Now that it's been roughly three weeks since San Francisco hosted Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, some residents in the Tenderloin say the massive cleanup for the summit is eroding quickly.
During APEC, the area of Leavenworth and Ellis streets was clear and even looked to have been sprayed down. Now, homeless encampments have returned, and some of the items from the unhoused people nearly block the sidewalk.
"A lot of the streets are still clean, but we have seen some tents coming back," Tenderloin Merchants Association Executive Director Rene Colorado said.
Colorado said the extra police presence during APEC helped shuffle many of the unhoused people in the neighborhood to other parts of the city.
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But now that they've returned, Supervisor Dean Preston, who represents the Tenderloin, said it's clear the mayor's office is once again dropping the ball when it comes to handling the longstanding homelessness issues in the neighborhood.
"There doesn't seem to be any serious plan for getting folks the help they need and getting folks off the streets, and it continues to be a source of great frustration for people in the neighborhood," Preston said.
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The mayor's office said city street teams are out actively making offers of shelter to people, but a lot of times, people aren't taking them.
"Since the end of APEC, the healthy streets operations center, which is a team that I run, we've placed 82 people into residential settings, treatment and housing," Sam Dodge said. "We're happy about that. But 162 people that we encountered rejected our offers of shelter."
According to the city department of homelessness, they just added 300 more shelter beds since the pandemic and have added 30 more for overnight lodging through the winter.
Mayor London Breed has also directed city agencies to begin considering a new state law that goes into affect in January, expanding the criteria for getting court appointed conservatorship over people in deep crisis because of substance abuse.
But that will just be one more tool – in an assortment of them – to continue trying to get as many people off the streets as possible.
"It is a process and it takes time, and I understand it's not where we want to be," Dodge said. "We need to get to the other side of this."
