San Francisco approves homeless shelter despite backlash from wealthy residents

Authorities in San Francisco have approved plans for a homeless shelter that had faced fierce protests from wealthy local residents.

Tuesday’s unanimous vote by San Francisco’s port commissioners was the culmination of weeks of contention that began with residents of one of the city’s most desirable waterfront neighborhoods raising more than $101,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to pay for an attorney to fight the construction of the Navigation Center.

“It’s unfortunate that the industry around homelessness and affordable housing was able to prevail at this stage, but this is far from over,” Andrew Zacks, the attorney hired by the residents, told the Guardian.

The planned shelter is part of the city’s efforts to fulfill its promise to increase the number of shelter beds by 1,000.

An estimated 7,500 people sleep in San Francisco’s streets, with more than 1,400 waiting for temporary shelter spots to open up each night. Homelessness in the city has become a humanitarian crisis, fueled in part by the tech boom bursting through the housing market.

“The City is in crisis. People living on our streets are in crisis,” the city supervisor Matt Haney, whose district includes this affluent waterfront community, said in a statement. “We have to take immediate action to prevent and address homelessness, and provide more services, shelter and housing across the city – this Navigation Center will absolutely be a part of the solution.”

Related: San Francisco: residents of wealthy area shout down mayor over homeless shelter

Opponents to the proposed 200 beds that would come with this shelter say their ultimate concern is safety. But at Tuesday’s meeting, some also appeared concerned with image; the waterfront’s scenic views and seaside bike lanes attract tourists by the millions. Residents waved orange signs reading: “This is San Francisco’s Front Yard”.

In response, advocates with the Coalition on Homelessness unfurled a banner declaring: “People are Dying in Your ‘Front Yard’”.

“That slogan came from a comment at the previous meeting, that we don’t even put our Recology [waste processing] center in the front yard, we put it in the back yard,” said Kelley Cutler, the human rights organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness. “So that’s where the slogan came from: you’re putting ‘the trash’ in the front yard.”

Cutler and the Coalition on Homelessness is used to getting pushback whenever a proposal for a homeless shelter comes up, but the level of “vitriol and hate” was unprecedented, Cutler said.

“We had to get involved just to remind people that we were talking about human beings,” she said. “We brought banners with the names of people who died on our streets this past year because that is the reality of it, that is what we’re concerned about, and that is what we need to keep bringing into the dialogue and that hasn’t been part of it. People have just been so demonized and stigmatized, and the conversation just hasn’t gotten anywhere.”

Zacks, the attorney for the residents, has already filed a brief objecting to the process by which the port commission approved the plans for the homeless shelter. He is also questioning whether the project should be exempt from a full environmental review or if it should undergo the lengthy process required under state law.

“We believe that in the mayor’s haste to meet her campaign promises, she has failed to follow the law,” he said. “It’s pretty disrespectful to the people who live there to shove it down their throats like this. I have been practicing law in this city for almost 30 years and I have never seen so much disregard for the feelings, thoughts, and opinions of thousands of people.”

A rival GoFundMe, whose premise is that homeless people “deserve safe and humane shelter”, raised $176,000 for the Coalition on Homelessness. The rival campaign garnered support from the Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff; the Twilio CEO, Jeff Lawson; and from GoFundMe itself.

And though the Coalition on Homelessness is not directly involved in this city-funded homeless shelter, Cutler says it will continue to oppose the demonization of homeless people.

“We got our own battles going on, but what we are going to continue to do is remind people of the humanity of people and of the crisis going on in our community,” Cutler said.