A drop in the number of homeless individuals on the streets may be a regional trend as we see Alameda County is reporting a decline similar to one seen in San Francisco over the last two years.

Alameda County released its preliminary numbers from its point-in-time homeless census on Monday, and it's mostly good news all around. Oakland saw a very significant 20% in the number of people living on the streets since 2024, while the county as a whole recorded a 13% overall drop.

The latest numbers are for sure a relief for local officials, after 2024's point-in-time count saw a 9% rise in homelessness in Oakland, and a smaller 4% drop countywide.

San Francisco released its preliminary point-in-time count last week and recorded a 4% drop in homelessness in the same two-year span. And while San Francisco changed its methodology for the count this year, conducting the census in the early morning hours instead of at night, Oakland made this switch in 2024 and theirs is therefore a more apples-to-apples comparison.

Advocates and city officials say the numbers, particularly taken in the context of other cities in the region, reflect the positive results of local programs to prevent new homelessness and to convey people into stable housing.

"What’s consistent across these communities is they invested dollars into getting people back into housing,” says Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, speaking to Bay Area News Group.

As the Chronicle notes, advocates are concerned that the positive trend in Oakland could be temporary, as the city continues to remove hundreds of beds and tiny-home cabins from its shelter system due to budget cuts.

Around 1,300 volunteers conducted Alameda County's federally mandated point-in-time count one morning in January, and this year found 8,201 individuals experiencing homelessness, down from 9,450 in 2024.

And while Oakland saw a significant drop this year, some of that may be due to people crossing city lines into other areas, like Berkeley, which saw a 4% uptick since 2024. (In 2024's count, Berkeley saw a significant, 45% decline in homelessness, while Oakland saw an uptick.)

But Jonathan Russell, director of the Alameda County Department of Housing and Homelessness, tells Bay Area News Group this is overall good news. "We see it as momentum, and we want to keep it going," Russell says.

The region as a whole has seen a mixed bag of trends when it comes to these counts. Sonoma County, which has been conducting annual point-in-time homeless counts for a number of years, recorded its lowest number of homeless in 18 years in its 2025 count, with a drop of over 20% from 2024, and its latest numbers for 2026 have not yet been released.

Meanwhile, Santa Clara County's last count in 2025 saw an 8% increase in homelessness. San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, as Bay Area News Group notes, has been campaigning for governor on the claim that he decreased homelessness in his city, which is only partly true — the number of unsheltered homeless fell by 10% in San Jose proper, while it remained flat in the county as a whole.

While Oakland's drop in the homeless count seems dramatic this year at 20%, compared to 2022's count and without accounting for 2024's uptick, it marks only a 13% decline over 4 years.

As Russell, the county's homeless czar, tells the Chronicle, his department is now focused on growing and maintaining the county's shelter stock. "Our goal is not just to open new [shelters] and let others close, but to really sustain them. So a big part of our first investments going into this year is going to be enhancing and increasing shelter funding for current providers to make sure they can stay open," he says.

Related: New San Francisco Homeless Census Shows Slight Drop, But Methodology Also Changed

The preliminary results of this year's point-in-time homeless count, which was conducted in San Francisco in late January, are out and Mayor Daniel Lurie is touting the 4% overall drop in homelessness since 2024.

The day has come where, once every two years, city leaders get to celebrate or bemoan the only really concrete number we have for the population of homeless people living on San Francisco's streets. The biennial Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, as it is called, took place on the morning of January 29, and now the SF Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) has released its findings.

Preliminary numbers show a 4% drop in the overall homeless population, and a dramatic 22% drop in unsheltered homeless people.

The January 2024 count found 8,323 individuals overall who were experiencing homelessness, with 4,353 of those unsheltered.

The new overall count is 7,973, with 3,400 unsheltered.

The department is also touting a 54% drop in youth homelessness, but there was a 15% uptick in family homelessness, with 465 families counted as homeless in 2026.

Flaws in the Point-in-Time Count are discussed whenever a new one is conducted, but officials say that this is the only apples-to-apples comparison that a city has to track its homeless population and the success or failure of its strategies to address homelessness.

Advocates this year are saying this can't be an apples-to-apples comparison because the count was conducted at a different time of day and with a slightly different methodology, as SFist earlier reported — though city officials say they hope this count will be more accurate than earlier ones as a result.

Canvassers were dispatched early in the morning, instead of late at night, in January's count, and rather than using mostly untrained volunteers, this year's counters were a mix of outreach workers and trained volunteers who surveyed individuals about their housing status, rather than only conducting a visual survey.

Mayor Daniel Lurie is already celebrating the drop in the numbers.

