San Francisco leaders have delayed the potential opening of a new 250-bed homeless shelter in Lower Nob Hill after local residents and businesses objected to the plans.

City officials had proposed entering into a two-year, $18.7 million contract with the nonprofit Urban Alchemy to rent and operate the shelter at 711 Post St., a currently vacant hostel building just north of the Tenderloin and a few blocks west of Union Square.

The shelter would have opened in early February if the Board of Supervisors approved the contract next week. But a board committee voted unanimously Wednesday to have the city spend another month vetting the issue amid outcry from residents near the building who said they were not adequately consulted and had serious reservations about how the project would impact their neighborhood.

The Post Street site has yet become another flash point in San Francisco’s fraught debate over how to make meaningful improvements to its homeless crisis with more than 8,000 people lacking permanent housing. The delay Wednesday comes on the heels of the collapse of a city plan to turn 131-room hotel in Japantown into permanent housing for homeless people after months of community backlash.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who represents the area, asked the board’s budget and finance committee to revisit the proposal on Feb. 2. Peskin said that the city’s community engagement efforts had been so far “abysmal” and that he wants the neighborhood to have more time to evaluate the plans.

“Meaningful and real involvement with the community has been all but absent,” Peskin said, who doesn’t sit on the budget committee. “It has been box-checking government at its worst.”

Supervisors have in recent weeks decried the insufficient shelter, housing and treatment options to get people off the streets in the wake of Mayor London Breed declaring a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. Supervisor Hillary Ronen criticized her colleagues for delaying the shelter in the wake of the emergency declaration.

“I do not understand how the members of the Budget Committee voted to declare a state of emergency in the Tenderloin & then a day later delayed the leasing of a 250 bed non-congregate shelter to serve that neighborhood. Is this a crisis or not? It is & we need to act accordingly,” she wrote on Twitter.

With the state of emergency, Breed hopes to address street conditions, overdoses and crime in the hard-hit neighborhood. The declaration has been controversial because Breed has signaled an intent to expand policing, but her administration is also trying to connect more homeless tenderloin residents with shelter and other services.

Breed’s office views the Post Street shelter as a crucial step in the city’s plans to address homelessness this year. Her administration wants the shelter system’s capacity to reach 2,100 beds by the end of June through a mix of adding new beds and reopening beds closed due to the pandemic. The city is about halfway toward meeting the goal. Breed is also working to create 1,500 units of permanent supportive housing for the homeless.

“Every day we delay this shelter is one where 250 people sleep on the street,” Breed tweeted after the committee delayed the Post Street contract. “We can’t let obstruction and process arguments stop us from helping people in need.”

Breed said city leaders and the public “all agree that the conditions in the tenderloin are an emergency” and “we need to act like it.”

Formerly operated as a youth hostel called the Ansonia Hotel, the Post Street building includes 123 rooms that range from singles to quads. Each floor has bathrooms and showers, and the building also includes community lounges, a commercial kitchen and a dining space.

City officials were drawn to the building’s configuration, which, if used to serve homeless people, would place it somewhere between a single-room occupancy hotel and a traditional congregate shelter.

“This is not a building type or opportunity that we often have,” said Emily Cohen, a deputy director at the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

But a vocal group of people who live or work near the site have said San Francisco leaders did not provide enough notice about the building’s potential transformation. At the committee meeting, several residents also said they thought the area had already shouldered its fair share of facilities that serve San Francisco’s unhoused population.

Still, some spoke strongly in favor of the potential shelter, viewing it as an urgently needed facility to quickly get 250 people off the streets in the middle of winter.

Supervisor Matt Haney, who chairs the committee, said he understood the range of viewpoints expressed by the community.

“I do believe that these type of facilities are ones that we absolutely need,” he said. “I also understand the need to effectively consult with the neighborhood and the absolute need to consider geographic equity as well.”

Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, another committee member, supported spending more time discussing the project with the community.

Though he said he’d heard from numerous people opposed to the shelter, Safaí didn’t think the city would repeat the scenario that unfolded in Japantown last year.

Safaí also questioned why the city hadn’t moved to buy the site instead of contracting with Urban Alchemy to rent the facility from its owner. He said he’d been in contact with the owner, who he said is willing to sell.

