PAUL MONGE, HILLARY RONEN'S FORMER ASSISTANT, PROMISED THIS NEIGHBORHOOD TENTS WILL BE IN THE SAFE SLEEPING AREA, NOT ON SIDEWALKS. Well, Ronen and her assistant, Monge lied to us. Today, and through the whole pandemic, huge encampments persist around the 1515 South Van Ness Property and our neighborhood at large!
LETTER WRITTEN IN DECEMBER 2020:
Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 11:38 AM
to info@rmcsf.com, Cityattorney, Mayor, Norman, Davin, Hillary, DHSH, Mission, julian.mark@missionlocal.com, metrodesk@sfchronicle.com, Paul, tthadani@sfchronicle.com, Jeff, MandelmanStaff@sfgov.org, Sandra.Fewer@sfgov.org, Aron, Catherine.Stefani@sfgov.org, marstaff@sfgov.org, prestonstaff@sfgov.org, Haneystaff, waltonstaff@sfgov.org, Ahsha.Safai@sfgov.org
Dear Supervisor Hillary Ronen, et al.,
In June of this year, many tents and campers started to proliferate around the 1515 South Van Ness property on Shotwell at 26th Street. I had asked Paul Monge to have them moved since I didn't want a repeat of what happened in 2016 when a huge tent encampment surrounded this property. Paul Monge wrote to me on July 1 that "the Emergency Operations Center is currently looking at city owned properties that could be temporarily activated to help relocate individuals whose tents are set up on public walkways and in front of other resident's homes. One thought that was proposed was opening up the outdoor parking space at 1515 South Van Ness to move the tents around the property and within the immediate vicinity within the bounds of the property (similar to what was done in 2016 but at a much smaller scale)."
Mr. Monge, your assistant, PROMISED our community that the encampments will be in the parking lot area, not outside of it, but this is not the case. We now have a particularly huge vehicle encampment taking over the whole sidewalk on 26th Street between Virgil Alley and South Van Ness Avenue. San Francisco pandemic parking rules state that "Parking enforcement [be] suspended for the following: 72-hour overtime parking limit and towing, except for towing in Temporary Emergency Transit Lanes." This exemption does not say that people in cars parked permanently during this time can also take over huge swaths of public sidewalks. There are now two vehicles camping across from the Safe Sleeping site on 26th Street. Included in that encampment are a lot of bicycles and bicycle parts, large storage sheds, a cooking grill, and a lot of tarps and boxes among all manner of stuff scattered around the sidewalk. They are receiving electricity (a possible fire hazard) from an apartment porch through an extension cord running across the sidewalk that the public uses. People from this encampment/van now sleep in the doorways of the residential property on that block. This site has also become a place where people congregate and party, play loud music, drink, and other behavior that can clearly be characterized as being a public nuisance and, furthermore, is a likely source of further Covid spread in our community.
The Inner Mission Neighborhood Association has been complaining about this vehicle encampment now for months but Supervisor Ronen, in typical form, has ignored us. The result is that the situation is now becoming a threat to the safety of people in the vans, the building adjacent to them, and the community at large. Supervisor Ronen and the City of San Francisco have actively implemented policy that has exponentially made worse the lives of people in our neighborhood. Our community has invested their lives in making San Francisco a better place. We have contributed much to the city through our hard work, our innovation, and our creativity. Supervisor Hillary Ronen, not only ignores us, but is hostile to us in her neglect. Her dismissal of our concerns has now permitted and, in fact, encouraged the enormous encampment directly across the street from the Safe Sleeping area. This is, clearly, a dereliction of duty to her constituents. It also demonstrates that she lies when necessary at the expense of her constituents. This is just not acceptable and we demand a resolution.
Sincerely
Francesca Pastine
AROUND SAFE SLEEPING AREA, NAVIGATION CENTER: JUNE 2017 THRU JANUARY 2021
DECEMBER 2020
JUNE 2017
JUNE 2017
2021
2020
MAY 2018
MAY 2018
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