even those that do wash up onto beaches, though, don’t find their way to wildlife officials. Well-intentioned onlookers often try to push sharks back into the water in an attempt to revive them — ensuring, Okihiro said, that the shark swims off to die elsewhere. “Everybody wants to save the sharks,” he said. “But we can say with 99.9 percent certainty that the shark is on the beach because it’s infected and dying. Pushing it out to sea just means we don’t get a chance to examine it. We don’t get a chance to know what killed it.”

arking Equal Pay Day, female lawmakers sounded the alarm about the status of working women in California: From inequality in wages to lack of family-friendly workplaces, the California Legislative Women’s Caucus says, things have to change. And it has proposed legislation to do that. Studies show working women in California earn about 80 cents for every dollar men earn. The gap is larger for AfricanAmerican and Hispanic women. To help remedy that, Assemblywoman Susan Eggman (D-Stockton) has introduced a bill to prohibit employers from asking applicants about their salary history. She said fields women have historically worked in, such as teaching or nursing, tend to pay less. “Not only do we undervalue women in the workplace, but we undervalue the work that women do,” Eggman said. “So if somebody goes from a traditional women’s type of employment into, say, law enforcement, if they have to look at what you were paid before and then compare it to what a man is paid, you’re never going to be equal.” The caucus also sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown asking him to continue increasing child-care provider rates in the

coming budget. “The deal that was made last year between both houses and the governor was a multiyear commitment to strengthen rates for child care providers,” said Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens), who chairs the caucus. “Gov. Brown is not keeping his promise.” Although Brown had proposed putting the increases on hold, the final 2017-18 state budget increases child-care provider rates, including keeping pace with the state’s minimum wage. Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) has introduced a measure she says will create more family-friendly workplaces. It would require employers with 20 or more workers to allow eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected parental leave. The caucus is also backing bills to protect vulnerable communities. These mearures aim to preserve rape kits, make diapers more affordable, encourage cancer screenings and crack down on sexual exploitation. KQED has served Northern California for more than 50 years and is affiliated with NPR and PBS, KQED Public Television 9, KQED Plus public television and KQED Radio 88.55 FM.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | 11

State Kindergarten Vaccination Rates Reach All-Time High Following New Legislation Jane Adams // EdSource

Greenpeace unfurled an anti-Trump banner, which activist Karen Topakian helped hoist on a construction crane near the White House in January. Photo by Joe Flood // Creative Commons image via Flickr

Local Activist Stars In ‘Arrested Again’ Film By Laura Waxmann // Mission Local

ith a rap sheet that spans three decades, one of the activists who famously hoisted a 75-foot “Resist” banner from a crane behind the White House last November is the subject of a short documentary. The protest denouncing President Donald Trump’s policies made national headlines and landed Greenpeace activist Karen Topakian and a handful of others, including another local activist Nancy Pili Hernandez, in jail for 18 hours. By Topakian’s standards, it was a tremendous success. “It went around the world a few times,” said Topakian, who lives in the Mission District. “I do this to be a body count to show that there are people who are willing to risk their freedom for unknown consequences.” The action certainly wasn’t the first time that Topakian put her freedom at stake to protest social injustices. Weighing in on nuclear weapons policy, war, human rights and environmental abuses, the passionate social justice advocate has made marching, lying down, sitting-in or climbing on public spaces in protest her life’s work. Topakian’s first arrest was in 1982 for “lying in a road in New York” in protest against nuclear proliferation at the United Nations headquarters. Since then, Topakian has been arrested some 33 times — “maybe more, but definitely not less,” she said. The 62-year-old’s activism is featured in the four-minute documentary “Arrested Again,” which premiered at the San Francisco Green Film Fest in April and screened again in the San

