Scenes From San Francisco's Unhoused Encampment Sweeps

S

an Francisco officials are ramping up citations and sweeps of unhoused people sleeping on the city’s streets.

The escalation in enforcement comes as Mayor London Breed faces a tight reelection this November and increasing pressure from opponents saying the city hasn’t done enough to solve the problem. In July, she vowed to more aggressively clear encampments beginning in August.

The mayor’s crackdown follows the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling making it easier for cities to cite or even arrest unhoused people for sleeping on public property whether or not any alternative shelter is available. She has directed San Francisco city crews made up of police, emergency responders, social outreach workers and street cleaning workers to clear tent encampments throughout the city twice a day. Since the sweeps began, a federal judge ruled the city must better train its workers on how to handle unhoused people’s belongings.

The city has increased shelter capacity by more than 60% since 2018 and has added more housing units for formerly unhoused people, according to the mayor’s office. But San Francisco still lacks enough temporary shelter and permanent homes for people to move into off the street.

KQED’s photo team spent a series of days over the past two weeks documenting the sweeps and speaking with the people impacted by them.

August 1, Showplace Square Neighborhood

City crews sweep encampments on Division Street, from Vermont Street to 9th Street, and on Alameda Street from San Bruno Ave. to Potrero Ave.

At 7:45 a.m. Alex Vallardo packs up his camp from under the I-80/Highway101 freeway interchange to avoid losing them to the city’s encampment sweep teams. Vallardo says he plans on staying in the same general part of San Francisco.

The sweep begins and a team from the San Francisco Department of Public works clears out a handful of unoccupied encampments and power washes the area.

By 10:50 a.m. the sweep is over in the area and Alex Vallardo returns to the same location where he’d been that morning. He says he’d like to go home to Mexico but can’t afford to.

August 8, Bayview Neighborhood

City crews sweep encampments on McKinnon Ave., from Selby Street to Toland Street, and on Toland Street from McKinnon Ave. to Jerrold Ave.

Ronnie Haggard pushes an overloaded cart up Selby Street away from McKinnon Street, where the city’s sweep will begin at 8 a.m.

Haggard and Ariel Young are relocating their camp and their four puppies two blocks from where they had been.

“We moved from one spot to another just until they’re finished doing what they’re doing,” says Haggard. “Then we’ll move back to where we was.”

On McKinnon Ave., a man known as MacGyver goes through his belongings deciding what to take with him and what he’ll have to leave.

Like several residents of the area, he’s not in a tent but has built a shelter out of wooden pallets. When he leaves, MacGyver is forced to leave the pallets behind.

As the sweep team works its way up at McKinnon Ave., nearby residents Suyen and José Zapatano desperately try to relocate the RV where they live with their 11-year-old son.

The battery is dead and they say they’ve been trying to replace it since the night prior.

As José calls out of work for the day to address the situation, a mechanic friend tries to install a new battery in the RV. DPW tells the Zapatanos that they have until 9 a.m. to move their vehicle or it will be towed.

The replacement battery doesn’t work – but by strapping the RV to his car, their friend is able to tow the RV one block over and out of the sweep zone.

“Nobody would choose to live like this”, says Suyen. She says the family would like to find an apartment to live in but can’t because they don’t have credit.

The sweep moves up McKinnon Ave. and around the corner on Tolland Ave., alongside the perimeter of a large Amazon facility with crews filling the backs of pickup trucks with trash and discarded belongings to be taken to the dump. A front-end loader is used to demolish larger encampments.

After leaving her encampment briefly to relocate a shopping cart full of belongings, a resident of McKinnon Ave. is blocked by San Francisco police officers from returning to gather the remainder of her possessions.

Gilbert Cayago says he’s been living in an RV along Tolland Ave. for three years. It’s ironic, he says, that after supporting neighbors in repairing their vehicles for years, he’s now unable to start his own and will have to surrender it.

Cayago says he’s learned to smile through the pain and jokes with the SFPD officers on the scene. He accepts an offer from the city for placement in housing services and leaves Tolland Ave. after selecting a few prize possessions to take with him, including his guitar.

August 8, Tenderloin Neighborhood

Crews sweep encampments on Leavenworth Street, between Turk and Eddy streets.

