SAN FRANCISCO— The city of San Francisco was sued on May 4 by multiple parties alleging a spike in homelessness has made the city hard to live in.
A San Francisco law school, business owners, and local residents are suing the city in an effort to have it cleaned up after an almost 300% increase in homelessness has hit the Bay area. The Tenderloin neighborhood has seen an increase in tents, drug dealing, and feces-covered sidewalks according to those who filed suit.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court on May 4 by multiple parties who were led by the University of California Hastings College of the Law. The group seeks a court order to stop the city from using the neighborhood as a “containment zone” for homeless encampments.
According to a survey which was cited in the lawsuit claims that the number of tents and makeshift homeless shelters in the 50-block section that 20,000+ permanent residents call home has more than doubled from 158 in early March to 391 as of May 1.
In an interview with CNN, UC Hastings Chancellor David Faigman stated,
“Tents are blocking streets, tents are blocking doorways, there are needles in the streets, there’s open-air drug dealing.”
Due to added pressure by the Coronavirus, the state of California has been securing tens of thousands of hotels to ensure the homeless population has a place to go and to also avoid spreading the virus.
