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SF Mayor Announces Tenderloin Block-by-Block Program

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In a Wednesday press conference, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a block-by-block assessment plan aiming to address challenges in the Tenderloin neighborhood. The plan will focus initially on 13 of the 49 blocks most highly impacted by the coronavirus.

The plan comes just days after the UC Hastings School of the Law, along with some of its neighbors in the Tenderloin, filed a federal lawsuit to force city leaders to clean up the area.

Rhiannon Bailard, executive director of operations for UC Hastings, said that since the shelter-in-place order was issued in March, conditions in the neighborhood have worsened. The lawsuit demands that the city enforce laws against drug dealing, provide support for homeless residents by installing hand-washing stations and port-a-potties, and moving people into permanent supportive housing.

“The challenges of unsheltered homelessness have grown exponentially during the COVID-19 crisis, forcing the city to thin out shelters and follow CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidance to not disrupt homeless encampment, said Jeff Kositsky, manager of San Francisco's Healthy Streets Operations Center.

Kositzky also noted that there has been an increase in tents counted in the city — from 385 in April 2019 to 1,200 in April 2020, and a 300% increase since January 2020. “This is not acceptable,” he said.

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The Tenderloin is one of the city’s densest neighborhoods.

— Erin Baldessari (@e_baldi) and Lakshmi Sarah (@Lakitalki)

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