"When I took office, we set out to completely transform the city’s work around homelessness, drugs, and behavioral health — to get people off the street and on the path to stability,” Lurie said in a statement. "From the moment someone is experiencing homelessness to the day they enter long-term stable housing, we got to work with urgency, bringing accountability to a system that needed more of it."

Lurie added, "I’m proud to announce incredible progress: Unsheltered homelessness in San Francisco is down 22% to its lowest level in 15 years, the number of people in tents is down 85%, and homelessness is down overall. We have more work to do, but we will be relentless until every San Franciscan has the safe, clean streets they deserve."

Outgoing HSH Executive Director Shireen McSpadden says, "This decrease in homelessness indicates that our strategies are working and that we are successfully helping more people prevent homelessness or find the shelter and support they need to transition out of homelessness."

A full report from the PIT Count, including demographic information, will be released this summer.

Previously: Biennial Homeless Census Shifts to Morning Count In Hopes of Better Accuracy

Crews officially broke ground on the mammoth, long-awaited “Marvel in the Mission” affordable housing development adjacent to the 16th Street-Mission BART Station, with the first phase featuring 136 units of permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless residents.  

After years of shifting plans and neighborhood pushback, construction on the 19-story, 382-unit “Marvel in the Mission” project at 1979 Mission Street, also known as “La Maravilla,” is now moving forward, as the Chronicle reports. In addition to being the Mission’s largest affordable housing site, it will also serve as a model for supportive housing, featuring on-site services aimed at helping residents remain stably housed.

The project is co-developed by Mission Housing Development Corp. and the Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) with the goal of creating 382 units split between multifamily affordable housing and permanent supportive housing — serving low-income households experiencing homelessness or those at risk, according to Mission Housing’s website.

Following the first phase of construction, which will create 136 units of permanent supportive housing, the second and third phases will add 134 and 112 affordable family housing units to the development.

Last month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a financing package for the first phase of La Maravilla, including a $61 million loan from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, tax-exempt bonds, and a long-term ground lease. The project draws on a mix of local, state, and federal funding sources, along with bond proceeds.

The site was once slated for a market-rate condo complex that earned the nickname “Monster in the Mission,” which the developer eventually abandoned after facing financing challenges and strong opposition from neighbors. Ultimately, the city was able to acquire the land in 2022 to devote it to 100-percent affordable housing.

The Marvel project, which was introduced two years ago, encountered a hurdle last summer when nearby residents attempted to block it as well, as SFist reported at the time. Opponents, including parents from Marshall Elementary School, had argued the inclusion of formerly homeless residents and a plan to subdivide the property into multiple addresses would pose safety concerns, but supervisors allowed the project to proceed.

“I pinch myself when I walk by at least once a day to see it. It was one of the hardest closings in history,” said Mission Housing Executive Director Sam Moss, speaking to the Chronicle. “Everyone worked really hard the last three months of 2025 and pulled off a not very small miracle, and closed all the funding that was needed. Now there’s a tangible building coming out of the ground that represents going on two decades of organizing and difficult work.”

A groundbreaking ceremony for Phase 1 is set for April 23. Speakers will reportedly include leaders from Mission Housing and MEDA, as well as representatives from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

“Our administration is working to deliver more affordable housing so the next generation of San Franciscans can raise their families in the city they love,” said SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. “This project will provide stability for residents while strengthening the Mission community and delivering the affordable homes that San Franciscans have long needed.”

Previously: The Former ‘Monster In the Mission’ Project, Now Slated to Be Affordable Housing, Gets Even Bigger

Image: Mission Housing

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie announced the appointment of a new director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing on Wednesday, following the recent resignation announcement by current director Shireen McSpadden.

Mayor Lurie has appointed Mike Levine, who is currently the head of the state of Massachusetts' Medicaid program, to be the new director of the key department.

As the Chronicle reports, Levine was the recommended choice of the Homelessness Oversight Commission, following last month's announcement that McSpadden was stepping down from the job in June.

"Mike is a lifelong public servant, having led Massachusetts’ Medicaid program, a $23 billion agency that serves nearly 2 million residents," Lurie says in a statement. "He is an expert in connecting health care and homelessness services, and he has seen the power of integrating primary care, treatment, and social supports to keep people healthy and housed. That’s the experience we need in San Francisco."

This is the second hire Lurie has made out of the Massachusetts Medicaid office, the first being Daniel Tsai, who was appointed to lead the city's Department of Public Health shortly after Lurie took office. After leading the Medicaid office in Massachusetts for six years, Tsai also served as President Joe Biden's chief of the national Medicaid program at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Lurie adds that Levine "understands how to maximize state and federal funding at a time when cuts are coming and every city dollar matters."

