Appeals court overturns injunction against San Francisco's homeless encampment sweeps

San Francisco will be able to sweep encampments of "involuntarily homeless" people, as long as it allows residents to recover their personal property, according to a federal appeals court ruling handed down Monday.

Why it matters: The ruling, as the court notes , is a direct response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in June effectively giving cities the power to enact restrictive laws targeting long-term encampments.

Driving the news: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the injunction that has prevented San Francisco since December 2022 from conducting certain encampment sweeps of people experiencing homelessness.

• The court, however, kept intact the portion of the order that requires the city to adhere to its bag-and-tag policy of collecting, labeling and storing unhoused peoples' property.

What they're saying: " This will give our city more flexibility to provide services to unhoused people while keeping our streets healthy and safe. It will help us address our most challenging encampments, where services are often refused and re-encampment is common," City Attorney David Chiu said in a written statement."

The other side: " Criminalization of homelessness is a failed policy, and punishing people for being too poor to afford rent will only make homelessness in San Francisco worse," Nisha Kashyap, an attorney with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), said in a statement to Axios.

• "The city must commit to increasing affordable housing and temporary shelter," she added. "We cannot arrest our way out of the homelessness crisis."

State of play: The ruling is part of an ongoing lawsuit brought forth by the Coalition on Homelessness, represented by LCCRSF, against San Francisco in September 2022.

• That lawsuit accused the city of violating unhoused people's rights , destroying their belongings and unlawfully endangering their lives with its methods for clearing encampments.
• A lower court decision ruling against Grants Pass, Oregon, served as the basis for the December emergency order barring San Francisco from clearing encampments .

What's next: The Ninth Circuit Court is expected to issue its mandate and return the case to the District Court in the next several weeks, according to the city attorney's office.

• At that point, the portion of the preliminary injunction regarding sweeps will no longer be in effect.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include comments from the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.