action. Francisco Documentary Film Festival “What is the thing that you really in June. The documentary is filmcare so much about that you are willmaker Dan Goldes’ third short film ing to step away from your everyday since 2011 and was shot entirely with life and do something about it?” she his iPhone. asked. Goldes, who met Topakian on the Still, Topakian doesn’t necessarily screening committee of the Green Film consider civil disobedience the mark of Festival last year, said he was inspired an activist. She says it simply “isn’t for to tell her story after inquiring about everyone.” a telephone number scribbled on her Topakian knows that she is in a forearm in black Sharpie. position of privilege to make radical The phone number was that of the moves, which she said she has chosen National Lawyers Guild, which among to leverage while practicother things, provides legal ing her First Amendment support to activists and right. “I am white, I’m well protesters who are arrested. educated, I’m older and I do Topakian had gone to a not worry about my improtest earlier that day and migration status,” she said. was, as always, prepared to “Being a woman [gives you] leave in handcuffs. a tiny privilege, but not a “She told me that she whole lot.” always writes that [number] “She’s willing to put on her arm when there is a Karen Topakian. herself out here on behalf of protest and there is a possiPhoto courtesy of many people who can’t,” said bility of being arrested,” said Dan Goldes Goldes. Goldes. “That’s when she Under the Trump admintold me she’s been arrested istration, both Topakian and Goldes dozens of times. She told more of her hope that the film will inspire others story, like it wasn’t a big deal.” to forego their comfort zones to make Topakian, who chairs the board of a change. Greenpeace Inc., is both humble and “There is a clear need for resistance straightforward in talking about her work, and I think Karen’s story can be extensive history of advocacy, clearly that inspiration. But it doesn’t mean preferring to let her actions speak for people will have to get arrested,” said themselves. Goldes. “Hopefully, it will inspire peo“It’s not about self-promotion,” she ple to get involved with an advocacy said. “It’s about, ‘This issue requires organization, contact their representaa response and I believe it requires an elevated response — hence, I do X.’” tives or go to a march.” When asked about what drives her to put her body repeatedly on the line, Mission Local is an independent news Topakian said it comes down to chanorganization covering San Francisco’s neling outrage and fear into peaceful Mission District online and in print.

accination rates hit an all-time high for California kindergartners, the California Department of Public Health said in announcing its first findings since a new law ended the era of the “personal belief exemption” that allowed thousands of parents to choose not to vaccinate their children who attend public and private schools. The percentage of kindergartners who received all required vaccines rose to 95.6 in 2016-17 from 92.8 in 2015-16. This is the highest reported rate for the current set of immunization requirements, which began in the 2001-02 school year, the state said. “It’s a great thing for California kids,” said Catherine Flores Martin, director of the California Immunization Coalition. “It’s a big win for schools and communities.” California parents do not have to immunize their children. But under the new law, Senate Bill 277, children must be immunized against 10 serious communicable diseases if they want to attend public or private schools and child care centers. If unvaccinated, children must be homeschooled or enrolled in independent study with no classroom instruction or receiving special education services, the California Department of Public Health said. Children may be granted a medical exemption to vaccinations with a note from a doctor attesting that the child’s health condition prohibits vaccinations. The rate of medical exemptions rose to 0.5 percent in 2016-17 from 0.2 percent in 2015-16. The department also released a new category of information: 0.5 percent of kindergartners were reported as lacking full immunization because they attended private home schools or independent study programs or received special education services. Tulare County had the highest rate — 98.5 percent — of vaccinated kindergartners followed by San Benito County with 98.1 percent, the state said. But even with the increase in vaccination rates, nine counties have rates below 90 percent for kindergartners, the state said. A 90 percent to 95 percent vaccination rate is considered “herd immunity,” the rate necessary to protect a community — particularly those who are too sick or too young to be vaccinated — from an outbreak of many contagious diseases. Measles, which is highly contagious, requires a 95 percent vaccination rate to protect the community, health officials say. While personal belief exemptions are no longer granted, 0.6 percent of kindergartners were not vaccinated because of a personal belief exemption their parents

Kindergartners with all Required Immunizations, By School Type

Kindergartners with Permanent Medical Exemptions, By School Type

had obtained a year earlier in transitional kindergarten. The law stated that their exemption would remain valid in kindergarten. All told, 1.5 percent of kindergartners lacked required immunizations in 2016-17, a decline from 2.5 percent in 2015-16, because of medical exemptions, previously awarded personal belief exemptions or enrollment in home schooling, independent study or special education, the state said. At hearings at the state Capitol, hundreds of parents vociferously pleaded with legislators not to repeal the personal belief exemption. But public health advocates prevailed. In California and elsewhere, nonmedical exemptions have created pockets of unvaccinated children that have facilitated the spread of potentially life-threatening diseases, particularly measles and pertussis, according to a research review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2016. The most at-risk groups for the diseases are infants too young to be vaccinated and individuals with compromised immune systems. EdSource is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy and media organization whose mission is to clarify complex educational issues in California and to promote thoughtful decisions about public school improvement.

Graphics: California Department of Public Health

Trump's Election Complicates Noncitizen Voting in S.F. School Board Elections By Scott Shafer // The California Report via KQED News

ost amid Donald Trump’s stunning upset in the election in November was the passage of a controversial San Francisco ballot measure. Proposition N will allow noncitizens with children to vote in local school board elections. But now, with immigrant communities worried about the Trump administration cracking down on sanctuary cities, that might be more easily said than done. “It’s really unfortunate that the national rhetoric and the Trump administration has become so hostile to immigrants that they fear to participate in this very basic American right,” said David Lee, executive director of the Chinese American Voters Education Committee in San Francisco. Lee’s group encourages Chinese-Americans to get involved in politics. Lee supported Proposition N, but worries that many immigrants will prefer to stay under the radar, even if they’re here legally. He notes that while the city is nearly a third Asian, the school board has no Chinese-American members. He thinks encouraging noncitizens to vote could help change that. “We have a lot to gain as a community because we’re getting a voice that is rarely heard from involved in politics,” Lee said. While Lee sees Proposition N as a

