SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — With the holidays and cold weather season upon us, San Francisco is cutting the number of days that families experiencing homelessness can stay in shelters by implementing a 90-day limit. But, homeless advocates say three months is not enough time for a family to have an exit plan ready.
Currently, there are two shelter options for families: A 14-day placement to provide immediate intervention and a 90-day temporary shelter placement. It’s the extensions that often happen to the 90 days that will go away.
When COVID-19 hit, the city implemented several changes. With shelter beds, the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, also known as HSH, allowed several extensions to the 90-day stay for families during the pandemic. HSH confirmed to KRON 4 that starting December 10, the city will reinstate the strict 90-day stay and only allow up to three extensions based on family circumstances.
Lukas Illa with the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness thinks the rule change is a bad move.
“We reconceived of what the really shelter timeline should look like and 90 days is three months, is not enough time for folks to really address the systemic inequities for the root causes of why they are homeless,” said Illa.
HSH’s reasoning is to allow shelter bed space for the most vulnerable, such as those fleeing domestic violence or someone being evicted. According to Illa, there are 530 families on the shelter waitlist for non-congregate shelters.
“This change would re-organize that number a bit, it would lower that number, but it doesn’t change the fact that 530 families desperately want non-congregate shelter,” said Illa.
He says the number one concern for advocates is that the city has run out of money this year for what’s called problem solving, such as helping someone with first and last month’s rent and security deposits.
“A lot of service providers are afraid that a lot of those families that are currently in shelter are going to be exiting into street homelessness, before they are going to be able to secure housing,” said Illa.
HSH says families that decline three permanent housing offers will become ineligible for shelter extensions.
“Being offered housing that is smaller than the shelter size that they are in. Private bathrooms, there are many reasons why families are hesitant to be leaving non-congregate shelter for non-housing options that are not meeting their needs,” said Illa.
HSH says that training is happening the rest of this month for providers in the family homelessness response system, so that the rule changes will be ready to go into effect on December 10.
