Mayor London Breed said a "very aggressive" sweep of San Francisco homeless encampments will start in August after a recent Supreme Court ruling cleared the path for officials to widespread enforcement.

Mayor London Breed said a “very aggressive” sweep of San Francisco homeless encampments will start in August, after a recent Supreme Court ruling cleared the path for widespread enforcement.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that enforcing rules against homeless people for sleeping outside doesn’t violate the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” clause.

On Thursday, Breed celebrated the ruling and said the city plans to change its protocols and may begin issuing criminal penalties against homeless people.

“Thank goodness for the change in the Supreme Court decision,” Breed said at an election debate hosted by a local firefighter’s union. “Effective August, we are going to be very aggressive and assertive in moving encampments, which may even include criminal penalties.”

  • quicklime
    172·
    1 month ago

    The mayor’s pronouns are she/her. But I agree with your point, and so do a very great number of San Francisco residents. The current/upcoming mayoral election is being predictably pushed as a big fight over law and order issues by big-money organizations (a lot of the money coming from silicon valley, outside of SF) and also by corporate-owned local media. The mayor is cynically playing to that tune in her uphill battle to get reelected. As if that weren’t bad enough she had to springboard this off of a cruel Supreme court decision at a time when her constituents are mostly disgusted with the court.