The prospect of a 225-bed shelter in San Francisco’s trendy South Beach neighborhood has kicked off a bitter fundraising battle between area residents who say homeless people should be helped somewhere else and supporters who say no one should be sleeping on the streets. To some residents in the pricey and touristy neighborhood along the Embarcadero, plans to build a new homeless shelter amid expensive apartment towers threaten public safety and tourism. To supporters of the proposal, that opposition reflects NIMBYism pure and simple. Mayor London Breed’s planned 225-bed shelter near the Bay Bridge would become the city’s seventh “Navigation Center.” Unlike many basic overnight shelters, the centers have all-hours staff and no curfew. Services and referrals related to health care and housing are available. Extended stays are possible. But as San Francisco grapples with a highly visible homelessness crisis featuring sidewalks littered with human waste and needles, the initiative has sparked dueling GoFundMe efforts for and against the shelter. Days after concerned residents launched a “Safe Embarcadero for All” GoFundMe campaign last month to drum up cash for a potential legal fight, a former Google employee launched a GoFundMe counter-attack, the “SAFER Embarcadero for ALL” campaign, which has attracted big donations from some of the city’s most prominent tech CEOs. As of midday Friday, supporters of the shelter had raised about $168,000 compared with about $94,000 amassed by opponents. “When you’re living outside, it’s so dangerous, so cold, there’s so many reasons it’s bad,” said ex-Googler William Fitzgerald, who started the SAFER campaign to raise money for the city’s Coalition on Homelessness. “I’m just supportive of housing in general. It shouldn’t be that radical of an idea. San Francisco has chosen the route of at least trying to get people on a first step toward housing.” That step, in this case, is in the wrong place, said Wallace Lee, an organizer of the opposition campaign who lives a block-and-a-half from the proposed shelter site with his wife and toddler daughter. “My biggest concern is public safety,” said Lee, a 34-year-old stay-at-home dad, who also worries about the prospect of used needles. “Gathering a lot of people, some of whom will cause property crime and some violent crime, in an area that’s densely populated and with a lot of children and a lot of elderly is not a good idea. I can hardly imagine a worse area to put a Navigation Center with so many residents and tourists and workers walking by every day. “It’s not that we don’t want to see homelessness — it’s that we don’t want the effects of Navigation Centers.” He cited a Vancouver, Canada, study that concluded property crime rates increased by 56 percent within 110 yards of winter-only shelters in that city. However, that study also found crime started dissipating beyond about a quarter-mile from a shelter. Lee said he and other opponents of the proposed Navigation Center support efforts to resolve San Francisco’s homelessness crisis — 7,500 unhoused residents in 2017, according to the city’s official count — by putting Navigation Centers in empty lots in thinly populated areas of the city. To Fitzgerald, the backlash against an Embarcadero shelter is “straight-up NIMBYism.” “This idea that they want housing solutions for people but just not in their neighborhood, I just don’t think it’s an honest argument,” Fitzgerald said. But Lee puts the NIMBY label on the tech honchos leading donations in favor of the shelter. The fundraising campaign in favor of the new shelter has drawn support from CEOs Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Square, Nat Friedman of GitHub, and Twilio’s Jeff Lawson. Dorsey kicked in $25,000, with the other three each contributing $10,000. “The people who say we (opponents) don’t want it in our backyard don’t want it in their own backyard,” Lee argued. “Benioff, he doesn’t live here. Jack Dorsey doesn’t live here.” Salesforce declined to make Benioff available for an interview and Dorsey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. At a Wednesday night public meeting about the Embarcadero plan, Breed faced a mixed crowd of cheering, applauding shelter supporters and jeering, booing opponents. In a statement to this news organization, Breed’s office acknowledged that finding a “perfect” location for a Navigation Center was difficult. City staff have investigated about 100 potential Navigation Center sites, the mayor’s office said in a statement. Related Articles Federal judge allows Sausalito to relocate homeless camp Santa Clara County to enact Laura’s Law in forcing certain mental health treatments Letters: BART in SJ | Policing crisis | Mental health | Speed cameras | Asian American hate | Jan. 6 commission | ‘1619’ project ‘Town Sweep’: New group demands Oakland crack down on homeless camps Letters: Hit pause | Homeless camps | Reduce plastic use | Boycott blunder | Fairness Doctrine | Good for Democrats The Embarcadero location’s attributes include its public ownership by the Port of San Francisco, the large size of the lot, and proximity to both transit and a population in need of housing, Breed’s office said. Asked whether all city residents should share in addressing homelessness, the mayor’s office said it is committed to “the geographic distribution” of Navigation Centers. Between 2015 when the first Navigation Center opened and February of this year, 46 percent of homeless people who used the centers left them “successfully” into permanent housing, temporary placements, or homes of friends or family, the city reported. Fifty-four percent of center users had “unstable exits,” leaving by choice, hitting time limitations or being denied service, according to the city. An annual budget for the proposed Embarcadero facility and rent to be paid to the Port have not been determined, said Breed’s office, which hopes to open 1,000 more shelter beds by 2020.