Levine will be arriving just as the city gets the results of its latest biennial homeless point-in-time count, conducted in late January, which are due to be released in the next few weeks.

The reasons for McSpadden's decision to step down are not clear, however the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing likely knows what those census numbers look like, and whether or not they will be bad news for Lurie's administration.

Lurie emphasizes in today's announcement that "Tent encampment numbers [have] hit the lowest level we’ve recorded," more people are getting treatment for fentanyl addiction, and "More people are accepting offers of shelter under our new street teams model."

Previously: SF Homelessness 'Czar' Shireen McSpadden Announces She Is Stepping Down

Photo via SF Mayor's Office

A new report from the San Francisco Mayor's Office finds some good news in a significant decrease in the number of people living in their vehicles in the city, but the number of tents and encampment structures has remained flat for the last nine months.

We won't have the results of this year's biennial point-in-time count of the local homeless population for another couple of months. But the SF Mayor's Office released its quarterly tally of homeless tents and structures on the city streets, and its count of vehicle dwellings.

The bad news is that the number of tents and structures, 155, is basically flat from last summer, though down almost 30% from the March 2025 count of 220, just after Mayor Daniel Lurie took office. The current count of 155 includes 61 tents and 94 structures, and in July of last year, the total count was 165.

Lurie nonetheless touted the drop in the number of tents, saying in a Xitter video "it's the third time we've hit record lows since taking office."

Lurie also celebrated a 20% drop in the number of RVs on city streets, saying its the "lowest [number] since we began counting." As ABC7 reports, there were 435 vehicles on the street in which people were living, including 259 large vehicles which were permitted.

47 households who had been living in RVs have been connected with more permanent housing options, Lurie says.

"We’re also reconnecting people with family and support systems through Journey Home, which helped 44 people return to loved ones in February — the highest monthly total since 2022," Lurie added.

"By using every tool available—from housing to treatment to reunification—we’re starting to turn things around. There’s still a lot of work ahead, and we’re going to keep building on this progress," the mayor said.

The real test of how the mayor's work and city programs have impacted the homelessness picture will come in April or May, when the biennial homeless census numbers are released. This year's count used a new methodology, conducting the count in the early morning instead of at night.

The last point-in-time homeless census in January 2024 found 8,328 individuals on SF streets, both unsheltered and sheltered, marking a 7% increase from two years earlier.

Outreach workers and volunteers fanned out across San Francisco Thursday morning conducting this year's biennial point-in-time count of the homeless.

A series of changes have been made to the methodology of the count this year, including shifting it from late-night to a morning count, in the hope of avoiding the undercounting problem that critics typically point to.

As advocate Del Seymour, a member of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board, tells the Chronicle, the morning count, conducted between 5 am and 10 am on Thursday, will hopefully be a more accurate picture, because unhoused individuals tend to hide themselves at night to keep from being robbed, and that could lead to them being missed.

"It’s kind of a controversial change, but we needed to make this change to see if we’re actually getting a correct count," Seymour tells the paper.

The other significant change is that outreach workers and volunteers were tasked with surveying the people they counted — something that in previous years happened in the weeks after the count.

The city is expecting this will provide a better picture of the homeless population, where they came from, and their circumstances — though given the early morning aspect, and the necessity of waking people up in some cases, this likely posed some challenges as well.

Reportedly, Oakland conducted their count in the morning hours in 2024, and they did so again this year.

These point-in-time counts are conducted in cities across the Bay Area and across the country, as part of a federal mandate from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for receiving federal homeless funding.

San Francisco's last homeless census in 2024 found 8,328 individuals on the streets, both unsheltered and sheltered, marking a 7% increase from two years earlier. Of those 4,355 were unsheltered, a number very close to the count of unsheltered people in 2022, which was 4,397.

A sign that this was a possible undercount was that in the same year, around 20,000 individuals accessed the city's homelessness services, but that could represent people who passed through the city on their way somewhere else, or people who exprienced temporary homelessness at some point during the year.

The final numbers from this year's census will be released sometime this spring.

