San Francisco Supes Propose Homeless Navigation Centers Citywide
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Five San Francisco supervisors are proposing that more Navigation Centers be built throughout the city to address the homeless crisis, the supervisors announced Wednesday.
Although the city has operated nine Navigation Centers, the facilities operate in just three of the city's 11 supervisorial districts.
Under the Navigation Centers Citywide initiative, each district would be required to open a Navigation Center within the next 30 months, providing people experiencing homelessness in each part of the city with shelter and services. The new facilities would be required to offer 90-day stays with the option to extend and help clients find housing and treatment.
The initiative is being backed by supervisors Matt Haney, Hillary Ronen, Gordon Mar, Dean Preston and Shamann Walton.
"If we are serious about all being part of the solution, the responsibility should not fall on just three supervisors who have Navigation Centers in their districts. We are seeing unbelievable suffering on our streets, and the city has no plan. It's past time that every neighborhood steps up," Ronen said in a statement.
"Homelessness is a citywide crisis and we have to act with urgency, to implement citywide solutions. We can't wait any longer. Every neighborhood has to step up. No one should be sleeping on our streets," Haney said.
"Every district has an unhoused population, and every district can use a safe place for unhoused people to live and receive services," Walton said.
The city recently unveiled its latest Navigation Center, located in the South Beach neighborhood on Tuesday. The 200-bed center has been controversial, with some residents unsuccessfully attempting to stop its opening through the courts.
A recent Point in Time Count, conducted earlier this year, found that over 8,000 people experience homelessness on any given night in San Francisco while the city has only about 2,000 beds for the homeless.
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