By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board
On September 27, 2022, the Coalition on Homelessness, along with seven individuals, filed a lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Police Department, the San Francisco Department of Public Works, the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, the San Francisco Fire Department, the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, Mayor London Breed, and Sam Dodge, the Director of the Healthy Streets Operations Center. The gist of the lawsuit was that the City and its various departments have violated the rights of homeless individuals and have destroyed their property during sweeps, in violation of City policy.
On December 23, 2022, Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu issued a 50-page order which granted a preliminary injunction to Plaintiffs (COH et. al.) on the grounds that the City failed to provide evidence of offering shelter to homeless individuals before closing encampments, and that the City has destroyed property during its sweeps. The preliminary injunction prohibits enforcement of certain sections of the California Penal Code and of the San Francisco Police Code that prohibit homeless individuals from sitting, lying, or sleeping on public property. (The court denied requests to prohibit enforcement of sections of the Park Code and of the Port Code, as evidence of enforcement had not been presented, and the court denied the appointment of a special master to monitor compliance with the injunction.) The City filed an appeal of the preliminary injunction on January 23, 2023.
On January 12, 2023, the court granted a motion to dismiss Mayor Breed and Sam Dodge in their official capacities as duplicative. On February 28, 2023, Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, but on May 23, 2023, the court determined that no claims were asserted against Breed or Dodge in their individual capacities.
There were two hearings in August. The appeal was heard on August 23. Video of this hearing can be viewed at https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/video/?20230823/23-15087/. The appeals court ordered the parties to file an update on their efforts to reach agreement. The parties filed separate letters but did not reach agreement.
Meantime, there was a separate Zoom videoconference hearing on August 24 in the underlying District Court case. Plaintiffs sought to have a special master appointed to oversee and enforce the injunction. The court ordered defendants (the City, et. al.) to provide declarations by September 22 as to how many DPW employees interact with homeless individuals with respect to cleaning, the context in which they interact, and details about the training they receive. Plaintiffs will have until October 6 to respond. The court also ordered defendants to provide a declaration regarding how many SFPD officers have interacted with homeless individuals in response to 919 and 915 calls since the preliminary injunction was issued, and how many are not part of the group providing support to HSOC (Healthy Streets Operations Center) or JFO (Tenderloin Joint Field Operation). Defendants were also ordered to file a statement as to their willingness to provide training to officers who are not part of HSOC or JFO but who are likely to interact with homeless people, and to work with Judge Cisneros (settlement judge in this case) to develop “simple, uniform and clear communications to be used by SFPD officers in their interactions with homeless individuals.”
We anticipate that this case will continue for some time. Local media have been covering this issue: 48Hills (https://48hills.org/2023/09/new-city-legal-filing-seeks-return-to-homeless-sweeps/ ), SF Examiner (https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/housing/gavin-newsom-slams-sf-homeless-sweeps-injunction-as-inhumane/article_340647a4-4766-11ee-8ebe-7bcecf3ba0f4.html), and Mission Local: ( https://missionlocal.org/2023/09/san-francisco-injunction-homeless-sweep-donna-ryu-london-breed-gavin-newsom/).