OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) — San Francisco officials won the first round in court Thursday in a battle over how the city manages conditions in a neighborhood long known for issues with homeless residents and public drug use.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar said in court Thursday that he will tentatively dismiss claims that San Francisco leaders have mishandled issues in the Tenderloin, saying plaintiffs must adequately claim that the city took affirmative action that created a danger for them, rather than claiming its inaction led to the Tenderloin’s current condition.
The lawsuit comes from a group of residents and businesses, who sued on March 14 claiming that the city allowed the Tenderloin neighborhood to become a “containment zone for narcotic activities.”
“I’m not seeing anything timely that is actually an affirmative act on the part of San Francisco,” Tigar, an Obama appointee said. “I don’t know that I can say that the city did anything.”
The Tenderloin district in San Francisco is located within the city’s civic center, “bounded on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street, and on the west by Polk Street,” as the plaintiffs say in their suit.
Four unnamed residents of the neighborhood, as well as the Phoenix and Best Western Hotels, claim the city is violating residents’ rights to equal protection and disability laws by allowing tents and people to crowd the sidewalks, creating a public nuisance.
The residents, who are represented by the Walkup law office in San Francisco, claim large crowds of people gather outside their homes selling and using drugs and shilling stolen merchandise — at times forcing residents to walk in the street to get away from the crowds. The hotels claim the conditions in the neighborhood hurt their businesses by scaring away customers and making it difficult to staff the hotel, since employees are reluctant to work in the area.
The city, in its motion to dismiss filed in May, says that officials dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars each year to addressing homelessness, substance abuse and crime, including providing offers of shelter and other direct services to people experiencing homelessness.
Officials say the plaintiffs did not state a viable claim or properly describe the specific relief they want, and said their claims cannot withstand statutes of limitations and lack the standing to pursue federal and state constitutional claims.
Attorney for the city Thomas Lakritz told Tigar on Thursday that the plaintiffs’ claims rest primarily on the actions of third parties, such as programs operating in the neighborhood which support homeless people.
The plaintiffs claim that city officials are aware of different organizations’ behavior, but did not claim that officials help people carry out unlawful behavior.
“Many of the allegations are vague and conclusory,” Lakritz said. “We don’t know when they occurred, we don’t know exactly where they occurred, we don’t know who created the events that they talked about.”
The plaintiffs also challenge the city’s choices and how it deploys resources and services, which Lakritz said is beyond the court’s power to address.
The plaintiffs’ attorney Matthew Davis said that the claims cite the city’s behavior of allowing the operation of a services center in the Tenderloin linkage center which had a consumption site where people were allowed to use drugs, but has since closed.
Davis added that the problems presented in the Tenderloin also affect some clients’ ability to navigate the neighborhood, leading to claims for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well.
“We have clients who are disabled and cannot use the sidewalks,” Davis said.
Tigar said that both sides presented good arguments, and he will file an order soon.
San Francisco has been unable to sweep homeless encampments without first offering immediately available shelter to the residents since December 2022, due to a federal injunction that the Ninth Circuit upheld in January.
However, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson in June, the city can resume sweeping encampments following the Ninth Circuit vacating part of the injunction.