shining example of the city’s progressive, forward-thinking policies, not everyone agrees. “San Francisco, I’ve called it the utopian petri dish of California,” said Harmeet Dhillon, national committeewoman from California for the Republican National Committee. “Bad ideas that survive the chemical process here tend to spread and metastasize throughout California. And I’m afraid that’s what’s really going on behind this.” As an attorney, Dhillon handles election law cases. And she thinks the idea of letting noncitizens participate in elections, including people here illegally, is likely to encourage voter fraud. “I think a lot of people who don’t speak English may misunderstand their right to vote more generally,” Dhillon said. “You vote in this election and it feels good. Your candidate won and so you might decide to register for a general election as well.” Dhillon and many other Republicans criticize California for not doing a better job of checking voter rolls and cross-referencing them with undocumented immigrants who get benefits, such as a California identification card for driving. “I’m not saying turn them in,” Dhillon says, “but just for the integrity of the ballot.”

For the record, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla says there’s no evidence to support allegations that the state’s voter rolls include many undocumented people who are ineligible to cast ballots. More than two-thirds of K-12 students in San Francisco’s public schools are Latino or Asian-American. Of all students, at least one in three is believed to have a parent who’s an immigrant. The passage of Proposition N made San Francisco the first city in California to allow noncitizens with school-age children to vote, but only in school board elections. The idea is to give immigrant parents more of a voice in how the city’s public schools are run. That got a big thumbs-up from Carmen Flores at a recent school board meeting. Flores is from Nicaragua and has two kids in public schools. She’s a naturalized citizen and therefore allowed to vote in all elections. But she thinks noncitizens should have a voice. “If you allow the children to attend school, why can’t a parent have the right to vote?” Flores said. “It doesn’t make sense not to do it. Schools in San Francisco are not good. You have to fight to get a really good public school. That’s what I did for my child.” But the idea of noncitizens voting does

not sit well with parent Nicole Powell. “That’s why we pay taxes, this is why we vote,” Powell said. “These are things that are in place for a reason. So I personally feel like, you should be a citizen.” San Francisco rejected ballot measures to allow noncitizen voting twice before finally passing it in November. San Francisco school board President Shamann Walton acknowledges backers of Proposition N never imagined it would be enacted during a presidency hostile to immigrants. But he says that shouldn’t be a long-term concern. “We thought we would probably have a different leader in the White House,” Walton said. “But remember, presidencies don’t last forever, thank God. But hopefully this policy does.” The measure will take effect for November elections in 2018, 2020 and 2022, and will expire after that unless the Board of Supervisors adopts an ordinance to continue it. The man responsible for implementing Proposition N is city elections chief John Arntz. He says his main focus isn’t the politics of this. It’s just making sure it comes off without a hitch. “Potentially, there’s going to be a lot of attention to this and a lot of activity,” Arntz said. “Just stay to the goal and get it implemented and run the election, and

everything else will pass by.” Once it’s up and running, San Francisco will join several small towns in Maryland that allow noncitizens to cast ballots in school board elections. KQED has served Northern California for more than 50 years and is affiliated with NPR, PBS, KQED Public Television 9, KQED Plus public television and KQED Radio 88.5 FM.

CROSSWORD PUZZLE SOLUTION FROM PAGE 2

12 | SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG | SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC PRESS, SUMMER 2017

NAVIGATING

HOMELESSNESS

“We’re not trying to enforce our way out of this. We’re trying to connect people to services and resources.” Randolph Quezada, Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing spokesman Police were a visible presence when an encampment in Potrero Hill was cleared in May. Far right: An officer tells Engelbert Cabrera he must move his box home elsewhere. Photo by Judith

Calson // Public Press

After City Clears Homeless Camps, Team Works to Prevent Return By Zachary Benjamin // Public Press

The Re-Encampment Prevention and Response Team at 15th and Carolina streets. Photo by Noah Arroyo // Public Press

ABOUT THIS PROJECT San Francisco does not have enough subsidized housing for all the homeless people living here. The Public Press examined the city’s paths for getting people off the streets, giving special attention to the new navigation centers. Reporters also tracked trends showing a decline in SFPD citations for behavior that homeless people have trouble avoiding. Reporting: Noah Arroyo, Hannah Kaplan, Sara Bloomberg, Zachary Benjamin Editing: Michael Winter and Michael Stoll Cartography: Marcea Ennamorato Photography: Judith Calson Illustrations: Anna Vignet Design: HyunJu Chappell Online: John Angelico

