Committee OKs amended ordinance to limit shelter concentration; exemptions, reporting and confidentiality clarified

An ordinance that would restrict where San Francisco may site certain city‑funded homeless shelters and low‑barrier behavioral health treatment facilities cleared the Budget and Finance Committee on July 23 after the author and colleagues accepted a set of clarifying amendments.

The committee voted 3‑0 to accept the amendments and forward the ordinance to the full Board of Supervisors. The ordinance would prohibit siting a new city‑funded homeless shelter, transitional housing facility, or specified low‑barrier behavioral health residential care and treatment facilities in neighborhoods where the neighborhood’s share of the city’s shelter and transitional housing beds exceeds that neighborhood’s share of the city’s unsheltered population. It also prohibits siting a new city‑funded homeless shelter within 300 feet of an existing shelter, subject to a Board waiver finding that a placement is in the public interest; the ordinance would sunset on Dec. 31, 2031.

The ordinance’s author, Supervisor Ahsha Mahmoud, told the committee he was introducing “a set of non substantive clarifying amendments” and emphasized they do not change the bill’s “intent or core mechanics.” Mahmoud…