Tag: san francisco

SF says homeless tents down 60%; homeless haven’t gone anywhere, just tentless

Amid a tightening mayoral race, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the number of homeless tents have declined 60% since peaking in July 2023. Meanwhile, homeless individuals say they’re still around and have simply ditched their tents to avoid being arrested under the mayor’s new enforcement of anti-camping laws. 

 In July 2023, homeless tents peaked at 609, and homeless vehicles at 1,058. By July 2024, those numbers had declined to 319 and 474, respectively. Since Ninth Circuit overturned a regional ban on enforcement of anti-camping ordinances in July — in a case, then ruling supported by Breed and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — Newsom has since issued an executive order banning encampments from state property and ordered municipal governments to take similar action. 

San Francisco began enforcing anti-camping laws after the ruling, arresting but not detaining homeless individuals who have refused to leave their tents. While there is no data available for August or September, the newly released October count has homeless tents and vehicles down to 242 and 548, declines of 24.1% and 3.4% respectively, since the ruling.

“Every day our City workers are out in San Francisco offering help, bringing people indoors, and cleaning up our neighborhoods and we are seeing the results,” said Breed in a statement. “We are a compassionate City that leads with services, but we also will continue to enforce our laws when those offers are rejected.”

According to the San Francisco Standard, homeless individuals are leaving their tents to avoid arrest, but are still remaining on the streets; Standard reporters found no increase in utilization of shelter or bus tickets elsewhere.

Breed and her two opponents are neck and neck, with Levi Strauss heir and homelessness expert Daniel Lurie holding a narrow lead at 51% if the election were held today in the city’s ranked-choice voting system that allows voters to rank their first 10 choices for a given office. The candidate with the least amount of votes is dropped in each round, with that candidate’s votes distributed to voters’ next preference on their ballot, until a candidate has a majority.

While Breed would get 38% of first-round votes and Lurie just 21%, Lurie’s popularity as citizen’s second choice brings him to 51% by the fourth-round. Aaron Peskin, who sits on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and thus has one of the consolidated city-county’s most powerful positions, nearly tied Lurie in earlier rounds of voting in the survey, but fell behind due to Lurie’s hold as voters’ popular second choice. 

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San Francisco Bay Area Reinstates Mask Mandates as Flu Season Approaches

As COVID-19 cases increase, mask mandates are being reinstated in several counties around California.

Residents in the San Francisco Bay Area will be required to wear masks in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other healthcare facilities as flu and cold season begin, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The mandate will take effect from Nov. 1 to either Mar. 31 or April 30, 2025, the outlet reports.

Health officials are implementing the mandate as an attempt to decrease the risk of spreading COVID, the flu and other respiratory viruses during the winter and early spring in medical settings.

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Kamala Harris says she owns a Glock despite supporting handgun bans in SF, prompting speculation it’s unregistered

Vice President Kamala Harris told “60 Minutes” Monday that she owns a Glock handgun — triggering allegations of hypocrisy due to her own past support for firearm bans and questions about whether she’s complying with existing gun-control laws.

“I have a Glock and I’ve had it for quite some time,” the 59-year-old Harris told CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker.

“My background is in law enforcement, so there you go.”

Asked if she had ever fired the gun, Harris laughingly replied, “Yes, of course I have, at a shooting range— yes, of course, I have.”

Harris previously supported handgun bans in both San Francisco, where she began her political career and served as district attorney between 2004 and 2011, and Washington, where she has served in federal office since 2017.

California state law requires gun buyers to have a Firearm Safety Certificate and DC requires all handguns to be registered.

Glocks, furthermore, cannot legally have magazines with a capacity of more than 10 bullets in the nation’s capital, and some models of Glock come with a standard capacity that exceeds that limit.

“DC residents have to register their firearms. And DC issues a gun-registration ID card for each firearm, with the make, model, and serial number. Post your card, Kamala,” tweeted Mike Davis, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and a former Senate Judiciary Committee aide.

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San Francisco City Attorney Sues Sites That “Undress” Women With AI

San Francisco’s City Attorney has filed a lawsuit against the owners of 16 websites that have allowed users to “nudify” women and young girls using AI.

The office of San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu on Aug. 15 said he was suing the owners of 16 of the “most-visited websites” that allow users to “undress” people in a photo to make “nonconsensual nude images of women and girls.”

A redacted version of the suit filed in the city’s Superior Court alleges the site owners include individuals and companies from Los Angeles, New Mexico, the United Kingdom and Estonia who have violated California and United States laws on deepfake porn, revenge porn and child sexual abuse material.

The websites are far from unknown, either. The complaint claims that they have racked up 200 million visits in just the first half of the year.

One website boasted that it allows its users to “see anyone naked.” Another says, “Imagine wasting time taking her out on dates when you can just use [the website] to get her nudes,” according to the complaint.

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Pride Paraders Expose Themselves To Children, Say It’s ‘Okay’

While Pride is officially over, there is one unsettling detail that many have not discussed, as TENET Reporter Tayler Hansen found out while conducting interviews with LGBT members and advocates at a San Francisco “Pride” parade. Apparently, some attendees believe being nude in front of children is no big deal.

Throughout his interview, Hansen spoke with many individuals, including naked men, about whether it is appropriate for grown men and women to parade around naked in the presence of children.

“We’re born naked and so it’s okay for children to see people naked,” one man said.

Another man claimed that no one could explain the harm nudity causes to children.

One man, who decided to cover and then uncover himself, told Hansen that it was okay, as long as there was no “sexuality added to it.”

One man who was present with two others, admitted that he “just likes to be naked.”

