The San Francisco Department of Public Health declared the homeless encampments on Division Street underneath Highway 101 a public health hazard on Tuesday and posted signs ordering street denizens to dismantle their tents within 72 hours — or face referral to the Police Department.
“The conditions have really deteriorated and it is no longer safe for them,” said Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman with the department. “When you have growing numbers of people living in those types of environments, the opportunity for disease to spread and other risks multiply.”
A growing number of tents have sprung up on the Mission-SoMa border in the last six weeks. Many homeless moved in response to worsening weather and downtown sweeps in the weeks before the Super Bowl, prompting a citywide debate in which supervisors, newspaper columnists and former mayors weighed in on the need to clean up encampments.
The Department of Public Works began its own cleanup on Tuesday afternoon, leading some media outlets to speculate that Public Works was dismantling encampments ahead of schedule — something the department denies.
“This really is not much different than what we’ve been doing,” said Rachel Gordon, a spokeswoman for Public Works.