United Nations report: SF homeless problem is 'violation of human rights'

Leilani Farha, the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, on tour of Oakland, Calif., in January 2017. Leilani Farha, the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, on tour of Oakland, Calif., in January 2017. Photo: Courtesy Leilani Farah Photo: Courtesy Leilani Farah Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close United Nations report: SF homeless problem is 'violation of human rights' 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

A United Nations expert on housing is calling the Bay Area's treatment of the homeless "cruel and inhuman" in a special report released in October.

Leilani Farha, 49, a special rapporteur on adequate housing for the intergovernmental organization, visited San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley in January 2017 as part of a world tour of encampments that included stops in Belgrade, Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lisbon, Mexico City, Mumbai and Santiago.

Now, Farha has summarized her findings in a report titled "On Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living," and it she includes one paragraph with an assessment of the informal tent encampments homeless people in the Bay Area are creating:

Attempting to discourage residents from remaining in informal settlements or encampments by denying access to water, sanitation, and health services and other basic necessities, as has been witnessed by the Special Rapporteur in San Francisco and Oakland constitutes cruel and inhuman treatment and is a violation of multiple human rights, including the rights to life, housing, health and water and sanitation.

[...] The right to a secure home is a universal right under international human rights law. Lack of security of tenure can never justify forced evictions of those residing in informal settlements.

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During her January visit, Farha told SFGATE she spoke with about 50 people living on the street and said she "can't help but be completely shocked"

"Every single person, whether it was in passing or in a long conversation, said they just want to be treated like a human being," said Farha, who is a lawyer by training and lives in Canada. "What does that say? That is bleak.

"If I could add, the other thing that just struck me ... but I'm sorry, California is a rich state, by any measures, the United States is a rich country, and to see these deplorable conditions that the government is allowing, by international human rights standards, it's unacceptable. I'm guided by human rights law."

In San Francisco, about 7,500 people are homeless according to the last count, but this number is elusive and some believe the number is between 10,000 and 12,000. San Francisco has doubled the money it spends annually on homelessness to more than $300 million. The city's first unified Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing was officially launched in August 2016 and has since opened four new Navigation Centers—one-stop counseling-intensive shelters aimed at moving people into permanent housing — bringing more than 1,500 highly vulnerable people off the streets.

MORE: We asked people living on SF's streets, 'What's the best thing that happened to you last week?'

Farha told SFGATE she was struck by the difference in the way governments view "informal settlements" in the United States versus countries like India global south.

"The struggle in the south is to legalize and regularize encampments," she said. "Here, the struggle is simply to be able to create an encampment. In the south, there's sort of a blind eye that has turned. Once an informal settlement is created, it's established. Whereas here, they can't create them."

In the Bay Area, Farha talked to many people who were temporarily living in an encampment before they were ordered to move by city officials during a "tent sweep."

"It's damaging because they always have to move," she says. "They're treated like nonentities. Sometimes they say (belongings are) put in storage, but more often they'll dump everyone's possessions into one Dumpster. It's horrible. It's not dignified. The people have nowhere to go. It's illogical. It's tragic."

Farha points out that one of the myths of homelessness is that drug users end up on the street, but she says in her experience people thrown into homelessness turn to drugs as a way to cope and assuage the pain.

"Most people on the streets are living with some sort of 'structural trauma,' meaning they have lost their job, can't afford housing, been evicted by a landlord," she said."The structural trauma causes deeply personal effects that can lead to living on the street that triggers drug use."

SFGATE reached out to San Francisco's Department of Public Works and they chose to not comment for this story. SFGATE also reached out to the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and didn't hear back.

(Note: This story was updated on Mon., Nov. 5.)