<doc-sep>Some San Francisco residents are turning to crowdfunding to raise money to fight a proposed homeless shelter in their wealthy neighborhood. As of Monday morning, the effort had raised over $80,000 of its $100,000 goal. Calling itself "Safe Embarcadero for All," the organizer is appealing to residents of South Beach, Rincon Hill, Bayside Village, East Cut and Mission Bay, saying the money will be directed to a legal fund to pay for efforts to fight the homeless shelter. San Francisco Mayor London Breed has sponsored legislation to fast-track the building of the Navigation Center, which would house 200 homeless people a stone's throw from Google's San Francisco offices and Gap's headquarters. At the same time, a rival crowdfunding effort is raising money to support the homeless shelter and had received more than $144,000 of its $175,000 goal as of Monday morning. Its organizers said their funds would be used to fight the residents who are trying to block the shelter's construction. Among the big names donating large sums -- $10,000 each -- to the crowdfunding campaign in support of the shelter are Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and GoFundMe itself, according to the Guardian. The rival crowdfunding efforts highlight the tensions impacting San Francisco and nearby Silicon Valley, which have seen a huge influx in wealth thanks to the growth of tech companies such as Google and Uber. The surge in personal incomes has pushed up housing prices, forcing some residents out of their homes and creating a homeless crisis. By one measure, there are about 7,500 homeless people in the city, with about 4,400 "unsheltered," or who sleep without a roof over their heads. A U.N. report issued last fall called the conditions suffered by homeless people in San Francisco and neighboring Oakland "cruel and inhuman" and cited it as a human rights violation. Earlier this month, residents of the wealthy neighborhoods near the site of the proposed homeless shelter turned out to protest the effort, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Some said they were sympathetic but worried about placing the shelter in an area frequented by tourists, as well as potential issues with crime and sanitation. The Navigation Center could draw "all the things normally associated with homelessness: criminal activity, drug usage and environmental pollution, both the visual kind and the physical kind," one resident said at the meeting, according to the report. The median price for a condos in Mission Bay and South Beach, two neighborhoods near the proposed shelter, is more than $1.2 million, according to Paragon Market Reports. Correction: The story was updated to reflect that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and GoFundMe donated to the campaign in support of the homeless shelter, not against it.<doc-sep>Photo : Justin Sullivan ( Getty ) There’s a fight unfolding in one of the richest neighborhoods in San Francisco, that northern-most outpost of Silicon Valley and the most expensive city in America. Advertisement The struggle is over a new homeless shelter being built near some luxury high-rises and touristy areas, a proposal that’s shocked some of the city’s wealthier inhabitants. Slightly over a week ago, a group of residents led by a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer launched a campaign to legally challenge the shelter’s construction. By Thursday, they had raised nearly $50,000 on GoFundMe from the group’s luxury high-rise headquarters. San Francisco is at the heart of a region with a widening wealth gap and acute homeless crisis. The campaign to quash the new homeless shelter soon garnered newspaper headlines and social media condemnation in the lead- up to what will be several April meetings where you can expect the kind of screaming matches and rants that only local politics can deliver. O n Thursday, GoFundMe itself joined in the fight. A new fundraiser was launched mid-day Thursday to pay for legal costs and coordinate a strategy to get the homeless shelter built. By end of business on that first day, the group raised over $16 ,000, including a $5,000 donation from the GoFundMe team . The money will go to benefit the Coalition on Homelessness, a group dedicated to protecting the human rights of San Francisco’s considerable homeless population. “GoFundMe employees choose to nominate worthy causes throughout the year and we believe this campaign to support the Coalition is an important effort,” GoFundMe spokesperson Bobby Whithorne told Gizmodo. Advertisement After seven hours, the pro-shelter project already has some 200 percent the number of donors that the anti-shelter fundraiser has garnered. But the anti-shelter fundraiser has some wealthy