Previously: Unsheltered Homeless Population In SF Nearly Unchanged Since 2022, Overall Number Rises 7%

• California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Friday during a press conference in SF that he’s awarding the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego a total of $412 million to fund programs supporting the homeless. SF will receive $39.9 million for two shelters and three navigation centers through June 2029, which serve 600 adults and 75 youth per night. [KTVU]

• The San Jose City Council voted to ban ICE from using 11 city-owned garages and parking lots and 75 community centers and libraries. Meanwhile, Alameda County officials are working on proposals for creating “ICE-free zones” at all county-owned facilities. [KRON4, Oaklandside]
• In response to President Trump eliminating MLK Day from the list of national park free days, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that all entry fees to over 200 California state parks will be waived Monday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. [KQED]

National:

• A vaccine trial that was being conducted by the CDC in West Africa was abruptly cancelled after an unnamed official revealed that the study was allowing children and infants to be exposed to Hepatitis B. [The New Republic]
• ICE officers in Minneapolis threw a tear gas canister into a car that was occupied by a family of eight, causing the couple’s infant, who has since recovered, to stop breathing and begin foaming at the mouth. [CNN]

• Actor Matthew McConaughey said he’s trademarked his identity, filing eight applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office to prevent his likeness from being used by AI without permission, including his customary “alright, alright, alright” catchphrase. [KRON4]

Video of the Day:

In preparation for California Academy of Sciences’ big memorial Sunday for Claude, the late albino alligator, Boudin Bakery’s master baker Fernando Padilla, who’s been with Boudin for 46 years, has been hard at work constructing the world’s largest sourdough alligator. Measuring an impressive eight feet long and consisting of 70 pounds of dough, the gator is as long as the bakery’s oven, complete with maraschino cherries for eyes.

Smaller sourdough gators will be available for purchase at Boudin Bakery for a limited time — not the memorial event as previously reported [correction].

Image: Leanne Maxwell

Mayor Lurie’s long-promised two-hour limit on RV parking on SF streets took effect Saturday, though its effect may be limited, as many of the RVs already have a six-month extension lined up to stay parked right where they are.  

San Francisco has always had a fairly significant population of people living in RVs parked in street parking spaces, particularly around Bayview-Hunters Point, the Mission District, and around the Lake Merced and West Portal areas. This past summer, Mayor Lurie vowed to crack down on RVs parked in streets by enforcing a strict two-hour parking limit, though that allegedly strictly limit was just a plan to issue warnings. There would be no legitimate enforcement of the two-hour parking rule until November 1.

Well, as the Chronicle pointed out, November 1 arrived on Saturday, and the two-hour RV parking limit arrived with it. But the two-hour limit still won’t apply to many, if not most RVs parked on SF streets. NBC Bay Area points out that the city handed out hundreds of six-month extensions that would allow those dwellers to leave their RVs put for another full six months.  

There are currently an estimated 400 or so RVs on SF streets. Per NBC Bay Area, the SF Department of Emergency Management says they've handed out 299 of those six-month extensions. So that would indicate that three-fourths of SF RVs have the permit to go another full six more months before they have to start observing the two-hour rule.

"The permit is a transition tool and only prevents enforcement of the two-hour parking limit — it does not waive other parking or vehicle requirements, including operability," a Department of Emergency Management spokesperson told NBC Bay Area.

One very interesting tactic the city is taking in this case is to offer people a $3,000-$7,000 buyback for their RV vehicles. That seems like a strategy that could actually work! Though this early in the enactment of the new policy, the city has not provided data on how many people have taken that deal, nor for that matter, whether anyone whatsoever has been cited ot towed for exceeding the two-hour parking limit rule.  

People identified as living in RVs have reportedly already been assigned case workers, whose task it is to shepherd the RV dwellers into supportive housing. And that’s the goal with all unsheltered people in SF.

To that end, Mayor Lurie’s latest budget calls for 100 new adult rapid rehousing slots to be reserved for people in RVs, plus 100 more slots for young people ages 18-24, and another 50 hotel vouchers for adults. But in a city where the latest estimates say 8,300 people are living on the streets, those slots and vouchers are unlikely to make a visible difference.

Related: Lurie’s So-Called RV Crackdown Begins Today, But Two-Hour Parking Limit Still Months Away [SFist]

Image via Google Street View

Former Supervisor Hillary Ronen fought like heck to get ‘tiny homes for the homeless’ cabins at 16th and Mission. Now that those cabins are moving to the Bayview, Supervisor Shamann Walton is on a warpath against them, even though they will be empty.

There has been a years-long saga over a “tiny homes for the homeless” cabin site at 16th and Mission streets, and one reason it went on for years was that neighbors were worried they would bring more blight to an already blighted neighborhood. Then-Supervisor Hillary Ronen did a lot of politicking to make the site a reality, and the cabins opened to around 60 residents in April 2024.

But the cabins were just a temporary placeholder as the city prepared to break ground on a 450-unit affordable housing project there — on the lot adjacent to the BART plaza formerly occupied by Walgreens, and its off-alley parking lot. And so the tiny cabin community closed in August and September of this year, and those cabins are slated to be shipped elsewhere.      