“It seems to me like there’s room here to purchase the building,” Safaí said.

It’s not clear how exactly the city will proceed with the potential Post Street shelter. Cohen urged supervisors to make the delay as short as possible, warning them that a month was “a really long time” to postpone advancing the contract. But Safaí, Haney and Supervisor Gordon Mar voted in favor of Peskin’s proposal to continue the item to Feb. 2.

Peskin said he would work with city staff over the next month and “see what we can come up with.”

JD Morris is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

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The San Francisco Chronicle is facing massive outrage on social media platforms for all the wrong reasons. The US-based “big newspaper” used Twitter to address the rise in crime in the city. However, this did not go down well with San Francisco residents, who criticized the leading newspaper for asking such questions. The post shared by the Chronicle highlighted the increase in break-ins and criminal activity in just a few months.

On the microblogging platform, the newspaper wrote: “At the same time, residents and city guides are looking for answers: Should they tolerate high burglaries as a disadvantage of city life and instead concentrate on barricading their houses?” The post went on to say, “Should people who are repeatedly accused of theft be targeted with rehabilitation services or imprisoned so that they cannot commit further crimes? it added.

Local residents and city guides are looking for answers: Should they tolerate break-ins as part of city life and focus on barricading houses?

Should repeat offenders seek rehabilitation services or be incarcerated to prevent them from committing further offenses? https://t.co/F0kaALqjU1 pic.twitter.com/QMqOjXJFMl

– San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) November 5, 2021

Confused by the question from the leading newspaper, residents reacted quickly enough. Referring to the first few lines of the post, one user said, “Nobody is looking for answers” ​​because “stealing and hurting others is just wrong”. Another person asked, “Should SF residents tolerate break-ins and barricade their homes? Are you kidding? ”. A third user, who was extremely disappointed with the leading newspaper, wrote: “Tolerate burglaries as part of city life”. He wrote: “Actual words that were printed in a really big newspaper”.

When we get to the point where the serious question is whether we should tolerate break-ins, then maybe it is time to wrap it up.

– Demilich Lovato (@DemilichLovato) November 6, 2021

According to a report published in Sputnik International, over 40 percent of San Francisco residents say they plan to move to another city in the next few years. Eight out of ten people believed that the city’s crime cases had increased dramatically in recent years, and 76 percent of city residents said they would increase security and police patrols in the city. The number of car thefts in San Francisco rose 753 percent in May year-over-year, according to police data. In addition, the proportion of organized retail crime has forced many stores to close. It should be mentioned here that the second largest US pharmacy chain Walgreen recently closed 5 stores in San Francisco. Some major cities, including California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois, have seen massive brain drains of nearly four million people in the past decade, Sputnik reported, citing Forbes.

Image: Pixabay / representative image

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SAN JOSE (KPIX) – Neighbors to San Jose’s first city-sanctioned homeless RV park are pushing for plans to open the facility, saying the decision was made behind closed doors with no public gatherings or community contributions.

“Why was silence kept? People put up a fence for a week and didn’t tell us what it was for, ”asked a neighbor at an emotional town hall meeting on Friday afternoon in the Vista Montaña Neighborhood Park, which was adjacent to the planned property. San Jose City Councilor David Cohen chaired the meeting, attended by staff from various departments in the city.

The RV park is located at 71 Vista Montaña, 4.2 hectares of undeveloped land owned by the city. The property, on which the now disused 62,000 square meter Supertex office building was located, offers space for up to 20 mobile homes. The Vista Montaña car park will only accommodate 8 to 9 residents with RVs evicted from the Apple homeless camp that was evacuated this week. Homeless motorhome owners often reject offers to move to a temporary apartment due to a lack of parking space for the motorhomes.

“We may not be the perfect bunch. We may not be the cleanest people, but we are still human, ”said Robert Carlson, who had been saving for four years to buy his trailer.

The car park will have 24-hour security, rubbish bins, toilets and a strict code of conduct. The mobile home residents are not allowed to have guests. Residents who break the rules will be removed from the site. The city will conduct regular reviews and shut down the website if it is deemed unsuccessful, Cohen said.

“While this is awkward for this particular neighborhood, I’m a little curious to see how this works as this could be a model for creating a safe location across the city,” said Cohen.

According to Cohen, Apple had sought help from the city for years to help relocate the campers. The company’s deadline for clearing the warehouse on September 2 forced the city to act quickly, with various departments accepting the Vista Montaña site within the last week. After Cohen received final approval, Cohen notified the neighbors on Wednesday with a publication on NextDoor.

“It forced us to actually get the city to test how this could work in ways that might not have happened if we hadn’t closed this other (Apple) site,” Cohen said.

“Yes, it was in a rush, yes, it was quick. We hope we can get this pilot up and running, ”Cohen said. “We’re moving quickly to make sure we don’t have a major problem with scattered people. That was my goal.”

Neighbors filed a change.org petition against the site that garnered more than 300 signatures.

Ofelia Hernandez had recently moved to nearby apartments to escape the growing camps in east San Jose. Hernandez found out about the secure parking lot on Friday morning from a notice posted on her front door and was “disappointed” and “upset”.

“They don’t know what’s going on in these RVs. Do you continue to use drugs in these RVs? Are you drug tested? They can easily pick up the phone and give their friends the address, which means their friends may start pitching tents in our parks and in our neighborhood, ”said Hernandez.

Apple will fund the relocation of the vehicles, but the city will cover the operating costs, Cohen said. The secure car park is slated to open on September 7th and the pilot project will last nine months.

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The decision San Francisco Schools Board to replace the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and other prominent historical figures from dozens of public schools is opposed by local residents, officials, and advocacy groups.

The San Francisco Board of Education voted 6-1 on Tuesday for a resolution calling for the removal of the names of those “who have participated in the submission and enslavement of people; or oppressed women and stunted social progress; or whose actions resulted in genocide; or who have otherwise severely restricted the chances of those of us having the right to life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, ”said the text the dissolution.

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The renaming process was led by a committee formed in 2018 to investigate the names of schools amid a national reckoning of races that followed the deadly white supremist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Schools to be renamed include Abraham Lincoln High School, George Washington High School, Dianne Feinstein Elementary, Roosevelt Middle School, Jefferson Elementary, and Alamo Elementary.

While Washington and Thomas Jefferson were chosen for being slave owners, Lincoln, best known for leading the US to defeat the Confederation and take action to abolish slavery, was named because of him reported Treatment of Native Americans.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Name is on the list after the former San Francisco mayor allegedly ordered the replacement of a Confederate flag after it was demolished. the Sacramento Bee reports.

“This is an opportunity for our students to learn about the history of the names of our school, including potential new ones,” said Executive Chairwoman Gabriela López in a statement. “That resolution got into the school board after the attacks in Charlottesville, and we’re working with the rest of the country to dismantle symbols of racism and white supremacy. I’m curious to see what ideas the schools will come up with. ”

Schools have until April to propose new names that the board will vote on.

But the move has sparked criticism for a variety of reasons.

“This is a little joke. It’s almost like a parody of left activism, ”said Gerald Kanapathy, father of a kindergarten child at a school in San Francisco that is not on the list to be renamed The Associated Press.

Lope Yap Jr., vice president of the Alumni Association of George Washington High School in San Francisco, opposed the board’s decision.

“We believe that politics, whether socialist, conservative or independent, if you honor the truth in history, must be put aside,” said Yap The New York Post. “We don’t want to delete anything.”

“They forget that abolitionists praised Abraham Lincoln,” he told the point of sale.

After the vote, the Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed (D), slammed the decision and questioned the board’s priorities.

“I understand the meaning of the name of a school, and the name of a school should evoke a sense of pride in every student who walks through its doors, regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation,” Breed said in a statement.

“What I can’t understand is why the school board is putting forward a plan to have all of these schools renamed by April if there isn’t a plan to have our children back in the classroom by then,” she said, as the schools always do are still closed due to the corona pandemic.

Now more than 9,000 People signed an online petition urging school boards to “stop wasting time and money renaming schools and focus on educating our children”.

Interest group families also for San Francisco on the other hand and said it was a top-down process where the board made the decision without properly consulting experts and the wider community.

The San Francisco Board of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Changing America.

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