Angelika Unfortunately, San Francisco has always had a large number of homeless people living within city limits. A variety of factors exasperate the problem: Cost of living is at an all time high, there's a shortage of affordable housing, and currently we're experiencing a full-fledged housing crisis in general. People who lose their job and don't have savings, quickly end up on the street, because there are no social safety nets. San Francisco is known for its liberal city politics and, despite all problems, there are a variety of services for the homeless. Clearly, they're not sufficient to deal with all the cases, but at least they exist. But San Francisco's very mild Northern California climate and the fact that there's no rain during the summer months, and no snow at all in the winter, makes some people think they can just pitch a tent somewhere on the streets and stay there. At the beginning of 2015, there were a total of 6,690 homeless people living in the city. As long as we can remember, every mayor has promised to get the problem under control, but every single one has failed to do so, or has quickly switched to other priorities after a successful election.

And that the homeless have been setting up tent camps for years underneath various freeway overpaths in San Francisco is hardly news to anyone who's been living in the city for a while. There has been an encampment at the Cesar Chavez 101 exit for many years, for example. Passing by it on my commute almost every work day, I've noticed how it has been growing significantly during the last couple of months. Several days a week, there's nuns who are giving out food to the homeless there, and I've even witnessed them giving the homeless haircuts right there at the side of the road. I was quite moved by that. The latest trend, however, seems to be that the homeless are simply popping up tents right on the sidewalks in several central parts of the city. Until recently, for example, there were no less than 130 of these tents on the sidewalk along Division Street.

The 101 freeway overpath hovering above Division Street protects the tents pitched below it from the elements in the rainy season. The neighborhood has never been a top dollar spot in the city, but it features several big stores like the electronics retailer "Best Buy" or the office suppy store "Office Depot". And then there's of course the famous independent worker-owned co-op Rainbow Groceries (Rundbrief 09/2005) right around the corner. Their 1968-generation type management team is usually fairly relaxed when it comes to law enforcement with the homeless, but even they've had enough in the meantime, according to reports by a local newspaper.

There were reports of homeless people scaring away store customers, using supermarket toilets as their private bathrooms or tent encampments blocking loading docks. According to the store owners, it was not uncommon that a homeless person would enter the store and expose themselves or just start screaming. Many are mentally ill and should rather get medical care, but there's only very few locations offering such services. The Rainbow Grocery employees tried to get the attention of San Francisco mayor Ed Lee with this issue and pointed out the urgency, but didn't receive any help by the city. And Rainbow didn't even want to drive the homeless away, but simply asked for more sanitary conditions by providing more toilets and garbage cans.

Last week, however, city officials suddenly sprang into action and threatened to forcefully remove the tents. They set a timeline of 72 hours. At first, social workers tried to convince the dwellers to voluntarily move out of the tents and into the new temporary homeless shelter at Pier 80, which offers 150 beds, or rather 150 mattresses on the floor. Unsurprisingly, the shelter offer didn't seem to find any takers, although this particular facility is quite permissive, compared to other shelters: It allows the homeless to bring their pets and all their possessions, and partners can cuddle up in the same bed.

What's even more attractive is that the new shelter at Pier 80 doesn't need to be vacated during the day. And the city is serving three meals a day. Alas, many of the homeless find Pier 80 to be too far off. A few could be convinced to cooperate, and on Friday the number of sidewalk tents went down to about 40. On Saturday, only about 10 remained. However, most of the sidewalk campers simply moved a few blocks away, and pitched their tents there instead. Despite the ultimatum, SF police didn't show to remove the remaining tents. The city hopes that the homeless who moved to Pier 80 will stay there. I have my doubts about that. It's rather likeley that there's going to be a great increase in sidewalk tents again soon.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Perly Perlman's last resting place
  	Sedona/Arizona
  	Controversial Urinal in Dolores Park
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  	Monster Waves at Mavericks