A new Mission Local report says they’re moving to the Bayview District, at a facility slated to become a larger homeless shelter called Jerrold Commons. But that Mission Local report also points out that the Bayview District's Supervisor Shamann Walton is vocally opposed to moving the cabins to the Bayview, seeing this as Lurie’s attempt to dump home homeless shelters onto District 10 without even engaging District 10 residents on the decision.

“This is another opportunity to strong-arm the community,” Walton told Mission Local.

Certainly Walton has a point that a disproportionate number of SF homeless shelters are in District 10, while there are no shelters at all in several other city districts. But in this case, the cabins are simply being moved to Jerrold Commons for storage. There won’t be anyone living in them.

“The San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is planning to temporarily store 60 vacant cabin structures in the unused space at Jerrold Commons while we identify a long-term site,” Homelessness and Supportive Housing spokesperson Emily Cohen told Mission Local. “We have no plans to operate the cabins and host clients while they are in storage.”

But as KQED’s coverage of the matter explains, Walton is concerned that Lurie could be pulling a bait-and-switch, and simply planning to leave the cabins there to serve as permanent homeless shelters while sidestepping any public input or hearings.

“First, the mayor tried to turn Jerrold into a 200-bed shelter site with no RV parking and no community input. Now, he’s trying to quietly drop in cabins from the Mission and talk about expansion later,” Walton told KQED. “At no point has this administration come back to the community in good faith for this decision.”

In his tenure as mayor thus far, Lurie has had great success in drawing big events and new investment to San Francisco. But his stumbles (or perceived stumbles) on homelessness are odd, considering that he made his reputation on fighting homelessness with his Tipping Point nonprofit. This may be another example where he can't build consensus on the homelessness issue the way he seems to be able to on other issues.  

Regardless, KQED reports the 60 tiny cabins are slated to be moved to Jerrold Commons “over the next few weeks.”

Related: Mission District Tiny Homes for Formerly Homeless Site Closing, But for More Housing for the Formerly Homeless [SFist]

Image: Five Keys Housing

Folsom fashion, Litquake’s parade of words, Michoacán flavors in Redwood City, Black woman-owned cafe in Mission Bay, Lassen’s open trails, Betty Reid Soskin at 104, SF plates on the Top 100 list, AI art in San Jose, a love billboard on 101, and Oakland’s Tiny Plot podcast.

Inclusive fashion at Folsom

Folsom Street Fair returns Sunday with vendor stalls as vivid as the stages — from sequined kaftans and femme harnesses to hand-cut fringe and heritage leather reworked into new shapes. Five and Diamond, Love Lorn Lingerie, Bearly Covered, Krakenwhip, and CantiqLA each carry their own lineage, from pandemic sewing experiments to decades of queer craft.

Together they build a living archive in fabric and metal, where every strap and stitch carries both pleasure and defiance.   — 48Hills

Litquake season

Litquake returns, starting with the Small Press Book Fair on Sunday at Yerba Buena Gardens, where independent publishers, journals, and bookstores set up shop on the lawn. From there, the festival spreads across the city and beyond through October, with events ranging from a panel on writing about wildfire to an evening with US Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

Later in the month, Alta Journal teams up with Litquake to celebrate John Freeman’s California Rewritten, and neighborhood readings fill bars, bookstores, and back rooms. — Alta Journal

Voices in code

At the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Stephanie Dinkins has turned the gallery into a living conversation. Her installation Data Trust gathers oral histories from Bay Area Black communities, feeding them into an AI system that transforms the stories into moving, evolving projections across 14-foot walls.

Visitors can add their own memories through red rotary phones, weaving personal voices into the shifting digital fabric. Supported by the Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions, the project opened to a packed crowd and will remain on view through March 2026. — Bay Area News Group

A plot of their own

In Oakland’s Union Point Park, a group of unhoused residents decided to try something different — building a community where they could write the rules themselves. The new KQED podcast A Tiny Plot follows their experiment, tracing nights in tents, clashes with the city, and the hope of shaping a model for survival.

Reporter Shaina Shealy spent a year recording the daily grind of people who refuse to be defined only by crisis. — KQED

Nation’s oldest park ranger turns 104

Betty Reid Soskin, the nation’s oldest park ranger, marked her 104th birthday with hundreds of students at the East Bay middle school that carries her name. She says her life didn’t really begin until 50 — long before she put on a ranger’s uniform at 84.

Before that she ran a Berkeley record shop and wrote songs for the civil rights movement while raising kids in Walnut Creek. Later she worked for state assembly members, pushing for what became the city of Richmond’s Rosie the Riveter Park — where she eventually took the job of telling its stories herself as a ranger. — Richmondside

Quiet season on the peak

In the far northeast corner of California, Lassen Peak rises above a landscape of steaming vents and alpine lakes. This time of year, its 10,457-foot trail is clear of snow, the days are warm, and the crowds have thinned. The climb is short but steep, with views stretching from Lake Helen to Mount Shasta on the horizon.

