The board voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill on Tuesday. Supervisors Connie Chan and Chyanne Chen voted against it, with Chan calling the bill “overly prescriptive.”
“Placing a shelter in every neighborhood without intentional community input won’t address root causes of housing and affordability, behavioral health issues and more,” Chen said in the meeting.
The Coalition on Homelessness’s executive director, Jennifer Friedenbach, echoed Chen’s concern over a lack of housing and the city’s overreliance on emergency shelter.
“Shelter should not be expanded unless housing is expanded along with it,” Friedenbach said. “You want them to move out and into housing, and then that leaves the bed open for someone else.”
While Friedenbach supports more geographic diversity within the city’s shelter system, she also pushed back against the idea that unhoused residents are “a burden.”
The legislation is slated for a final consent vote in September before it lands on Lurie’s desk.