“Teach your kids not to stare, it’s rude,” another man in the group told Hansen.

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See it: Cops Give Shock Answer For Why Public Nudity in Front of Kids at Pride Event is Legal

Blue cities hosted send-off pride events over the weekend as the month of June came to its end. They featured a rally and march, and included notable names like Megan Rapinoe.

Clips of the whole ordeal went viral, as many disturbing moments–most of which depicted nudity and explicit sexual imagery and themes in public–caused alarm amongst X users.

Critics swiftly blasted the nudity at the San Francisco pride event specifically, due to children being in attendance.

“San Francisco pride was the most shocking and disturbing event that I’ve ever witnessed,” Savannah Hernandez posted on X.

“Shame on every parent who brought their child to this event and shame on the city for allowing what could only be described as a giant public orgy.”

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San Francisco opens city’s first $5 million taxpayer-funded free food ‘market’

San Francisco opened its first $5.5 million free food “market”, where approved residents can show a benefits eligibility card, put what they want in their carts, check out to keep track of outgoing inventory, and leave without paying.

The Bayview-Hunters Point facility aims to be a food pantry alternative that replicates the supermarket experience in an area where many grocery stores have come but few have remained due to high crime.

The 4000-square foot District 10 Market is the first of San Francisco’s food empowerment “markets” funded by the San Francisco’s Human Services Agency. Eligible individuals receive a Costo-like benefits card that allows use of the facility once per month. Eligibility is limited to individuals who live within one of three zip codes, be verified social services clients, have dependents under 25 or a qualified food-related illness, and be referred by one of eleven community organizations in the market’s referral network.

Geoffrea Morris, who spearheaded San Francisco’s Food Empowerment Market legislation in 2021 while working for a county supervisor and is a senior consultant for the District 10 Market, explains the program is meant to supplement food stamps that run out towards the end of the month, especially due to rising food costs from inflation.

“This is a supplemental source for food. Food stamps should be the primary source. This is a supplemental source especially close to the end of the month when families are facing the pain, especially with inflation,” Morris told The Center Square.

The facility is designed to closely replicate the supermarket experience, with individuals’ items weighed and scanned upon “check-out” to keep track of inventory and manage supply chains. District 10 Market, which is operating on a $5.5 million grant from San Francisco, uses taxpayer funds to purchase high-quality fresh produce from Rodriguez Brothers Ranch in Watsonville, and largely relies on donations from other grocery stores for its shelf-stable items and toiletries.

“If we didn’t tell you it was free you’d think you’d have to pay,” Morris said.

Morris also detailed how District 10 Market’s referral process is meant to ensure use of wraparound services.

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San Francisco buys vodka shots for homeless alcoholics in taxpayer-funded program

The City of San Francisco is providing free beer and vodka shots to homeless alcoholics at taxpayer expense under a little-known pilot program. 

The “Managed Alcohol Program” operated by San Francisco’s Department of Public Health serves regimented doses of alcohol to voluntary participants with alcohol addiction in an effort to keep the homeless off the streets and relieve the city’s emergency services. Experts say the program can save or extend lives, but critics wonder if the government would be better off funding treatment and sobriety programs instead.

“Established in countries such as Canada and Australia, a managed alcohol program is usually administered by a nurse and trained support staff in a facility such as a homeless shelter or a transitional or permanent home, and is one method to minimize harm for those with alcohol use disorder,” the California Health Care Foundation explains in an 2020 article describing the pilot program. 

“By prescribing limited quantities of alcohol, the model aims to prevent potentially life-threatening effects of alcohol withdrawal, such as seizures and injuries.” 

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Lawmakers in San Francisco Want to Allow Residents to Sue Grocery Stores for Closing

Stores throughout greater San Francisco have been closing for months. Major retailers have ditched the city, as well as pharmacies and grocery stores. All mainly due to crime and theft.

Now lawmakers in the city want to allow residents to sue grocery stores for closing.

This is completely backwards. The city could stop all of the theft tomorrow if they wanted to by simply enforcing the law. Then the stores wouldn’t close in the first place. But that would entail admitting that the left’s policies are wrong and don’t work, so they’re going after the stores.

The New York Post reports:

San Francisco lawmakers want to let city residents sue grocery stores that close

A pair of progressive San Francisco lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow residents in the crime-ravaged city to sue grocery stores that close up shop if they don’t give six months’ notice.

The proposal by San Francisco Board of Supervisors members Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin would require business to either find a successor grocer or work out a plan with residents in the neighborhood to ensure the availability of supermarket options.

The Grocery Protection Act – which is based on a proposal the board approved in 1984 that was vetoed by then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein — comes amid a rash of retail theft fueled by the city’s drug and homelessness crisis that has led to several business closures.

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Secretive Experiment to Shoot Aerosols Into the Sky Over San Francisco to Increase Cloud Cover

A secretive project conducted from the deck of an aircraft carrier in the San Francisco Bay will shoot trillions of aerosol particles into the sky to increase cloud cover in the name of preventing global warming, and details have been held back to “avoid (a) public backlash.”

The experiment is being dubbed America’s “first outdoor test to limit global warming.”

“The Coastal Atmospheric Aerosol Research and Engagement, or CAARE, project is using specially built sprayers to shoot trillions of sea salt particles into the sky in an effort to increase the density — and reflective capacity — of marine clouds,” reports Scientific American.

“The experiment is taking place, when conditions permit, atop the USS Hornet Sea, Air & Space Museum in Alameda, California, and will run through the end of May, according to a weather modification form the team filed with federal regulators.”

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