Number of homeless tents in San Francisco hits 5-year low, according to mayor

Alex Baker
·2 min read
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SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — The number of tents on the streets of San Francisco hit a new five-year low, SF Mayor London Breed announced Monday. According to the mayor’s office, the city’s latest quarterly tent count found 360 tents and structures on the streets across the city.

That represents a 41% drop since July of 2023, the last count before the U.S. Court for the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling on how the city could enforce sleeping bans on city streets. Some of the stats included in the city’s latest count, which was the second in 2024, included:

  • Of 360 tents and structures counted, 182 were tents and 178 were structures

  • Only 9 encampments of 5 or more tents/structures were found citywide

  • No encampments of 10 or more structures were found in the count

  • The average tent count rate in 2024 is the lowest of any year since the city began doing tent counts in 2018

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The mayor’s office cites increased efforts to offer people shelter and housing and clean up encampments as being behind the drop. The Healthy Streets Operations Center (HSOC), a multi-agency team, conducts daily operations around encampments, offering shelters and services, Mayor Breed’s office said.

That agency has placed 460 people from encampments into shelter since the beginning of the year, Breed’s office said.

“Our encampment teams and outreach workers are working tirelessly to go out and help bring
people into shelter and clean up encampments,” said Mayor Breed. “We are continuing
to use all of the resources we have and working to add more, but there is a lot more to do. We
will be relentless in our efforts to help people into safer, supportive facilities, and make our
neighborhoods cleaner and healthier for everyone. I want to thank our outreach workers across
all of our agencies for their commitment to getting people help. This is not easy work, but it is
making a difference.”

A clarification issued by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in September has allowed SF to change its enforcement policy when offers of shelter are refused. The clarification, which specified that people who refuse offers of shelter don’t meet the definition of “involuntarily homeless” allows the city to get around the federal preliminary injunction and enforce enjoined laws when offers of shelter are refused.

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