San Francisco Mayor London Breed orders city workers to offer homeless people bus passes before providing them with housing

SAN FRANCISCO — In a controversial initiative to remove homeless San Francisco residents from the city, Mayor London Breed has issued an executive order requiring the purchase of bus passes for homeless people as the city’s shelters are near capacity.

Mayor Breed said progress has been made in housing many long-term residents of San Francisco, but this directive is aimed at the growing number of people coming from out of town.

The mayor’s move also comes as the city ramps up efforts to clear encampments after a recent Supreme Court ruling that allowed cities to force people off the streets, and now it’s trying to send more people home.

MORE: San Francisco homeless encampment cleanup continues: Here’s what happened to one homeless man

All city departments working with homeless people have been ordered to offer relocation assistance before providing any other services, including housing and shelter.

The goal is to reconnect people with their families and support them in their communities of origin.

“I support it as long as we verify that people actually have a place to live,” said Del Seymour, founder of Code Tenderloin, a nonprofit that has been helping people on the streets for decades.

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Seymour said the city’s relocation efforts often prove unsuccessful.

“A lot of people will call and say, ‘yes, send them back,’ but when they get there, we don’t know for sure if they have a place to live,” Seymour said.

One reason for this directive is the 2024 San Francisco Point-in-Time (PIT) Study, which found an increase in the number of homeless people coming to the city from elsewhere compared to previous studies.

“A lot of people come here thinking that San Francisco is going to be a great state for them to live and thrive in, but they actually leave home because they think they’ll find something here,” said Donna Hilliard, executive director of Code Tenderloin.

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Hilliard believes it is crucial to allow people to return home.

“They need to be able to return home, so offering them a chance to reconnect with their family and support system is everything.”

Others warn that the Journey Home program will not solve the homelessness crisis.

“It’s not a cure-all,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness. “It serves a small group of people who have communities outside of SF that they can reconnect with and call home, but any attempts to expand the program in the past have been unsuccessful because there just aren’t that many people who could benefit from the program.”

The mayor’s office says the plan is to track statistics to see if the program is working, but exactly how that will be done is still unclear.

Mayor Breed’s full statement can be found here:
“San Francisco remains committed to investing in effective programs that provide services that help people living on our streets reconnect with their homes as part of our ongoing efforts to address homelessness in our city. While we will always be guided by compassion and have made significant progress on housing and shelter, we cannot address everyone’s housing and behavioral health needs. We have made significant progress in housing many long-time San Francisco residents who have become homeless, but our data shows an increase in people coming from elsewhere. Today’s order will ensure that all of our city departments leverage our relocation programs to address this growing trend.”