
Former San Francisco employees, including a director who worked with the homeless, allege that the city routinely cleared encampments while knowing there were not enough shelter beds available, according to new testimony filed in court Friday. [...]
In Friday's filings, Marshall said they were explicitly directed by the former head of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Jeff Kositsky, to forcibly move unhoused people and destroy their property without taking the time to inquire about their needs.
The city cleared encampments in response to "daily mandates" by Mayor London Breed, Marshall stated: "Mayor Breed ordered us to carry out sweeps because she did not want to be seen near unhoused people while she was at lunch, at the gym, at fundraisers, or at meetings on public business." [...]
Marshall also suggested the method the department used to track shelter refusal was misleading. The Homelessness and Outreach Team would warn unhoused folks that the police were coming without taking steps to offer shelter, Marshall alleged. Despite the lack of offers, they wrote, the city recorded those individuals as having "refused" shelter, which Marshall called an "inaccurate and blatant attempt to work around the City's stated requirements for enforcement." [...]
When Public Works removes an encampment, staff are supposed to collect and log unhoused residents' belongings to be retrieved later [but they] often threw away residents' items altogether, due to a lack of time to sort out trash from belongings. "I have seen DPW workers throw away entire tents," Malone stated.