Agreement gives the City maximum flexibility in how it addresses homelessness, protects public safety, and cleans its streets
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 19, 2025) — Mayor Daniel Lurie signed a settlement agreement today in the Coalition on Homelessness v. San Francisco lawsuit, officially putting an end to three years of litigation over homeless encampments in San Francisco. The settlement agreement, negotiated by the City Attorney’s Office and passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, preserves the City’s options in how it addresses encampments and cleans City streets, ensuring recent progress on reducing the number of encampments can continue.
Mayor Lurie has integrated the city’s street outreach teams under a neighborhood-based model and stood up more recovery and treatment beds, with San Francisco’s encampment numbers reaching their lowest levels on record, down by a quarter since March 2025.
“All residents deserve clean and safe streets, and my office will do what it takes in the courts to make that a reality,” said City Attorney David Chiu. “We are happy to put this matter behind us and pleased this agreement allows the City to use all the tools in our toolbox to alleviate homelessness. I have said many times that lawsuits of this kind do not make conditions on our streets better. Courts are generally not equipped to step into the shoes of voters and elected policymakers and craft broad policies that address homelessness. In the future, I hope we can all work together to get those suffering on our streets into housing.”
“San Franciscans in every neighborhood deserve safe and clean streets. Our administration is tackling the homelessness and behavioral health crisis head-on, standing up the right type of beds, and connecting people who are struggling to stable housing and treatment,” said Mayor Lurie. “With this litigation behind us, we can continue to drive forward our work to solve this crisis by adding more shelter and treatment beds, cleaning our streets, and continuing to drive down the number of encampments in our city.”
“Public Works is ready to move forward within the framework of this settlement agreement to continue our daily on-the-ground work with our partner City departments to keep San Francisco clean and safe,” said San Francisco Public Works Director Carla Short.
“San Francisco Police officers will continue to protect and serve everyone in our city, including individuals who are experiencing homelessness. Thank you to all of our city partners who have been committed to the ongoing effort to keep our streets clean and safe for everyone,” said Interim Police Chief Paul Yep. “With this settlement, we can continue to focus on getting services to individuals who need them and make our city safer.”
The settlement agreement with the Coalition on Homelessness and other Plaintiffs will last five years and does the following:
- Releases the City from all claims of liability brought in the lawsuit.
- Allows the City to continue utilizing its existing Bag and Tag Policy, which regulates how property found on City streets is stored or discarded.
- Sets minimum notification standards should the City choose to change the Bag and Tag Policy.
- Creates a detailed dispute resolution process to resolve issues over Bag and Tag compliance while ensuring parties do not waste court resources over every minor disagreement.
- Requires the Department of Public Works to take additional photos when responding to encampments.
Under this agreement, the City will pay $2,828,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs to Plaintiffs as well as $11,000 each to two formerly homeless individual Plaintiffs.
Background
Despite billions of dollars spent on a services-first approach to addressing homelessness, the Coalition on Homelessness filed a lawsuit in 2022 challenging San Francisco’s practices related to homeless encampments. Specifically, the organization brought claims under the Eighth Amendment related to enforcement of anti-camping laws and under the Fourth Amendment related to the storage of unhoused people’s property.
From the beginning of the lawsuit, Plaintiffs sought policy changes that were ill-suited for litigation. This includes forcing the city to shift resources away from temporary shelter to permanent supportive housing, preventing law enforcement from attending encampment resolutions, and changing the City’s Bag and Tag Policy to require so much advance notice before cleaning that it would be logistically impossible to clean up unattended property and trash.
Instead, Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu issued a sweeping preliminary injunction order in December 2022 that prohibited San Francisco from enforcing or threatening to enforce certain laws prohibiting sitting, lying, sleeping, and lodging on public property. The order also required the City to comply with its Bag and Tag Policy. The injunction presented enormous operational challenges for San Francisco, and hampered the City’s ability to address homeless encampments and clean the streets.
The preliminary injunction relied heavily on precedent set by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Johnson v. Grants Pass and its predecessor case Martin v. Boise. In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Ninth’s Circuit’s decision in Grants Pass, and found that enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” barred by the Eighth Amendment. San Francisco submitted an amicus brief in that case, urging the Supreme Court to allow cities to enforce anti-camping laws.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, lower courts brought the Coalition on Homelessness litigation in line with the Supreme Court’s decision and removed portions of the case related to the Eighth Amendment and enforcing anti-camping laws. The portion of the lawsuit and preliminary injunction order related to the Fourth Amendment and the City’s Bag and Tag policy remained intact. In late 2024, additional claims were dismissed from the lawsuit because Plaintiffs lacked standing to bring certain claims.
The parties were set to go to trial in July 2025 on the remaining claims related to compliance with the Bag and Tag Policy, but reached a settlement agreement shortly before trial. The settlement finalized today resolves all claims against the City.
Dozens of City Attorney’s Office employees worked on this litigation to keep San Francisco’s streets clean and safe, including Rhonda Andrew, Frances Arnold, Shannon Burns, Pamela Cheeseborough, George Cothran, Angela Davis, Winnie Fong, Sophia Garcia, John George, Miguel Gradilla, Zuzana Ikels, Richard Kung, Chris Manitsoudis, Yvonne Meré, Steven Mills, Melissa Millsaps, Kaitlyn Murphy, Brendan Patrick, Claire Skogsberg, Carol Stuart, Chris Tom, Ed Wang, and Tara Steeley.
The case is Coalition on Homelessness, et al. v. City and County of San Francisco, et al., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 4:22-cv-05502. The settlement ordinance and agreement can be found here.
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