For Bay Area hikers, it’s about the same drive as Yosemite or Tahoe — without the long lines or packed trailheads. The park’s geothermal basins, often called a “Little Yellowstone,” add another layer of wonder to a fall visit, making the trip feel both otherworldly and close to home. — SFGate

Michoacán in Redwood City

Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum calls Redwood City home to the best Mexican food in the US, thanks to its deep ties to Aguililla, Michoacán. Families brought recipes, bakeries, and taquerias — including Carnitas El Rincón and Panaderia Michoacán — keeping traditions alive for decades.

Rising housing costs have changed the neighborhood, but for those who stayed the food remains a living connection to home and heritage. — KGO

SF on a plate

San Francisco tastes like the city itself — old favorites, new spots, and a mix of chaos and calm. At Piglet & Co, honey walnut shrimp and pork toast carry sticky sweetness, while Hilda and Jesse’s pancakes pile whipped buttermilk and blueberry syrup into a soft, messy tower.

Gola’s Tunisian deviled eggs with roasted shrimp add spice and nutty depth, and Prubechu’s ko’ko’ wings hit with a sharp, citrusy punch. All of them show up on this Top 100 list, a snapshot of a city forever rewriting its menu. — 7x7

Nirvana in Mission Bay

NBA Champ turned storyteller Festus Ezeli gives a strong endorsement to Nirvana Soul Coffee, a local Black woman-owned coffee shop, which recently opened its fifth location in SF’s Mission Bay.

The San Jose-based company recently partnered with NFL star Chidobe “Chido” Awuzie and will soon be opening locations at SFO and San Jose’s SAP Arena. — Festus Feasts

Love on a billboard

Drivers beware: Lisa Catalano is looking for love — and she’s advertising it on Highway 101. The Bay Area bachelorette has put up digital billboards from Santa Clara to the city, directing curious viewers to her website, marrylisa.com, where applicants can fill out a form and see her likes, lifestyle, and non-negotiables.

Catalano, whose fiancé passed away in late 2023, says she’s ready to love again. The billboards sparked TikTok chatter, but she insists it’s not a stunt: “This is a real endeavor. My goal is to meet the love of my life.” — KRON4

Top image: Bearly Covered/Facebook

Previously: Dancers on Buildings, Cowboys in Oakland, and Fun at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk

The local nonprofit Urban Alchemy, which took on favored-contractor status at San Francisco's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing in recent years, is increasingly coming under the microscope of city leaders amid signs of contract violations.

Urban Alchemy, the organization that employs formerly incarcerated people to work as street ambassadors and to staff supportive housing facilities in SF under multiple city contracts, is making the news again this week. At issue is a contract renewal for their management of a homeless shelter at 711 Post Street — the Ansonia Hotel, which served as a youth hostel in the last decade before becoming a shelter in 2022.

While the nonprofit continues to have favorable status at the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), the SF Board of Supervisors has been asking more questions about its contracts — and Urban Alchemy has already seen BART cancel a contract with them, and they appear to be losing a contract in Austin, Texas as well over a misreporting issue at local shelters.

Since launching in San Francisco in 2018 as a project of the nonprofit Hunters Point Family, Urban Alchemy has grown to operate in seven cities, including Los Angeles, Austin, Portland, and Oakland.

The Chronicle reported two weeks ago that Urban Alchemy was put on notice and relegated to "tier 2" status for city contracts, following a warning letter sent by San Francisco Controller Greg Wagner in August. The letter said that the nonprofit was now on a watch list over "serious fiscal or programmatic concerns," due to imadequate and noncompliant tracking of employee hours. And unless the issue is resolved, Urban Alchemy stands to risk seeing its contracts renewed with the city.

Urban Alchemy is a key piece of what critics have referred to as the "homeless industrial complex" in San Francisco, receiving upwards of $50 million across multiple contracts in recent years. The contract for 711 Post Street alone is worth $22.7 million, and HSH is seeking to increase that to $27.6 million, and have the current contract extended through March, while Urban Alchemy addresses an issue with overspending.

The main issue, as the Chronicle reports, has to do with employee pay bumps that were not authorized under the contract — which led to overspending of $800,000. Urban Alchemy countered that they had requested $800,000, but that their overspending actually only amounted to $336,000, including salary increases and other expenses.

"We often are in a situation where we’re asked to do work and we don’t always have budgets in place for that work," said Melek Totah, CFO of Urban Alchemy, at a hearing this week with the supervisors' Budget & Finance Committee, per the Chron. “We have to be a lot better about saying no when we’re asked to do things where they’re not budgets already approved."

