{"id":176826,"date":"2026-02-13T18:15:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/176826\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:15:12","slug":"once-a-last-stop-for-the-citys-homeless-sfo-ramps-up-outreach-and-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/176826\/","title":{"rendered":"Once a Last Stop for the City\u2019s Homeless, SFO Ramps Up Outreach and Support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paxton offers him a snack pack with fruit, a Danish and beef ravioli. The man takes it, along with a hygiene kit filled with products like soap, a toothbrush and an eye mask. But the unhoused man does not accept Paxton\u2019s offer of shelter.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a San Francisco native,\u201d Paxton says. \u201cHe said that he\u2019d like services in San Francisco. That\u2019s where he\u2019s from.\u201d<\/p>\n

But LifeMoves cannot offer shelter in San Francisco, because the organization operates in San Mateo County \u2014 where the airport is located \u2014 and connects folks with services there. And that\u2019s a problem: Unhoused people arrive at SFO from all over the region, just like travelers do \u2014 and 95% of the Bay Area\u2019s unhoused population lives outside of San Mateo County.<\/p>\n

While the local homeless community is fluid, the Bay Area\u2019s housing strategies are not. The region\u2019s homelessness efforts are largely siloed by county, and this fragmentation challenges the Bay Area\u2019s ability to provide services to unhoused folks where they need them, when they need them. So, when people experiencing homelessness at the airport want shelter, LifeMoves cannot house most of them in the county where they need it.<\/p>\n

The SFPD says none of the unhoused folks officers encountered in December received \u201cadmonishments\u201d or \u201ccitations\u201d; none were arrested.<\/p>\n

At the SamTrans stop, SFPD Officer Erik Whitney also spots the unhoused man.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can get on the bus,\u201d Officer Whitney tells the man. \u201cOut there. Not here. It\u2019s trespassing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SFPD and LifeMoves share a goal: They both want people experiencing homelessness at the airport to leave. But there\u2019s a key difference. Paxton and his team attempt to get them shelter beds in San Mateo County before they go, while the police usually just give unhoused folks a bus ticket to go somewhere else.<\/p>\n

And at certain hours, it seems that the police make sure unhoused folks don\u2019t get into the airport in the first place.<\/p>\n

V. MARTIN, SFO BART STATION, 1:15 a.m.<\/p>\n

When the last train of the night pulls up to the SFO BART station at 1:15 a.m., about a dozen police officers on segues greet it. But no unhoused folks come off the train, and the cops whiz back into the airport on their two-wheelers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re here to make sure anybody [that] gets off the last train is flying,\u201d BART station agent Martin Croskery says. As he locks up, he says that SFPD officers are there every night. \u201cCause there used to be a problem with a lot of homeless coming off the last train and then staying in the airport overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Sylvia Bambra (left) and Ivan Marquez, case managers with the LifeMoves Homeless Outreach Team, speak with an unhoused person during an outreach visit at San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 9, 2026. (Beth LaBerge\/KQED)<\/p>\n

According to public records, the SFPD made contact with nearly 100 unhoused people coming off of the last two BART trains of the night during the first week of December. But Croskery says he hardly sees people experiencing homelessness get off the last train these days, in part because the line no longer ends at SFO. In 2021, BART changed the train route to end in Millbrae, further south in San Mateo County.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillbrae now has issues, but the last train has to go somewhere,\u201d Croskrey says. \u201cThe problem has shifted from \u2014 it\u2019s gone back and forward for years. It used to be the airport, then it was Millbrae, then back [to] the airport. And the airport says, \u2018We can\u2019t have this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

VI. JAMES, MILLBRAE BART STATION, 8:30 a.m.<\/p>\n

At the end of Paxton\u2019s monthly homeless outreach shift at SFO, he heads out to find more unhoused people right where Croskery says they\u2019d be: at the Millbrae BART station. There, Paxton easily finds two people who want services in San Mateo County. They fill out LifeMoves intake forms and begin the process of getting shelter.<\/p>\n

And with that, Paxton\u2019s four hours of monthly outreach come to a close. But soon, the LifeMoves team may be working longer hours.<\/p>\n

In June, the SFO Airport Commission approved a contract to staff a homeless outreach team at the airport 40 hours a week. The SFO contract is still being amended, but is expected to take effect in the spring.<\/p>\n

Still, Paxton knows that solving the Bay Area\u2019s homelessness crisis is beyond LifeMoves\u2019 capacity. The region needs more housing to ensure that people like Snodgrass have permanent places to live after their time at shelters runs out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need more housing, I believe, in order to help this problem,\u201d Paxton says. \u201cThat seems like that would be the best answer to help. But [we\u2019re] just going to have to wait on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erin Bump is a radio reporter and podcast producer who lives in San Francisco. Find more of her work at kalw.org<\/a> or in the Century Lives podcast feed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paxton offers him a snack pack with fruit, a Danish and beef ravioli. The man takes it, along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-176826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}