San Francisco took the global stage this week, hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and seized the opportunity to revitalize its tattered image, long plagued by issues such as crime, homelessness, and drug markets.
President Joe Biden and California lawmakers welcomed world leaders to the APEC summit in the U.S. for the first time since 2011, in the biggest diplomatic event San Francisco has seen in 80 years.
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In an effort to make international visitors view San Francisco as safe and vibrant, as opposed to a city embattled with crime and homelessness, multiple cleanup projects and beautification efforts took place. However, controversy swarmed the makeover, with some expressing concerns about the repercussions for those experiencing homelessness and questioning improvements from prior to the summit and how they’ll be carried out after.
City officials targeted homeless hot spots such as the intersections in the Tenderloin and South of Market, where open-air drug markets are found, and in the neighborhoods surrounding the conference.
While the city isn’t setting up any new shelters to accommodate APEC, a 30-spot overnight winter shelter opened last week, located at Natoma and Eighth Streets. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is working to add around 300 beds between three existing congregate shelters, per the Bay Area Joint Information System.
San Francisco has roughly 7,750 homeless people, according to the most recent point-in-time count, and 56% of those are unsheltered.
According to the joint information center, San Francisco provides shelter and housing to about 16,000 homeless and formerly homeless individuals every night — 3,000 of whom are in shelters. The center told the Washington Examiner that the city has added 1,100 beds to its shelter system over the last five years and helped 10,000 people out of homelessness.
“One overall thing to keep in mind is that a lot of what people are talking about regarding APEC are increased efforts that have been happening to clean up our streets over the last several months, as well as more recent efforts that have taken place with the clarity from the Ninth Circuit around how we as a city can handle homeless encampments,” Jeff Cretan, communications director for San Francisco Mayor London Breed, told the Washington Examiner.
The efforts to remove homeless encampments in San Francisco have been stalled by a lawsuit filed last year. The Coalition on Homelessness sued the city in September 2022 for clearing homeless encampments, alleging they were in violation of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that ruled a firm offer of shelter must be issued before citing and arresting people living on the streets.
In December, U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu issued an injunction barring the city from cleaning up homeless encampments until more shelter beds are available. After a lengthy legal battle, Breed announced in September that a court of appeals ruled on the definition of “involuntary homelessness” — much of which the lawsuit was based on. The court said those are not considered involuntarily homeless if they have declined an offer of shelter or have access to shelter.
“This means we’ve been able to remove encampments when people refuse offers of shelter. We had been limited from doing this until recently. This is not APEC related, and this effort will continue during and after APEC,” Cretan said.
The city has been struggling to close open-air drug markets in the Tenderloin, Mid-Market, and SOMA areas for years, ramping up efforts to clean up areas where drug use and dealing is done publicly ahead of the conference.
Along with adding additional law environment officers in the neighboring areas of APEC, city and federal authorities launched a large-scale operation at the start of the month to crack down on drug dealers called “All Hands on Deck.”
San Francisco and state police partnered with the FBI; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other federal agencies to increase arrests of drug dealers and suppliers near federal buildings and make on-spot arrests in Tenderloin.
“This has led to significant arrests and prosecutions that will continue to occur after APEC,” Cretan said.
In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) gathered San Francisco city and business leaders to discuss plans to close the drug markets, but little progress was publicly seen until the final weeks leading up to APEC.
“Starting in May, we expanded our coordinated drug market intervention efforts with local and state law enforcement,” Cretan said. “This has led to over 800 drug dealers being arrested so far this year, which is an 80% increase over the previous year, and others who are using drugs publicly are being arrested for violating public intoxication laws.”
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Along with these measures, other beautification efforts and overdue maintenance have been underway in San Francisco for some time that will carry on after APEC packs up. Cretan listed efforts from the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department at U.N. Plaza for a skate park, the opening of Chef Tyler Florences’ cafes in Union Square, a new tree nursery on a South of Market parcel, and the Ferris Wheel at Fisherman’s Wharf, as examples.
“All of these efforts will continue after APEC. Our focus, of course, is to be ready for a great week, but it is to continue the work we’ve been doing before, during, and after APEC to make the city clean, safe, and welcoming for all,” Cretan said.