The organization issued an official statement on the issue, saying, "We take the stewardship of our finances and the responsibility to meet all government standards seriously."

How much Urban Alchemy currently gets per year in revenue from San Francisco city contracts is kind of opaque. That $53M figure was from 2022, and the current HSH budget mentions nothing specific about HSH — just an overall $610 million in "grants" and $106 million in "programmatic projects." In total, 24% of the department's $846M budget for FY24-25, around $200 million, was earmarked for "shelter and crisis interventions."

And Nicolas Menard, a financial analyst with the Board of Supervisors, said during the hearing that Urban Alchemy had "knowingly overspent" its contract for 711 Post, and that issues like this are fairly rare among contractors. "We look at a lot of nonprofit contracts," Menard said, per the Chronicle, saying this example was "extreme."

Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the Budget & Finance Committee, says that Urban Alchemy's issues are not just with this one contract but are "overall," and she called for an audit of their contracts last year that still could be coming.

So far, though, Urban Alchemy has managed to remain in the city's good graces, and  the Chronicle notes that the 711 Post Street contract likely will be extended. But we could hear more about this story come springtime.

Related: Street Ambassador Nonprofit Urban Alchemy Seen as Force of Good, Mostly

The encampment-clearing focus returned to a spot that has been a repeated magnet for encampments Tuesday, with Caltrans and CHP personnel doing a sweep of those residing in and around the "hairball" where Cesar Chavez Street meets Potrero Avenue, Bayshore Boulevard, and multiple 101 on- and off-ramps.

As the Chronicle reports, the clearing of encampments under the "hairball" had been planned, and those residing there were given 72 hours notice as of Friday. The effort is part of Governor Gavin Newsom's earlier announced push to address encampments on state property — i.e. under freeway overpasses — and across all of California's major cities.

The paper noted that a few people could be seen lugging belongings and pushing shopping carts Tuesday, and they "appeared to be looking for new places to go as Caltrans workers began adding boulders and other deterrents to the former encampment sites that state officials said were key components of making sure the effort would last."

Newsom announced in May that he would be pushing cities to be more aggressive in the clearing of encampments — with his presidential aspirations no doubt a partial motivator for the effort. He even released text of a "model ordinance" that cities could adopt, with suggested ideas including an outright ban on "persistent" camping in one location, and a prohibition on any encampment that blocks a sidewalk or right-of-way.

Still, Newsom's office said at the time, no person should face criminal penalties for needing to sleep outdoors.

"There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets," Newsom said in a May statement, and he went on to refer to last year's decision by the Supreme Court allowing for such enforcement of anti-camping laws. "Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses."

Newsom launched what's called the State Action for Facilitation on Encampments (SAFE) Task Force, and the "hairball" cleanup was the first effort under that umbrella, as the Chronicle reports.

More sweeps, funded with state dollars, are set to come to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento, Long Beach, Anaheim, Bakersfield, and Fresno in the coming months.

Mayor Daniel Lurie is fully on board, issuing a statement saying, "The first thing you see when you get to San Francisco should be representative of the clean streets we have across the city. Under my administration, city government will no longer tolerate the conditions we’re seeing on our on-ramps and off-ramps — and now we have the tools to fix it."

The only tools we don't have are enough shelter beds, but who's counting.

Previously: Newsom Calls on California Cities to Flat-Out Ban Homeless Encampments

Those living on the streets of San Francisco who are trying to stay clean and who don't want to stay in shelters around rampant drug use and chaos now have a new option in the city's shelter system.

The Salvation Army has just opened Hope House in San Francisco, a 58-bed sober-living shelter on Sixth Street where there is zero tolerance for drugs or alcohol. And for some, it has reportedly been a welcome change.

As the Chronicle reports, the shelter includes single- and double-occupancy rooms, as well as common space and a dining hall. It's designed to accommodate extended stays — anywhere from 90 days to a year — and Hope House has begun taking in its first residents in recent weeks, who are referred there by city outreach workers.

Case managers on site will help residents with housing assistance, life skills training, and there will be recovery support groups as well, with the goal of helping people exit homelessness and get on a path to long-term recovery, per the Chronicle.

In a city where shelters have typically been more laissez-faire, with the goal of being accessible to the maximum number of people, Hope House marks a different approach. Salvation Army staff will conduct random drug screenings of residents, and anyone who tests positive will be transferred to another shelter.

"We're hyper-focused on the intersection of drug addiction and homelessness," said Steve Adami, executive director of the Salvation Army's The Way Out homeless initiative, speaking to KTVU last month about the shelter. "It expands the city's response to the drug and homeless crisis. This is not a harm-reduction program. It's an abstinence-based program."

