The backstory here is that San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed has been genuinely trying to do something about the chaos on the streets of her city. In May she announced a crackdown on open-air drug markets at an outdoor press conferences. She was heckled and someone threw a brick at her. Nevertheless, police started arresting drug users again and quickly discovered that 95% of them were from out of town. San Francisco has become a drug den for dealers who are mostly from Honduras and for users who are mostly from other towns and cities.

Another obvious aspect of San Francisco’s street life that needs to change is homelessness. Under the Boise decision, cities on the west coast are not allowed to remove people or their tents unless the city can offer them space in a shelter. But in San Francisco, things are even more difficult thanks to a lawsuit filed last year.

The controversy is in a high-profile case brought against the city by the advocacy group Coalition on Homelessness and a number of individual plaintiffs, some of them unsheltered people living on city streets.

The plaintiffs argued that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments means that the city can’t punish a person for sleeping on city streets while there is a shortfall of available shelter beds.

Ryu agreed, and on Dec. 23, 2022, she preliminarily enjoined the city from enforcing or threatening to enforce a variety of laws and ordinances that would “prohibit involuntarily homeless individuals from sitting, lying, or sleeping on public property.”

The order effectively barred the city from breaking up or sweeping tent encampments.

Judge Ryu ruled that the city was prevented from enforcing any laws against camping unless it had sufficient shelter space for every homeless person in the city. That injunction would remain in place until a trial before Judge Ryu next year.

What the judge seems to have missed is that many homeless people refuse space in shelters when it is offered, preferring to remain on the streets where drugs are plentiful and there are no rules. In practice that means that even though the city has far fewer beds than homeless people, the beds they have aren’t always full. So, prior to this ruling, the city could still remove a particular tent camp as long as it gave advance notice and could find enough shelter beds to offer a spot to every person in that particular camp.

Judge Ryu’s ruling goes beyond that. Now the city’s hands are tied unless the total number of available beds in the city exceeded the total number of homeless. That’s a moving target that would require the city to find thousands more empty beds at a cost of tens of millions of dollars before it could do anything about a single tent camp.

San Francisco has been trying to appeal the injunction since it was issued last December but Judge Ryu has repeatedly slapped down those efforts. And to be fair, it seems San Francisco’s City Attorney made some unusual moves in the appeal that go beyond normal courthouse procedures.

So the city has decided to appeal the issue to the 9th Circuit and Mayor Breed has said she’s prepared to take this all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

During a meeting at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Breed said that the city has to be “able to clear the streets.”

“I get that people suffer from mental illness,” Breed said. “I get they suffer from addiction. And I know that those things are complicated. But if we have a place for people to move, you should not be forced to just allow people to be on the sidewalk.”

The 9th Circuit is hearing the case today so there were dueling protests outside the courthouse led by the mayor. “This is not the way,” she said. “Anything goes in San Francisco is not the way.”

Mayor London Breed speaks during a rally held outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to demand the court overturn and injunction prohibiting the city from sweeping homeless encampments @sfchronicle pic.twitter.com/JstlKsi0WH

— Jessica Christian (@jachristian) August 23, 2023

Also out there today were a group of leftist counter-protesters who were chanting “Stop the sweeps.” They’re the people on the right. People on the left are part of the group against the injunction.

Protestors and counter protestors are going head-to-head with chants outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals during a rally demanding the court overturn and injunction prohibiting the city from sweeping homeless encampments @sfchronicle pic.twitter.com/qPe3YLB7kb

— Jessica Christian (@jachristian) August 23, 2023

It’s worth noting that this is how this same block routinely looks at night (2nd clip below).

It was too risky to get out of the car at Mission and 7th but I shot some rolling film of the ninth circuit court and it’s dangerous AF down there. pic.twitter.com/EX6bNkgYGu

— SaveSF_2024 (@Save_SF_2024) August 16, 2023

You may also remember that workers at the San Francisco Federal Bldg. were told to stay home because the area around the building was unsafe. This is what the city is dealing with and yet there is a large contingent of activists whose only concern is making sure drug addicts can continue to sleep on the city’s sidewalks.

This morning we joined @TheCoalitionSF @lccrsf @harveymilkclub in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to urge the city to settle the lawsuit, end the encampment sweeps, and invest in affordable housing. Affordable housing is the only solution to the homelessness crisis. pic.twitter.com/lmCFhFyhY0

— ACLU of Northern CA (@ACLU_NorCal) August 23, 2023

Live at SF Federal Courthouse. Chants, speeches, and even opposition to clearing the tents. Pay close attention to which politicians are NOT here. Which want tenants and homeless to remain on the sidewalks. pic.twitter.com/18CNkF5AXe

— Richie Greenberg (@greenbergnation) August 23, 2023

It’s hard to get a sense of how many people were there overall but it seems to be several hundred. Pretty surprising to see this many protesters coming out against the ACLU and local progressive groups in a city like San Francisco. The same people who recalled DA Chesa Boudin and 3 members of the school board aren’t done pushing back on the woke left yet.

A large crowd including the Mayor & several supervisors turned out to the Save Our Street / Stop the COH protest outside the 9th Circuit Courthouse at 7th + Mission in San Francisco. pic.twitter.com/jwFdSyPmHH

— Jon 👾👾👾💥👾👾 (@vjon) August 23, 2023