San Francisco May Offload Its Pandemic Emergency Housing Trailers to Oakland

After winding down a trailer site at Pier 94 used for emergency housing during the pandemic, San Francisco is now looking to offload a portion of its RVs to Oakland.

On Tuesday, the Oakland City Council will consider accepting up to 60 of the 120 trailers, which could be donated to nonprofits that provide shelter to people experiencing homelessness.

The potential handoff comes nearly four years after Gov. Gavin Newsom sent nearly 1,300 trailers across the state to help California counties house people experiencing homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That program saw mixed outcomes across the state — with some cities embracing the solution and others letting the trailers gather dust. But in San Francisco, the trailer site at Pier 94 ultimately became the city’s longest-running COVID-response emergency housing program.

Located at an industrial site in the city’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, the trailers were always intended to be a temporary measure. Advocates for people experiencing homelessness pushed to keep it open so residents could find housing placements before exiting. Altogether, the program ran from April 2020 until January 2024.

Deborah Bouck, a spokesperson for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), said city leaders had hoped to keep the program running at another location but, after months of searching, couldn’t find a suitable replacement site.

The Port of San Francisco owns Pier 94 and has plans to eventually use the site for offshore wind production. In the near future, it will be available for lease, according to Eric Young, director of communications for the Port of San Francisco.

Now that all RV residents have moved out, the city must figure out what to do with the trailers Oakland doesn’t claim.

“This program was great for the community and helped a lot of people get off the streets,” said Thomas Taylor, who left his job as a banker early in the pandemic to become a supervisor at the Felton Institute, which oversaw the trailer program. “It showed them that there are people actually there for them.”

Life at Pier 94

San Francisco-born Christina Zeigler said the space gave her a chance to figuratively — and quite literally — get back on her feet. In 2018, her landlord sold the duplex in the city of Richmond, where she had lived for eight years. After losing the home she loved, Zeigler struggled to find a new spot she could afford.

She crashed with friends and family, but then another setback further entrenched her struggle to find housing. In October 2021, she tore her meniscus while working as a janitor in San Francisco’s Federal Building.

“That was just devastating to me, that was really tough,” Zeigler said.

She moved into a trailer at Pier 94 in December 2022 and said she used her time there to rest, collect herself and move forward.

“I needed to be somewhere to focus on my healing and nursing my injury,” she told KQED.

There, Zeigler had access to three meals a day, got help with financial planning and put in applications for permanent housing. Residents could also participate in communal activities, like talent shows and holiday parties. Zeigler regularly spent time in the program’s women’s group.

“I met some really great people there,” Zeigler said. “I interacted with the program so much that sometimes even other clients thought I was staff.”

Zeigler was one of 301 people who lived in the trailers throughout the life of the program. After stopping new intakes in April 2023, the last remaining resident moved out and into permanent housing in January 2024. Zeigler moved out in June 2023 and now lives in an apartment in the Tenderloin. She keeps the place meticulously organized — with shoes lined up at the entrance and pieces of art and 49ers memorabilia intentionally placed throughout the space.

“I was putting in (applications) for housing left and right once I was there,” Zeigler said. “This place came available, and I loved it. As soon as I signed my lease, I was packing up that little bitty trailer, and I took off running.”

The majority of the Pier 94 residents identify as Black or African American, including Zeigler, and the program prioritized spaces for people living within the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood. Most were between 45 and 64 years of age.

Nearly three-quarters — or 72% — of the 114 residents who were living at the site by the time it started winding down moved on to permanent housing, according to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Of those, about half moved into San Francisco’s permanent supportive housing, and the other half received subsidies for private-market rentals.

Taylor said the remaining 28% moved on for various reasons. Some moved back in with family, others moved into homeless shelters, and the rest are completely unknown.

An imperfect solution or missed opportunity?

The city spent $6.4 million annually to run the shelter site at Pier 94. Of that, the bulk — $6.1 million — went to the Felton Institute and on-site services. About $300,000 was dedicated to trailer maintenance, according to HSH.

But concerns over the 3-acre site’s location — adjacent to a toxic debris-crushing site — led even supporters to agree the site was not ideal for the long term.

“The site was always intended to be a temporary emergency COVID intervention measure,” Bouck said.

Along with issues at the site itself, Bouck said that the trailers were expensive to maintain.

“There are more cost-effective and space-efficient ways to build low-barrier non-congregate shelter programs — such as tiny cabins,” Bouck said.

Other cities had less success with the trailers. San José, for example, returned them after only a few months, citing costly repairs and a lack of necessary water and electricity hookups.

“We used the trailers for a couple months, but we found the expense and operational challenges of maintaining such a large fleet of trailers were not a good fit for our city,” Jeff Scott, a spokesperson for San José’s housing department, previously told KQED. “We transitioned our residents into other accommodations and returned the trailers to the state.”

However, the RVs provided a significant opportunity for San Francisco, which faces a dramatic shortage of housing and shelter beds for people who need them. The city estimated in 2022 that more than 7,000 people are experiencing homelessness, but it has just over 3,000 shelter beds. On March 14, there were 107 people on the city’s online shelter reservation waitlist.

Losing the 120 trailers at Pier 94 will further that crunch. Taylor hopes that the program can eventually come back.

“You see a difference in clients when you are actively there for them, having conversations and supporting their well-being,” he said. “We’ll hopefully rebuild this program.”