SAN FRANCISCO—A federal judge has temporarily banned San Francisco from clearing homeless encampments, saying the city violated its own policies by failing to offer other shelter.
Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu in U.S. District Court in Oakland granted an emergency order Friday night that bars the city from taking away tents and confiscating the belongings of encampment dwellers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The move came in a lawsuit filed on behalf of homeless plaintiffs that sought to stop San Francisco from dismantling homeless encampments until it has thousands of additional shelter beds.
Ryu cited evidence presented by the plaintiffs that the city regularly and illegally failed to offer shelter to inhabitants before clearing the encampments and improperly seized or threw out their belongings, including cellphones, medication, identification, and even prosthetic limbs….