San Francisco Reopens Homeless Shelter Ready Lists for the First Time in Years

San Francisco has reopened a ready checklist for folks to enter homeless shelters after going three years with no centralized mechanism for unhoused folks to discover a mattress of their very own accord. 

A brand new dashboard hosted by the Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing permits folks to make a reservation for one of many metropolis’s shelter beds, displaying a waitlist that was 20 folks lengthy as of Thursday afternoon. 

The town had discontinued the waitlist on the onset of the pandemic to permit for semi-permanent stays on the services that had been as soon as restricted to 90 days, as a substitute relying totally on outreach operations to find folks for accessible beds.

The town has 3,081 shelter beds that usually hover round 90% occupancy to make room for emergency intakes whereas over 4,000 folks sleep on town’s streets on any given night time. However the division is now aiming to extend its occupancy degree to 95% to make higher use of its assets, based on Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the homelessness division.

“The thought is to enhance the flexibility for somebody to self-refer into the shelter,” Cohen stated.“It’s one thing we’ve wished to do for some time.” 

The shortage of shelter mattress availability has fallen beneath a microscope in current months after a nonprofit referred to as the Coalition on Homelessness filed a lawsuit in opposition to town final yr for allegedly destroying homeless encampments with out offering an alternate place to sleep. 

In December, a federal decide issued an injunction that sided with the coalition and prohibited town from implementing sure legal guidelines that displace involuntarily homeless folks. The injunction has led some native leaders to name for extra shelter services; Mayor London Breed indicated throughout a Could press convention that town can be transferring towards a “shelter first” method. 

The town has lengthy prioritized funding everlasting beds over short-term ones because the homelessness division’s leaders contend that it prices extra to pay for twenty-four/7 shelter workers and that deprioritizing housing manufacturing would in the end make extra folks homeless.

Christin Evans, a member of the Homelessness Oversight Fee, stated she believed it’s going to now be simpler for folks to enter shelters, which she stated was notoriously tough through the pandemic. However she expressed considerations that town could start cramming folks into shared dwelling areas. 

“Due to the dearth of housing, it isn’t unusual for folks to spend years inside a shelter,” Evans stated. “There’s completely concern about whether or not shelters are in a position to workers appropriately with extra folks dwelling in a crowded area.”