There is an alarming surge in the number of homeless families coming to San Francisco.
According to the city’s latest “Point-in-Time” count, there are about 400 families experiencing homelessness in San Francisco — a staggering 98% increase since 2022.
This surge is driven by job loss and an influx in migrant families, city officials say. Without enough shelter beds or transitional housing available, 90% of homeless families are left sleeping in vehicles. The rest of the families, especially newcomers from Latin American countries, are left sleeping on city streets or are separated across temporary shelters, advocates say.
“I thought that it was going to be different,” said Jenifer Carcamo, an asylum seeker from Honduras with three children, in a video interview conducted by the nonprofit Faith Based in Action. Like many other migrant families, Carcamo says she came to San Francisco because of its designation as a sanctuary city. “I thought we were going to have more job opportunities, that we were going to have safe, stable housing, but it has been difficult.”
San Francisco became a sanctuary city in 1989 with the passage of the “City and County of Refuge” Ordinance, also known as the Sanctuary Ordinance. This ordinance prohibits city employees from using city funds or resources to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in enforcing federal immigration laws, unless required by federal or state law.
Originally, the ordinance was a response to an influx of refugees fleeing civil wars in Central America, particularly from El Salvador. Today, San Francisco’s immigrant population comes from various Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Colombia, and Nicaragua.
Amid the growing humanitarian crisis, readers said they want to know how D9 candidates feel about San Francisco’s role as sanctuary city. Here’s how they responded to the question:
Is San Francisco still a sanctuary city? Why or why not?
JULIAN BERMUDEZ
I do believe San Francisco is still a sanctuary city. My business helps out asylum seekers, have jobs, and then continue on to a career that they want. I believe that San Francisco does has the capability to become the top sanctuary city or place where immigrants can come and go and find their place in the United States and find a path to citizenship. I have a lot of family members that help asylum seekers, and I believe that our current City Hall doesn’t want to promote our sanctuary city out of their own dogmatic, political ideology. Latinos only make 16% of the voter base in San Francisco. So I feel a lot of our issues are put in the back end over everything else that’s happening in the city.
H BROWN
Sanctuary on paper. On paper, only. I mean, we’re doing the opposite because the developers have taken control of pretty much everything. They’re forcing families out of housing. So, in the actual sense of the word, we’re driving people out. So we’re not a sanctuary [city], on paper only.
TREVOR CHANDLER
I think San Francisco is a sanctuary city in name only. You can’t be a sanctuary city if people can’t afford to have sanctuary here. That’s why housing is such an important issue to me. It’s great. I support us being a sanctuary city. I think we should strengthen our sanctuary city protections, especially with the potential of another horrific Trump presidency. But it’s really nice to say that we’re the most LGBTQ friendly. It’s really great to say that we’re the most friendly to immigrants, and we want everyone to be here when no one can afford to live here. And it’s really infuriating from the outside to say, “Oh, we’re saying all the right things,” but we’re not doing any of the right things so we can actually have progressive outcomes. That’s been my frustration with City Hall. We’ve heard a lot of the great words, and we’ve seen everything else that don’t live up to those words. I want progressive actions. I want progressive results rather than the progressive buzzwords we’ve seen across the city. When that includes building affordable housing across the city, including in the West Side. And that includes making sure that we’re not just saying the same things over and over again
JACKIE FIELDER
As a daughter of Mexican immigrants who were able to go down the path of citizenship, I owe it to the path of citizenship for my ability to be here right now. And it’s gravely concerning to me that the president issued an asylum ban and has closed the border to anyone seeking asylum. There are more than 900 people on the waitlist here in San Francisco for legal help. Who are seeking asylum. And it’s really concerning that there’s been no increase for funds to support this legal defense. You know, there are community ambassadors who do such thankless jobs in the mission, who have connected people to housing, have literally put money out of their own pockets to put people up in hotels. And so the city needs to do much more to be able to say that it’s a sanctuary city. And for me, that means fighting for housing, permanent supportive housing, shelter for immigrant families, community ambassadors, and legal representation.
JAIME GUTIERREZ
I absolutely think that San Francisco is a sanctuary city, because right now in the world, there are entities that are taking advantage of people. There are populations that need help. So if somebody has, you know, if they’re being persecuted for their religion, then they need to come here and feel safe. If they’re being persecuted for their culture, they need to come here and feel safe. They need to say, “Hey, I don’t want to go back,” and San Francisco has to do everything in its power to protect them and to help them out.
ROBERTO HERNANDEZ
I believe it is. I absolutely believe it is. In fact, I was part of the organizing effort that went into our community to make San Francisco a safe sanctuary city for our immigrant members of our community. I believe that when we get attacked from Trump, who attacked our sanctuary policies. Yeah, there are some people who jumped up against it. When we get the most vulnerable members of our community get accused of X, you know, that really tense and blames, you know, because we’re a sanctuary city. But I believe we have a great infrastructure to protect and laws on the books now to keep San Francisco a sanctuary city, which is one of the first in this country.
STEPHEN TORRES
I think that it is in our intent. I think that we have a long way to go. I mean, hopefully, from a legislative standpoint, we can retain that as an official policy. But I think that we have a long way to go in truly implementing it. We have to really make things truly accessible, truly culturally competent. And that’s not just folks that are monolingual or folks that are coming here from different countries, but also coming here from different backgrounds. LGBTQ people, especially trans folks, are vulnerable, are the ones that are truly falling through the cracks. And if we really want to be a sanctuary city, that shouldn’t happen.
MICHEAL PETRELIS
Declined interview.
This report is part of “The Pueblo’s Agenda,” El Tecolote’s ongoing civic engagement project focused on answering questions and making local election information accessible to San Francisco’s bilingual Latinx communities. Support our work by donating to our nonprofit publisher Acción Latina today.