San Francisco Herding Homeless to Improve Image Ahead of APEC Summit

San Francisco, with a population of about 810,000 people, has a homeless population exceeding 7,000. Encampments and open-air drug markets have crowded some city streets, tarnishing the city's reputation around the world.

One of the most expensive cities in the United States is moving homeless people and destroying their encampments in an attempt to clean the parts of the city that will host more than 20 world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week 2023 summit that kicked off on Saturday.

According to multiple media reports describing the raids, officials are targeting several areas in the SoMa district of San Francisco, sometimes asking the homeless not to return until after the conference is over and utilizing "night ambassadors" to keep the area clear.

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to speak at the event, with their meeting being described as an important step in stabilizing relations between the two countries.

Large steel barricades have been erected around the area and more than 100 private security guards have been spotted working around the St Regis Hotel where Chinese diplomats and business executives are staying. Some roads in the area have also been closed.

“With APEC coming, I am concerned about historical encampments that are close to priority areas,” Christopher McDaniels, the city’s superintendent of Street Environmental Services wrote in a September 25 email to city officials, as quoted by San Francisco Chronicle.

His boss, Deputy Director of Operations DiJaida Durden, replied by asking “Are any of these locations on schedule,” adding that APEC “is coming and we need to stay on top of the growing encampments, do we have a plan?”

The APEC summit will put the city under its biggest international spotlight since the founding of the United Nations in 1945. The APEC summit kicked off on Saturday and will continue until November 17.

It is expected to bring more than 20,000 people to the city.

The city of San Francisco has had a growing homeless problem for some time and in recent years, viral videos showing massive homeless encampments and open-air drug markets have become a mark of embarrassment for the city.

But some residents don’t think the city’s solution of moving the homeless to other parts of the city will solve the issue.

“They are just essentially herding the problem around but offering no long-term solutions,” Adam Mesnick, a SoMA resident and business owner, told US media. “I don’t know if these tents will be in physical video during APEC, but it will be virtually impossible to eliminate all of that.”

A court ruling forbids city officials from removing homeless encampments unless the homeless are offered alternative arraignments. Some media reports described the removal of encampments, with most of the homeless refusing the offer of alternative shelter.

“The police just told me that there’s a major conference, that the president is coming, and asked if we could stay away for a week.” a 50-year-old homeless man told US media.

“They took everything, my tent, my cell phone, I’ve got to start all over. I could have cursed them out, but it ain’t do me no good,” he added.

While city has roughly 3,000 beds in its shelter system, which is currently at 91% capacity and 468 people are on the city's waitlist, there are no plans to open a new shelter ahead of the event, yet a winter shelter will be opened early and add 300 beds to its other facilities.

However, that is likely to be a drop in the bucket for San Francisco, which in addition to a homeless problem also has seen a massive increase in drug overdoses. The city is on pace to break its annual record for fatal drug overdoses, averaging about two a day.