BOMA San Francisco’s Government Affairs Policy Advisory Committee (GAPAC) made homelessness and street behavior a key issue in 2016. They met with City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) Department staff in charge of homelessness mitigation coordination:
- Joyce Crum, Director, Housing and Homeless Division, Human Services Agency;
- Lt. Michael Nevin, SFPD homelessness issue veteran;
- Sam Dodge, Director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement (HOPE), Mayor Ed Lee’s Office (precursor agency to the newly formed Department of Homelessness);
- Brenda Meskan, San Francisco Department of Public Health, Director San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team.
Based on the April 2016 meeting, the Government Affairs Committee decided to aggregate the resources available from CCSF to BOMA members to help with the various homeless and street behavior issues. Click here for more information about that document published in July 2016.
As you may know BOMA San Francisco members heard from Jeff Kositsky recently at a BOMA member luncheon this year on the progress his Department of Homelessness is making to help house those who are homeless and guide them to CCSF resources.
The City and County of San Francisco is focused on helping those less fortunate than most and they are trying. There is a sizable amount of resources that the CCSF is using to try to lessen homelessness and questionable street behavior. Collectively, CCSF staff point to a few things to consider:
- Homelessness is acute in San Francisco but especially egregious in large West Coast cities in general, e.g., Los Angeles, Seattle and Portland. They have sizable homelessness populations. San Francisco, by contrast, has around 6-7k homeless at present and that general count has been holding. Housing and social services are their overall solution.
- The epidemic opioid crisis is contributing to not only homelessness but questionable street behavior from many individuals that is overwhelming CCSF’s response.
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