After being rousted from his makeshift encampment beneath the 101 freeway in San Francisco, Tommy Hughes moved on to another street and pitched camp there.

"The sign says you have to move from Van Ness to 10th," he said. "We're just going to move to Ninth."

Some people did go to shelters, but many others, like Hughes, just relocated.

Instead of hundreds of tents concentrated on and around one San Francisco street, they're appearing more and more on various alleyways and sidewalks -- to the frustration of residents and merchants. It’s the latest in the city's long, frequently controversial, and always frustrating relationship with the homeless people living on its streets.

L.A.’s Skid Row, by contrast, is a roughly 50-square-block area of downtown that’s home to several thousand people either living on the streets or in one of many shelters and transitional supportive housing complexes.

To the visitor -- and even to longtime residents and advocates -- the sight of so many people, block after block, living in the open, out in the street beneath tarps, tents and lean-to’s, is shocking. But it’s also where someone without shelter, in need of mental health services, a hot meal or drug rehab, is most likely to find help.

The lion’s share of the city’s homeless services is concentrated in Skid Row. This happened decades ago by design as L.A.’s transient population blossomed. The homeless and the services they needed were directed to one part of the city that, at least at one time, was mostly a ghost town after government offices and garment factories shut down for the night.

“While it may appear to be a convenient solution, in the end it doesn't work," says Mike Alvidrez, director of the Skid Row Housing Trust, "unless you address the root cause, which is homelessness. Whether you put them in a concentrated a place like Skid Row or scatter (them) all over, you're not addressing what is the final solution -- and that is to create more housing, in this case for a population that has other needs as well.”

The problem in Skid Row is that bed space and services have never been able to keep pace with the surge in homelessness.

Proposed Solutions

The city of Los Angeles is proposing a 10-year, $1.2 billion bond measure to help pay for an expansion of transitional housing and other services across the city.

L.A. County also has a proposal to generate more homeless funding, with an emphasis on housing, by taxing its most wealthy residents. People who earn over $1 million a year would see their taxes rise by one-half percent.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich is one of the lone voices opposing the so-called millionaire’s tax. He says the county already has one of the highest tax rates in the U.S. He doesn’t think the proposal fully addresses the root causes of homelessness.

At a recent hearing he pointed to outreach the county did on public buses and metro lines, trying to steer homeless people to available shelters and other services.

“(Most) refuse treatment and walk away. I have called in on the homeless I see, driving to and from work. Regardless how hot it is or how cool, they refuse shelter,” says Antonovich. “They are mentally ill. They need assistance; they need medical help. Having just another revenue source to build another house is not addressing the root cause of the problem for those people who are mentally and physically ill.”

In San Francisco, a group of supervisors has introduced a November ballot measure designed to ban street encampments.

If approved by voters, those living in tents and other makeshift shelters could be forcibly removed if they declined to move to an available shelter or transitional housing facility. Supporters of the proposed crackdown argue the tents pose health and safety risks, both for the people who live in them and residents who have to live and work around them.

"As a city, we need to have a policy that we're not enabling individuals or groups of people to set up tents and allow the city to be complacent in that issue,” says Supervisor Mark Farrell, who authored the measure.

“Again, I don't think it's healthy for anybody," he adds.

But critics say the city doesn't have nearly enough shelter beds to accommodate the number of people currently living on the street, and that the move is nothing more than political grandstanding.
In Los Angeles, there is also criticism that the city is funneling the lion’s share of money currently budgeted for homelessness to police enforcement in places like Skid Row.

“We're going to go after bond measures, millionaire's taxes, but at the same time we continue to create costly ordinances that are going to cost us in the court of law,” says Pete White, director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network based in Skid Row.

A new ordinance approved by the L.A. City Council aims to prohibit homeless people from “lodging” in vehicles parked near homes and schools. But people will be allowed to sleep in their vehicles -- sedans, trucks or RV’s -- from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. in commercial areas and in the parking lots of certain churches and nonprofits.

That crackdown coincides with a seemingly contradictory move by the Los Angeles Police Commission, directing officers to show more “compassion and empathy” when it comes to day-to-day encounters with the homeless.

But many officers, especially those with the challenge of patrolling Skid Row, argue they already show a great deal of patience and compassion when working a part of the city with the highest concentration of mental illness, street violence and drug abuse.

“The enforcement costs us a lot of money. We are pursuing policies to criminalize people who are living in their vehicles, but we clearly don't have anywhere else for people to go,” says L.A. Community Action Network's White.

San Francisco already spends about a quarter-billion dollars a year on homelessness, but services have been difficult and confusing for many people to access.

“The resources? OK, if there's so many resources, where are they?” asks Rebecca Padilla, a tent encampment resident. “You've got to do your research. You've got to go place to place. Not everybody can do that.”

To streamline services and better track the homeless people who use them, the city has created a new Department of Homeless Services. It’s also expanding its successful homeless Navigation Center -- begun as a pilot program in the city’s Mission District -- to other locations around the city.

ABOUT THE SERIES:
This story is part of a remarkable media collaboration highlighting the issue of homelessness in the Bay Area. On Wednesday, June 29, more than 70 news organizations, including KQED, have come together to ask some crucial questions: Why do we seem to be seeing so many more individuals living in tents on our streets? What is being done to address the growing housing affordability and availability crisis? See all KQED's coverage here.