Right on the waterfront in the most expensive urban center in America , a grouping of wealthy resident have quickly raised closely $ 50,000 and rising to oppose San Francisco Mayor London Breed ’s plan to use some of the city ’s budget surplus to turn what is now a parking lot into a 225 - layer homeless person tax shelter in their rather ritzy vicinity .
The opposition chemical group is led by Neel Lilani , a attorney with a lengthy resume in Silicon Valley ’s tech and speculation upper-case letter industries . Lilani has worked at some of the biggest and richest law house on earth , including DLA Piper , and confer around Silicon Valley . He lives in a downtown luxuriousness high - rise about a baseball ’s throw away from the Giant ’s arena . Devastatingly , the building would be about the same distance from the novel shelter .
Wow , that sounds outstanding Neel , you ’ve done really well for yourself . Now lease the homeless people have a roof over their header , please .
“ Homelessness is a crisis in our city and we demand to act to get citizenry off the streets and into housing , ” Breed tweeted on Wednesday when the fundraiser had pass on $ 35,000 . “ We ’re glad to demonstrate how these Nav Centers turn and the benefits they ’ve brought to other region , but we ca n’t give unnecessary postponement . ”
Downtown San Francisco ’s homelessness crisis , a microcosm of the bigger widening riches gap and caparison crisis that chevy the totality of Silicon Valley and Northern California , was a cardinal payoff during the city ’s 2018 mayoral election . There are 1000 of homeless people in San Francisco , most of them tightly pack in or around downtown . In January , Breedsaidshe would afford 1,000 young beds for homeless people by 2020 . Now that the shovels are near the soil , the pushback is growing , according to areportin the San Francisco Chronicle .
“ Everyone in SF desire to pay back homelessness , ” San Francisco resident and New York Times newsperson Mike Isaactweeted . “ Unless it ’s near their star sign . ”
Breed ’s programme for the Embarcadero is to make a newnavigation centerat Seawall Lot 330 across from piers 30 to 32 on the water , buildings design to help the homeless leave outside encampments and connect with lasting housing and aesculapian care . Differing in key mode from traditional homeless shelters , navigation gist are 24/7 buildings that emphasize cleanliness and safety . More than that , they give homeless people a spot to sleep and a hazard to get care .
The fundraiser ’s money will go to retain Andrew Zacks , a lawyer from the firmZacks , Freedman & Patterson , who is reportedly craft a legal scheme to fight to stop the piloting center from being build . It was raised through a booming GoFundMe Thomas Nelson Page calledSafe Embarcadero For All . expect , do they really mean “ all ” ?
The group did not respond to a request for input .
The fundraiser aims to raise $ 100,000 . In seven days , they ’re almost half way to their end . Many of the donations have been anonymous , include one $ 10,000 donation made on Wednesday . But the fight has already start as Zacks latterly filed a public records request relating to the shelter .
The anti - homeless shelter group has awebsitewhere they call the pilotage center a “ # megashelter , ” a dystopian hashtag that translates to “ pitiless warfare on helpless denizen of sumptuosity high-pitched - rises . ”
Breed just pushed throughnew lawsexpediting the construction of navigation centers so that process would , in theory , take a few calendar month from begin to end . The new laws make it so the city does not have to go through a lengthy edifice and permit outgrowth and rather has to get a sign off from a smattering of metropolis departments authorizing mental synthesis and review .
The impending sound challenge looks like it will be this strategy ’s first major test .
“ I do n’t blame mass for having opinions about their locality . I do find fault a bad system that allows people to delay or kill projection that assist homeless off the streets , ” Scott Weiner , the California commonwealth senator representing San Francisco , tweeted on Thursday . “ The same arrangement that‘s given us a lodging crisis . Let ’s fix this infract system . ”
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