San Francisco Sun

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed issued a statement today in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass, emphasizing its impact on managing public spaces in San Francisco.

“This decision by the Supreme Court will help cities like San Francisco manage our public spaces more effectively and efficiently. San Francisco has made significant investments in shelter and housing, and we will continue to lead with offers of services from our hard-working City employees. But too often these offers are rejected, and we need to be able to enforce our laws, especially to prevent long-term encampments. This decision recognizes that cities must have more flexibility to address challenges on our streets.

“We will continue to offer shelter, but we will not allow those who reject offers of help to remain where they are. There are many people struggling on our streets with addiction and mental illness, and our outreach workers will offer access to treatment while we also work to compel those who are the sickest into care through new tools like expanded conservatorship. But those who refuse our help or those who already have shelter will not be allowed to camp on our streets. It’s not healthy, safe, or compassionate for people on the street and it’s not acceptable for our neighborhoods.

“We will now adjust our city policies to be in line with the ruling by the Supreme Court. We have been working with the City Attorney and City staff on potential outcomes prior to the ruling, and now we will review this final decision with the City Attorney’s Office before announcing and implementing our new policies.

“However, we do know that with this ruling we will be able to improve our efficiency in how our departments respond to encampments and more effectively respond to prevent re-encampments after we move people into shelter and clean up our streets. Implementing these changes will require us to train our city workforce so they understand how to do their work in compliance with any new policies. But with our tent count at its lowest level in five years and street homelessness at its lowest in ten years, we still have a lot of work to do and this will help us build on that progress to make our streets cleaner, healthier, and safer for everyone.”

San Francisco has significantly invested in shelter and housing over the last five years, expanding shelter beds by over 60% and housing slots for formerly homeless individuals by over 50%. The city has added 400 behavioral health treatment beds and is poised to access new Prop 1 funds that aim at dramatically expanding treatment beds across California once available. The Mayor's proposed budget continues this trajectory by including dedicated support for families under her Safer Families proposal.

The city's most recent quarterly tent count at the end of April recorded 360 tents and structures across San Francisco—a 41% reduction from July 2023 figures. The average tent count rate for 2024 is reportedly the lowest since such counts began in 2018. Additionally, biennial homeless counts indicate that street homelessness has reached its lowest level in a decade.

City encampment teams from the Healthy Streets Outreach Center (HSOC) continue daily efforts offering shelter and services. Once new policies aligned with the Supreme Court ruling are finalized, training sessions for city employees will ensure compliance within a few weeks post-policy issuance.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision permits cities like San Francisco involved in ongoing litigation about resolving tent encampments based on Ninth Circuit precedents set forth in Grants Pass. The court concluded that enforcing anti-camping laws does not violate constitutional protections while allowing local jurisdictions authority over public property use regulations concerning health, safety, welfare issues arising from public encampments.