For previous coverage and updates: SFPUBLICPRESS.ORG/HOMELESSNESS/NAVIGATION

individuals. He had no specific information about police officers working with the prevention team. In response to criticisms about the level of police involvement on the team, Stevenson wrote that dealing with homelessness “requires resources and participation from several city departments,” and that the department meets weekly and has conference calls daily with other city departments about homelessness. In general, he said, the police provide a “support” role in addressing homelessness. Quezada rejected the idea that police involvement with the prevention team should be cause for concern. “We’re not trying to enforce our way out of this,” he said. “We’re trying to connect people to services and resources.”

san francisco public press

44 page st., suite 504 • san francisco, ca 94102

ity crews this year have cleared — or “resolved,” in official parlance — 12 homeless encampments as part of the push to move people from San Francisco’s streets to housing of some sort. Officials quickly learned that soon after a camp was cleared, a new one would often take hold in the same area. So in late March, the city quietly added a team tasked with preventing encampments from re-emerging. The Re-Encampment Prevention and Response Team consists primarily of two members of the Human Services Agency’s Homeless Outreach Team, and workers from the Department of Public Works and the Police Department. The prevention team monitors areas that have been cleared, responds to complaints about encampments that have reappeared and offers people living on the streets access to safety and services, said Randolph Quezada, a spokesman for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. But some who work closely with the homeless worry that involving the police so heavily in prevention efforts disrupts the trust social workers have gained with encampment residents. Quezada said the department created the prevention team to support another group, the Encampment Resolution Team, which was created last summer to get people to leave their camps so they could be dismantled. “The thinking was that in addition to what was happening to resolve various areas, and whatever work we were doing with neighborhoods and other stakeholders to maintain the areas resolved, that there were additional sorts of things that the city could do to help bolster those efforts,” Quezada said in an interview. “And part of that was bringing together this team, which was dedicated to returning to the areas that have been resolved.” A former worker with the Homeless Outreach Team and the resolution team, who spoke with the Public Press on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, believes that the prevention team was created because officials are worried about negative publicity from having homeless people reappear at seemingly “resolved” locations, particularly given the amount of money spent on the navigation centers. “Once it became apparent that people would return to the same place each time, they said, ‘Well, we need a team to go out and dissuade the campers, the residents, from returning to the same exact spot, because it looks so bad media-wise to have the same exact characters, after a million dollars has gone into this project,’” the former worker said. For fiscal year 2016–17, which ended June 30, about $9.4 million was budgeted for three navigation centers: $2.6 million for Mission Street, $3.1 million for the Civic Center Hotel and $3.7 million for the Central Waterfront facility, which opened in late May. The former worker was also critical of how the prevention team integrated the Police Department into the Homeless Outreach Team, fearing it would erode camp residents’ trust in the outreach squads, which are not affiliated with the prevention program. The outreach and resolution teams both “were always very adamant, ‘We don’t work with the police,’ ” the source said. “ ‘We may be seen with them but we don’t work with them.’” The source said the team would work with the police using a “good cop, bad cop” approach. The prevention team represented the “good cop,” warning residents that if they did not leave, they would risk having police dig up old citations or arrest warrants. Most cleared encampments have not re-formed, though some people have tried to camp there again, Quezada said. The resolution team will still work to clear new encampments and provide their inhabitants shelter and services — temporary housing, a bus ticket to relatives in another city through the Homeward Bound program, a temporary stay at the city’s navigation centers or access to medical care and public benefits. Quezada said that when the resolution team is dispatched, “police also mobilize to the site, but in a very 10-steps-away kind of thing, just in case something goes south. Thankfully nothing has.” In early June, according to documents compiled by the Department of Public Works, there were 55 active homeless encampments in the city. Last summer, the city combined several programs and contractors from different departments to form a Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Because the prevention team is relatively new, data to evaluate its effectiveness are scarce. Laura Guzman, a service provider and former member of the city’s Local Homeless Coordinating Board, voiced concern about having police involved with the team. “We need to actually minimize police intervention,” said Guzman, who in May retired as director of the Mission Neighborhood Resource Center. “I think a reencampment strategy is giving even more power to the police to do what they’ve been

A Public Works crew cleaned up an encampment in Potrero Hill in May. Photos by Judith Calson // Public Press doing, which is to move people from one block to another.” At the coordinating board’s April meeting, she requested information about the prevention team from Jeff Kositsky, head of the homelessness department, who said he would provide it at the next meeting. At its May session, Kelley Cutler, a social worker for the Coalition on Homelessness, reiterated Guzman’s information request. Kositsky acknowledged the preven-

tion team’s existence but declined to elaborate on the team’s purpose or functioning. He said that, in general, the homelessness department works closely with the police and Public Works when needed. David Stevenson, the police department’s director of strategic communications, wrote in an email that 10 officers work with the public health, public works and homelessness departments. Eight officers have received Crisis Intervention Team training to work with mentally ill