London Breed-Backed Homeless RV-Towing Measure Passes

San Francisco approved it’s latest measure to stop the influx of homeless people coming into the city this week when the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) board voted to begin towing homeless RV’s from city streets if the occupant refuses an offer of shelter.

For months, the city and County of San Francisco, as well as Mayor London Breed, have significantly cracked down on homelessness in the city. This included targeting the removal of more homeless encampments in August and rekindling the city bus program that busses out homeless people to other cities and states. For Mayor Breed, who is locked in a neck-to-neck race with former Mayor Mark Farrell in the Mayoral race, she has been pushing a stronger stance against homelessness in the city, after years of focusing primarily just on shelter rather than outright removals. Criticism from other candidates, especially Farrell, on her crime and homelessness records, amongst other topics, propelled them up in polls. With public safety concerns still the largest issue in the race, Breed brought other measures to city and county services for them to move up.

On Tuesday, this included a measure put in by Breed to the SMTA designed to further crackdown on homelessness by targeting RV uses. Under the measure, the city will be allowed  to tow RVs, trailers and other large vehicles parked on San Francisco city streets between 12 A.M. and 6 A.M. if those living inside at first refuse an offer of shelter from city employees. The SFMTA board approved the measure Tuesday night in a 6-1 vote, amending the city’s traffic code to bring the new measure into effect by November 1st. City employees will place flyers and then install signs warning of the new law, hoping many will leave the city before November 1st when the latest crackdown begins.

Breed’s latest homeless measure

“This approval by the SFMTA Board of Directors will help us to enforce our laws to ensure that our streets are safe, livable, and accessible to everyone,” said Mayor Breed in a statement on Wednesday. “Our outreach workers are going out every to offer help to people and to engage with those living in vehicles and encampments. Our message is clear: accepting our help is not just an option, it is the option. If someone is offered housing, shelter, and support but turns us down, they cannot remain on the streets.”

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman added, “I strongly support Mayor Breed’s proposal. San Francisco should be doing everything we reasonably can to help unhoused households resolve their homelessness, but it is not reasonable or fair to impacted neighborhoods to allow our public spaces to be converted into campgrounds. That is true of encampments on our sidewalks and in our parks, and it is true of RVs on our streets. We can and should offer shelter and services to unhoused households, but we simply cannot allow people to live in RVs on our streets indefinitely.”

However the move was criticized by many. Homeless advocates, as well as two Mayoral candidates, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Supervisor Ahsha Safai, have come out against the measure, saying that it will only worsen the problem and that Breed had rejected safe sites for RV parking in the past. And, while others agreed with the measure, they accused Breed of only doing it to help win favor before the election. Her unusually specific start date of the program of November 1st, only a few days before election day, particularly incensed many.

“She’s doing everything she can to stop Farrell and [fellow Mayoral candidate Daniel] Lurie right now,” said political advisor Sharon Lee to the Globe on Thursday. “They both came out strong on public safety and crime and homelessness. Breed sank in the polls. So she is doing all this to get goodwill. The RV thing the other day was just the latest. It was so blatant too. She put it in to be passed through the SFMTA board, trying to make it seem like they did it, and then of course had the audacity to have the crackdown begin November 1st. This is plenty of time for the Breed campaign to do a last minute photo op for the Mayor in front of a towed RV, saying her programs were working.

“This is the same playbook of politicians doing last minute things and getting photo ops done before a tight election. She wants to be reelected this badly.”

The new RV measure enforcement is expected to begin November 1st.