benefactors and is still nearly $30,000 in the lead, as of publication . In the end, however, the outcome of this situation is not decided by a horse race on two GoFundMe pages. Advertisement The construction of the new shelter — actually, a navigation center, a specially built facility specifically designed to maximize safety and cleanliness —near the wealthy South Beach neighborhood stems from San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s pledge to begin to address the city’s homeless crisis by opening 1,000 new beds for homeless people by 2020. San Francisco, like the rest of Silicon Valley, is at the center of a massive wealth gap, a housing crisis, and a homelessness crisis . All three were important issues during the city’s 2018 mayoral election when Breed was elected. Earlier this year, Breed passed two new laws expediting the building of navigation centers that historically had been hamstrung by lengthy permit and challenge processes that kept any potential solutions moving at a glacial pace. Advertisement “Homelessness is a crisis in our city and we need to act to get people off the streets and into housing,” Breed tweeted on Wednesday. “We’re happy to demonstrate how these Nav Centers work and the benefits they’ve brought to other neighborhoods, but we can’t afford unnecessary delays.” They say the coldest summer you’ll ever spend is in San Francisco. But no matter who raises the most in this absurd GoFundMe-based fundraising battle, it will never be Silicon Valley’s rich who have to endure it outside without shelter.<doc-sep>
As of 2017, there were roughly 7,000 people living without homes in San Francisco, a number that comprises minors — a lot of them. The San Francisco Unified School District estimates that as of 2017, roughly 2,100 of the children in the school system were homeless — a number that it said looked to be escalating, not shrinking. While parents may not hesitate to send their offspring to these same schools, some in the city’s northeast corner may be uncomfortable with the idea of homeless adults and families seeking shelter in close proximity. Such appears to be the point of a GoFundMe campaign that was launched late last week called “Safe Embarcadero for All.” Its objective: to raise $100,000 for legal counsel to push against the creation of a shelter along the city’s eastern waterfront region. The campaign is a reaction to an idea introduced earlier this month by San Francisco Mayor London Breed to turn a parking lot along Embarcadero that’s owned by the Port of San Francisco into a center that would provide health and housing services and round-the-clock stays for up to 200 of the city’s homeless residents. It isn’t just theoretical. If the Port Commission agrees to the plan, Breed estimated the center could be open by summer. Thus the GoFundMe campaign, which has now raised $71,250 as of this writing from 180 people, some of whom presumably live in the luxury high-rise apartments nearby and others who share the campaign organizers’ concerns that the shelter could introduce “public safety, drug use, and other problems.” It’s a frustrating state of affairs, though some are finding inspiration in a new, rival campaign that was created yesterday in support of the center and which is fast gaining financial support. Called a “SAFER Embarcadero for ALL,” it has already raised more than the earlier GoFundMe campaign, with more than 1,021 donors contributing more than $76,000 as of this writing. Two of its backers: Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has been a frequent and public supporter of Breed and a number of her initiatives. Lawson appears to have given $20,000; Benioff has given at least $10,000 to the campaign and is using Twitter as a platform to drum up more support. Join me in supporting @TheCoalitionSF and @fbach4 and @LondonBreed in building a new navigation center in San Francisco on the Embarcadero. Homelessness is our number crisis and it requires all of our attention and resources. https://t.co/hY6KxeT5D9 — Marc Benioff (@Benioff) March 29, 2019 Some are heralding their involvement as proof that tech CEOs do care about San Francisco’s homeless population, which they’re often accused of exacerbating by planting themselves in the city, paying their employees high wages, and driving up the cost of everything from rent to groceries in the process. Even GoFundMe itself has joined sides, donating $5,000 to the new campaign in support of the homeless center or, more specifically the Coalition on Homelessness, which has been promised the monies. “I don’t think the tech industry is doing enough about the homeless issue,” GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon told the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. “We wanted to do our small part, even though we’re not located in San Francisco.” No doubt critics will argue that because GoFundMe is 25 miles south of San Francisco, in Redwood City, the company has less at stake. Still, proponents of the center will take support wherever they can find it. As Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, told the Chronicle earlier today, the group is already planning to use the new funds to help with public education, to get input on the center, and to educate residents about what they may grossly misunderstand about the city’s homeless population.