Despite a New Mayor, SF is Struggling with the Same Old Homeless Problems

Mayor Daniel Lurie was elected on a platform of cleaning up San Francisco’s streets, in particular dealing with drugs and homelessness. He’s been claiming some successes recently.

The number of homeless tents are at the lowest levels on record. Every San Franciscan deserves clean, safe streets—and every person deserves a path to stability. We will be relentless until everyone is safe and feels safe. https://t.co/8eKVJgWiHq

— Daniel Lurie 丹尼爾·羅偉 (@DanielLurie) April 15, 2025

There really are fewer tents visible around the city though that arguably has a lot to do with a decision by the conservative Supreme Court.

In April 2020, the number of tents peaked at 1,108, falling to 383 by April 2021, before rising again to 609 in July 2023. Former Mayor London Breed began enforcing anti-camping laws after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ruling banning enforcement of such laws, resulting in a rapid tent decrease to 242 by October 2024.

With the tent count at 222 as of the end of March, encampments are trending down, though not as rapidly as before.

But fewer tents doesn’t automatically translate into fewer homeless people. The data also shows that most people on the street are still refusing shelters and city services.

In May 2024, The Center Square reported that 60% of homeless outreach engagements resulted in refusals. For the first three months of 2025, 925 engagements resulted in 696 refusals and 229 shelter placements, meaning 75% of engagements resulted in refusals, an increase of 25%.

In San Francisco, people can reject city services and remain on the street forever. The SF Chronicle published a story today about a concerted effort in the Marina District to deal with just the most deranged homeless people.

Screaming and harassing merchants and shoppers. Defecating in commercial corridors. Threatening pedestrians on and around Chestnut Street. Suffering in the streets for years while refusing offers of shelter…

The Marina’s new supervisor, Stephen Sherrill, is now trying to address the problem. Sherrill has created a list of about a half-dozen of the neediest unhoused people in his district —most of whom cycle in and out of hospitals and jails — and is convening meetings with representatives from law enforcement, the fire department and behavioral health to try to get them needed care.

The current president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Rafael Mandelman, used this same approach back in 2019. He made lists of the most disruptive homeless people and tried to make sure they got help. In theory, it’s a good idea, but in practice all the city can only offer are carrots. There are really no sticks to get people off the street if they want to be there. “The list just sort of highlights the way in which the overall system is not really equipped to adequately respond to these problems,” Mandelman told the Chronicle. He added, “It underscores our failures more than our successes.”

Because even as the mayor and some city officials are making an effort to deal with the problem, there is a group of people who make their living from homelessness who don’t care about anything but serving these addicts. If the neighborhoods go to hell, that’s someone else’s problem. We can’t have any stigma against street addicts.

This week, the Voice of San Francisco received an anonymous message containing a recording of a Dec. 20, 2023, phone meeting led by Dr. Hillary Kunins, director of Behavioral Health Services and Mental Health SF, regarding harm reduction strategies for 2024…

“The topic of public … open-air drug use feels like is a driving preoccupation for the city,” Kunins says. “There’s also the issue of open-air drug selling, which I know are not unrelated .… As a longtime progressive advocate in public health, I have been pretty silent about this because I have always felt it’s about stigma and it’s about prejudice, and we should be protectors, and we are responsible for supporting people, and their public drug use is really a problem for other people.”

ABC 7 Bay Area just did a report about another neighborhood that has seen a recent influx of drug-addicts. They spoke to one of these new residents, a homeless man from out-of-state named Joshua who admits he came for the drugs.

“I don’t know, I don’t think I want to stop using drugs. That’s the problem,” he told us…

He, like so many others we’ve reported on through the years, is not from the Bay Area.

“Boston,” Joshua told us. But he also made stops in Texas, and Humboldt County. We asked him what brought him to San Francisco. “We came here, ahh, drugs I guess, yeah,” he admitted.

One of the non-homeless people who lives in this neighborhood recently posted a video of walking his 3-year-old daughter down the street past a bunch of addicts.

My 3 year old baby 🥰 We just got back to SF after 2 weeks in Guadalajara, I did not want to return. This is where we live!. Where is @SFPD @SFPDChief @DanielLurie @JackieFielder_ Our politicians are not serious people. Lock these drug dealers up and mandate jail or rehab NOW pic.twitter.com/PKXPI5hJyF

— Andrés Wíken (@andres_wiken) April 15, 2025

That video got the attention of Mayor Lurie who even came to talk to Wiken. But he didn’t make any promises and nothing has changed

On all sides of our block are crawling with drug addicts smoking fentynol. It’s impossible to go anywhere without passing this nonsense. Gangsters from the TL & Soma just colonizing our beautiful street. Lots of nice, amazing people with kids live here. @DanielLurie pic.twitter.com/pkIqBpBdVd

— Andrés Wíken (@andres_wiken) April 28, 2025

As Wiken sees it, San Francisco isn’t any more willing to change than these addicts are.

not really. propaganda is strong here and white guilt is a real thing. it prevents us from speaking up against the drug tourism that is destroying our communities. we are shamed for voicing our concern

— Andrés Wíken (@andres_wiken) April 15, 2025

Here’s the ABC7 news report. My takeaway is that this is a very difficult problem and one progressive Democrats will never solve. The solutions they can accept don’t work and the solutions that might work they can’t accept.