These supervisors have a good idea to fight homelessness. The mayor should reject it anyway
A bill by Bilal Mahmood and Shamann Walton seeks to spread the pain all over the city. It's the right idea at the wrong time.
https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2025/05/28/daniel-lurie-reject-new-homeless-bill/
Editor-at-large, The San Francisco Standard
Published May 28, 2025 • 6:00am
There’s a joke I’ve made to certain wealthy San Franciscans I’ve interviewed over the years, as they vent their indignation over the city’s never-ending homeless problem. “Move all the encampments to Pacific Heights,” I tell them. “And you and your neighbors will get things sorted out snappily.”
Obviously, this is a pipe dream. There isn’t a lot of empty real estate for setting up tents or shelters in the city’s toniest neighborhoods. And the posh and powerful people who live there wouldn’t tolerate their existence if there were.
But I was reminded of my fanciful solution when Supervisors Bilal Mahmood and Shamann Walton, who represent the Tenderloin and the Bayview, respectively, introduced legislation that would require the city to place shelters or other services in each of the city’s 11 districts. Their dead-serious idea echoes my comical one in that it would force the areas that haven’t borne the brunt of the homelessness crisis to finally do their share.
The proposed “geographic equity” ordinance has become a political flashpoint since Mahmood and Walton offered it in late April. Mayor Daniel Lurie is quietly pushing back against it, arguing behind the scenes that the measure would hobble the administration’s considerable efforts to add shelter beds and systemize services for the unhoused. Mahmood and Walton, meanwhile, are vociferously standing their ground.
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