Shireen McSpadden, the director of the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, sees Hope House as a good option for those who are seeking a sober environment to aid in their own recovery.

"We need choices that people are going to take us up on," McSpadden tells the Chronicle. "If they need this as a next step for them to get to stability, we want to provide that for them."

Hope House is operating under a two-year, $8.1 million contract with the homelessness department. As Mayor Daniel Lurie announced last month, Hope House is one of three recovery-focused shelter facilities opening in the city, along with the 70-bed Eleanora Fagan Center (formerly the Kean Hotel), and the 65-bed Wells Place (formerly the Marina Inn).

"Our administration is fundamentally transforming the city’s response to the homelessness and behavioral health crisis, and under our Breaking the Cycle plan, we are standing up the right kind of beds that connect people to the recovery and treatment services they need to get off our streets and truly get better," Lurie said in a statement.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, has some reservations about the facility, only because those who relapse could likely end up back on the street, given the city's shortage of shelter beds. As she tells the Chronicle, "It’s gonna be challenging to figure out how to create a sober space while ensuring the fundamental right to shelter is not sacrificed in any way without increasing capacity."

But Adami tells the paper, "We want to create a safe environment for people to thrive without all the chaotic drug use and people coming and going. It’s not meant to be punitive, but it is meant to help people learn from their mistakes."

43-year-old recovering fentanyl addict Gary Noakes tells the Chronicle that he's grateful to be in a sane and sober environment, after staying in shelters where others did drugs out in the open at night.

"It’s the safest and cleanest environment, and now I’m able to really work on myself," Noakes tells the paper.

After a year-and-a-half of there being 68 tiny homes behind the former Walgreens at 16th and Mission streets, they’re being torn down, but will be replaced by a larger housing complex that will also house people coming out of homelessness.

You cannot see the above depicted 68 tiny-home complex called Mission Cabins at 16th and Mission streets, because it is behind huge black gates. But it has been there since it opened in April 2024, and did not come without a fight from the neighborhood, as Capp Street residents felt like they’d already dealt with plenty enough blight near Marshall Elementary School.

Now a year and a half later, the 68 tiny cabins of Mission Cabins are all closing permanently. This was the plan all along, the facility was always slated to be razed for a 450-unit affordable housing project, that after years of wrangling, is slated to break ground at the former “Monster in the Mission” condo site. The affordable housing project is also intended to serve families, seniors, and the formerly homeless.  

But as Mission Cabins wraps up its interim stay, the reviews have been pretty good. Particularly from a tenant named Antrinette Jenkins who was plucked from the streets and awarded a temporary home there.

“Five minutes later, I’m inside of this place here … out of the cold, out of the water,” Jenkins told Mission Local. “All I had was two blankets and a couple bags. But now it looks like a one-bedroom apartment.”

Admittedly, other tenants complained about the facility’s strict rules (“The staff was hella policing me,” one said to Mission Local). But neighbors who’d been skeptical about having the facility there spoke high of that extra security.

“Having the guards there has been a positive thing for our block,” Capp Street resident and Marshall PTA treasure Naomi Fox said. “I know that guards, from talking to them and getting to know them personally, really cared about helping the school community.”

While this is 68 tiny homeless suddenly gone, most residents have been moved out and transferred to SROs or other supportive housing. SF Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing spokesperson Emily Cohen tells Mission Local that 62 more supportive units are expected to open five blocks away on October 1. But most encouragingly, the city plans to just clean up and reuse these exact same 68 tiny homes at another site in the city.

Related: Supervisors Reject Appeal of 16th & Mission Housing Project for Formerly Homeless [SFist]

Image: San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing

• The Golden State Valkyries beat the Washington Mystics in a stellar 99-62 game Saturday night. Less than 24 hours later, the team is hosting Indiana Fever in a whirlwind series of back-to-back games. [SF Standard]
• A large group of cold-water swimmers came together at Aquatic Cove Saturday to memorialize fellow Dolphin Club member Nikolas Tomasevic, who died in the water last weekend. [Chronicle]

• San Francisco’s maze-like housing system is leaving disabled families in limbo, sometimes forcing them to turn hospital rooms into makeshift homes. [El Tecolote]
• Sunnyvale was recognized for its proactive housing and zoning programs by Governor Gavin Newsom and the Department of Housing and Community Development, receiving the seventh highest score out of 65 jurisdictions and the highest in Santa Clara County. [Bay Area News Group]
• Here’s a rundown of the current situation at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as its director has been pushed out, senior staff departed, and Health and Human Services is moving in. [KQED]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist