Since 2021, Humboldt County has sent 309 homeless people elsewhere, with four in the past year headed to San Francisco. Humboldt County is currently drafting a letter to San Francisco Mayor London Breed expressing concern over the homeless people the city sends to Humboldt County.

San Francisco’s Journey Home Program and Humboldt County’s Transportation Assistant Program are highly similar. Both pay for bus tickets or arrange transportation elsewhere to homeless people if they have a connection to another area. In the past year, San Francisco sent five homeless people to Humboldt County, according to a San Francisco Standard article, which accessed San Francisco DHHS data showing Humboldt County sent four homeless people to the city within the same time frame.

“We understand the urgency with which San Francisco intends to act to alleviate homelessness,” writes First District Supervisor Rex Bohn in the letter. “We are concerned that providing bus tickets to other jurisdictions without verifying access to housing, family support or employment does not alleviate homelessness; it simply shifts the person to another county.”

The situation is not the first of its kind, with similar events unfolding in 2006 when 13 homeless people were bussed from San Francisco to Humboldt County through the Homeward Bound program.

“As a small, rural county, we struggle with available housing, and our Humboldt Housing & Homelessness Coalition member agencies are already seeing our resources stretched thin to take care of the people living here,” Humboldt County DHHS Spokesperson Christine Messinger said. “An influx of new people could be determinantal to those efforts.”

Bohn also stated in the meeting that individuals are offered the opportunity to participate in the Journey Home program, with the other option being jail.

“Our TAP program works real well,” Bohn said in the meeting. “Hopefully San Francisco can go back to more, not just dumping, but actually assisting and helping people get help.”

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson and 4th District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo voiced hesitations about sending a letter, asking if the situation required anything more than a “staff-to-staff” conversation about the change in policy and trying to create more dialogue between counties busing out individuals and the counties receiving them.

“My strong preference, in line with Supervisor Wilson, that we connect agency-to-agency, or make that attempt first,” Arroyo said of the letter. “I get that we’re making a statement here but I think from one county to another, that would be a good start.”

Supervisor Bohn put it bluntly that his concerns for Humboldt County outweigh any worries about a potential reaction from San Francisco’s mayor to the letter.

“I don’t want to hurt San Francisco’s feelings,” Bohn said. “But on the other hand, I don’t care.”

The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors ultimately voted at last Tuesday’s meeting to send the letter, but re-work it to be less of a California Public Records Act Request. The supervisors were convening at their regular meeting by the Times-Standard’s print deadline and could not be reached for comment.