Tell Mayor Breed: No Mass Camps for Homeless San Franciscans!
Mayor London Breed
SF Office Number: (415) 554-6141
Email Contact: MayorLondonBreed@sfgov.org
NOTE: due to the Covid-19 emergency and shelter-in-place orders, it may be more effective to email the Mayor. It is important to use your own words in emails to elected officials, but feel free to use our sample script below as a guide.
Call Script
My name is ____, and I am a member of Indivisible SF. I’m asking Mayor Breed to take immediate action and house our vulnerable homeless San Franciscans in hotel rooms, where they can safely shelter-in-place, not in mass camps where the virus could easily spread.
Sample Email Script
I am a member of Indivisible SF, writing in support of the Board of Supervisors’ plan to house all homeless San Franciscans (including SRO residents, shelter residents, and people living on the street) in vacant hotel rooms, so that they can safely follow the shelter-in-place protocols and help protect our public health.
While San Franciscans have been ordered to shelter in place since March 16th, and strongly encouraged to social distance since March 6th, nearly 3,000 people experiencing homelessness in congregate shelters, 5,000 unsheltered individuals, and 19,000 people living in SROs are still unable to self-isolate and are at greater risk for contracting the virus.
There are an estimated 40,000+ vacant hotel rooms in San Francisco right now. Hotels have already come forward and offered over 8,500 rooms to the city for use—and yet, the City departments in charge have not started moving people out of shelters or off the streets. Every moment that we wait in getting everyone safely inside puts people in grave risk and endangers the public health of the entire city.
I urge you and your office to do the right thing and take immediate action to ensure the health and safety of our most vulnerable residents.
Background
Mayor London Breed has ignored repeated requests from homelessness advocates and from the Board of Supervisors to allow homeless San Franciscans to safely shelter-in-place. We have over 40,000 vacant hotel rooms and many hotel workers eager to go back to work. But Mayor Breed has refused to allow these vulnerable residents a safe environment. On Monday, she attempted to move 400 shelter residents into a warehouse facility with mats on the floor, folding chairs, and no safety measures. After a public outcry and around the same time that multiple shelter residents tested positive for COVID-19, Mayor Breed reduced that number to 200.
The Board of Supervisors passed a resolution last week asking the City to move forward with housing homeless people in vacant hotel rooms and on Tuesday, April 7th, they are introducing an emergency ordinance requiring at least 1,000 rooms be procured for unhoused people in congregate settings such as shelters, and mandating the city lease some 14,000 rooms by April 28.
However, although the Supervisors are able to pass legislation and allocate funds, it is ultimately within Mayor Breed’s purview to release those funds, or not. So far, she has been unwilling to release the funds. Activists and Supervisors Dean Preston and Matt Haney have raised nearly $100,000 in private funds to move homeless people out of shelters where they cannot adequately practice safe-distancing into hotels, but ultimately, we need Mayor Breed to acquiesce and order City departments to enact this plan.
References
Mayor Breed Opts for Mass Indoor Camps. Quiver Watts, Street Sheet, April 6, 2020
http://www.streetsheet.org/mayor-breed-opts-for-mass-indoor-camps/
Exodus: Hospitality House residents relocate to hotel, as COVID-19 cases crop up in other shelters — and plan to move homeless to Moscone West comes under fire. Joe Eskanazi, Mission Local, April 6, 2020
Demand For Hotel Rooms Increase As Three Homeless People In SF Test Positive. Lea Ceasrine & Rose Aguilar, KALW, April 7, 2020 https://www.kalw.org/post/demand-hotel-rooms-increase-three-homeless-people-sf-test-positive.