SF Supervisors Vote Unanimously to Provide Shelter for All

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday passed Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s “A Place For All” ordinance to provide shelter for “everyone willing to accept it,” the county announced.

The unanimous vote will make it the policy of the City and County of San Francisco to offer all people experiencing homelessness a “safe place to sleep,” the county said. Mandelman said that the city’s sidewalks “can no longer serve as the waiting room for permanent supportive housing” and that San Francisco should be responsible for providing every unsheltered person a “safe, dignified place to sleep.”

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing must now prepare to implement the ordinance by December 31, including the number of people estimated to be served, the cost of providing the shelter, and the total cost for the endeavor overall.

The ordinance also requires the Director of Real Estate to create, maintain and regularly update a list of lots or facilities appropriate for use as shelters, tiny home communities, or safe-sleeping sites.

The Controller will be required to submit reports every two years evaluating the program, the county said. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will also be required to create a dashboard on its website displaying the total number of shelters citywide, broken down by type, number of units and occupancy rate.
“Providing shelter for all is an act of basic humanity,” said Mandelman. “It is intimately related to what is happening on our sidewalks and it should not have taken San Francisco this long to adopt such a commonsense policy.”

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