San Francisco supervisors push for homeless shelter equity

Two San Francisco supervisors have proposed a controversial change in the ongoing effort to help unhoused people get off the streets.

Arguing there needs to be more equity in where services for those in need are located, supervisors Bilal Mahmood and Shamann Walton want to require at least one new emergency shelter or behavioral health clinic in each of the city's districts.

"For too long certain neighborhoods from Tenderloin, SOMA, Mission to the Bayview have borne the brunt of the responsibility," Mahmood said. "These are communities of color, immigrants, refugees on homeless shelters, behavioral health centers. What we’re basically saying is that every district by next year has to have built or approved one shelter or behavioral health center, including my district, by next year."

Mahmood said everyone has to do their fair share.

"We’re also saying that no two shelter sites can be within 1,000 feet of one another because certain neighborhoods and corridors have borne that responsibility and we don’t want to replicate what has happened with oversaturation in certain neighborhoods on the east side to be replicated on the west," he said.

NBC Bay Area's Christie Smith has more in the video report above.