Nary a peep moon or PeeKKKnobsInIT for SF bulldozing homeless camps*****
San Francisco undertook efforts to clear homeless encampments in certain areas of the city ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November 2023.
The city prioritized clearing encampments near high-security zones, including areas around the Moscone Center and Nob Hill, where the event was held.
Outreach teams and city workers instructed unhoused individuals to move, sometimes without offering alternative shelter, and in some cases, personal belongings were discarded during the sweeps.
The city suspended access to one of its walk-in shelters, Santa Maria y Marta, to reserve its 56 beds for people camping near APEC security zones.
While no new shelters were opened specifically for APEC, existing winter shelters were activated earlier than usual, and the city planned to add about 300 beds to its shelter system around that time.
Some hotel rooms were also purchased and offered to displaced individuals as temporary housing.
These actions were part of a broader effort to present a "cleaned up" city to international leaders and visitors, including President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
However, advocates and legal representatives raised concerns, noting that the city faced an ongoing lawsuit over its encampment clearing practices and that the lack of sufficient shelter capacity meant many unhoused people were negatively impacted.
The city is bound by a federal injunction requiring it to offer alternative shelter before clearing encampments, though enforcement and transparency around these efforts have been questioned.