As the afternoon sweep begins, unhoused people in the area begin packing up their things.

Alongside the city’s sweep team, Jay Paulino, a youth reporter at POOR Magazine, is on the scene handing out bagels to unhoused people in the area, and live streaming video documenting the sweeps.

As the DPW teams move up Leavenworth Street between Eddy and Ellis streets, an unhoused resident named Jasmine is asked to pack her belongings and clear the area. The sweep team power washes the sidewalks where the people had been.

August 9, South of Market Neighborhood

Crews sweep encampments on Merlin Street, near the intersection of Harrison and 5th streets.

“If you don’t know your rights, you’re stuck in this wave,” says Tracey Luz, a Bay Area native who was forced to move.

In the morning, Luz packs her clothes and blankets into a cart and walks with her dog around the corner from where she had been sleeping on Merlin Street, where she’s lived on and off for nearly a year. She says city crews used to clear the area once every six months or so, but it’s happened multiple times in the last couple of weeks.

The city notified Luz on August 5 that crews would be clearing the street on August 9, she said. When they arrive, she accepts an offer for shelter for the day. But she doesn’t know where she will go after that, saying the shuffle around had been “disconcerting.”

“Some people lose almost everything. They might fall asleep or they are gone and come back and everything is gone,” Luz says.

In the nearby Embarcadero Neighborhood, James Harris was told he needed to leave an F-train stop where he’d been staying. Harris, an army veteran, has lived in San Francisco for 33 years.

August 9, South of Market Neighborhood

Crews sweep encampments on 6th Street, between Howard and Minna streets.

Seeing the sweep team arrive and begin their work, Gary Lai begins folding and packing his belongings. He says he and his dog Creed are headed “westward,” as far as he can go.

Lai says his father is from Hawaii and he wishes he could go there. Lai says he’s been on the street in the area for 5 years but has only been staying where the sweep will take place for the past 24 hours.

As others prepare their things to relocate, Incident Commander Leslie Fong with the San Francisco Fire Department approaches several unhoused people within the sweep area to inform them that city officials are on the scene offering services including housing.

“You’d be surprised how quickly your shoes get holes in them,” says Erin Henry as she laces up a pair of shoes on Minna and 6th streets.

Henry and her partner Michael Johnson are packing away their tent and getting ready to relocate as the sweep moves up 6th Street towards their encampment.

Johnson says that the last time the area was swept he was away from his things and his good wagon was taken, making it harder to move this time.

As the sweep approaches, Henry and Johnson relocate their things across 6th Street. to Natoma Street a block that has just been cleared.

August 14, Produce Market Neighborhood

Crews sweep an area underneath the Highway 101 onramp near Cesar Chavez Street, known as The Hairball.

Shortly before 8 a.m., Salomon Bello Molina is approached by a member of the Encampment Resolution Team known as ERT. The ERT is an initiative by the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to provide services for unhoused people, including shelter placement.

As he packs his belongings, Molina is advised about temporary housing options available to him, but he ultimately declines.

Molina, 52, came to San Francisco 10 years ago with hopes of supporting his children and mother in Mexico. However, two years after his arrival, he became addicted to drugs and has been unhoused ever since.

“I came here to work, but I got lost in drugs – I relapsed,” he says. “That addiction is so powerful, you can’t have anything; you sell your things, you lose your principles.”

Molina describes the encampment sweeps as overwhelming, and during this sweep, he abandoned most of his belongings.

“The city shows up – the police, the cleaning crew – and they all want my attention. I can’t give them all my attention. It’s chaos,” he says, adding that the experience gives him “stage fright.”

When he leaves, Molina takes only a few small carts filled with food, clothes, a bike he plans to sell and a pair of table lamps he hopes to trade for food.

When asked about the kind of support he ideally wants, Molina says he would appreciate a decent job and a quiet place to clean up and keep his dog – a small room with a bathroom, kitchen and refrigerator.

Although he was offered a motel room in the past, he turned it down, citing concerns about neighbors, bedbugs and fleas.

“With a decent job, I can stop bothering people here. I can leave. But right now, I have nothing,” he says.

KQED’s Vanessa Rancano contributed to this story.