By Lisa Awbrey, HANC Board
On May 29, 2020, the temporary safe sleeping village (also known as CAMP) at 730 Stanyan Street opened. The village contains 39 spatially distanced sites. The City chose the site mainly because it could be quickly activated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, there were 55 residents living at CAMP with 8 vacancies. Since the village opened, 22 people have transitioned forward, and 33 formerly unhoused campers remain stable for the time being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the 22 campers who have exited the site, five people moved to Shelter-In-Place (SIP) hotel rooms; five people have been moved to permanent housing; eight people have left town to return to live with family members or to work; and one person transitioned to a treatment program. Three people were asked to leave because they did not cooperate with the village’s rules.
There is a long waiting list for space in the safe sleeping village. The people who move into CAMP are from surrounding local neighborhoods in D5. The Haight Youth Alliance (HYA) and Larkin Street Youth Services (LSYS) have existing relationships with the people who come into and who live at the site. Although CAMP has not cured visible homelessness in the City, the sleeping village has helped more than 22 people move forward and is helping to stabilize 33 formerly unhoused people who currently live at CAMP.
CAMP’s model is both realistic and respectful. Because space is limited at the 730 Stanyan site, there is not enough room for all the tents nor for all the unsheltered people who live in D5. From the very beginning, it was understood that CAMP’s unique safe sleeping village was not going to be a cure-all for every unhoused neighbor; it is important to make this distinction so that opponents of the site cannot blame CAMP alone as a failure while visible street homelessness continues. But for the people who did move in, CAMP provides protection and increased access to hygiene facilities, along with emotional and practical support in a community setting. The goal of CAMP is simple: a temporary refuge designed to address the immediate COVID-19 crisis and the inability of unhoused residents to safely Shelter in Place. The success or failure of CAMP cannot simply be measured by the continued existence of people living in tents across the city and in D5.
As with anything in life, the exact future of CAMP is unknown. The site will ultimately be developed into affordable housing; local residents are currently engaged with the City in the neighborhood process of moving this future project forward.
The City gave CAMP a 3-6 month timeline at 730 Stanyan. Unless plans shift or an alternate location is found, all CAMP residents will continue to work with supportive staff to create individual exit plans prior to its closure. HYA, LSYS, many of our neighbors and most importantly, CAMP’s residents do overwhelmingly feel that CAMP is a success. At the onset, it was known that the site could not and would not solve homelessness, and yet here is a model that succeeds at alleviating the tensions and unsafe living conditions that arise from poverty.
However tents are not homes. Tents represent the human need and desire for shelter and for housing. Encampments both sanctioned and unsanctioned sprawl across San Francisco and across this country and will continue to, until we come together to create the change we need. While the coronavirus is a pandemic, homelessness is endemic.
Hopefully CAMP is not just a story of how San Francisco responded to the coronavirus by creating safe spaces for unhoused people to sleep and be, but perhaps CAMP also reveals that such an experiment was so successful that it became a model for future alternative temporary shelter projects. The staff, under the guidance of Eliza Wheeler and with the support and expertise of HYA’s existing team, have proven that even squares painted on a concrete parking lot can provide a place of safety and reprieve. In the five and one half months CAMP has existed, the lot and the campers have grappled with heavy winds, thunder and lightning, fog, raccoons, skunks, record-breaking heat and smoke from California’s wildfires, and yet the site has proved to be a place where people may begin to heal and move forward.
The service providers and staff who support the safe sleeping village are deeply grateful and appreciate that the City was willing to try something new here.