Neighbors in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood have filed a legal complaint against the city, alleging a “hyper-concentration of poverty” in the area. The complaint, submitted by the SOMA West Neighborhood Association on Friday to the California Attorney General’s Office and to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, alleges that the concentration of homeless resources and affordable housing in the neighborhood violates state housing law and civil rights mandates.
A group of SOMA residents in support of this complaint spoke with NBC Bay Area on Saturday, describing a range of factors in the neighborhood that they believe are collectively taking a toll on the neighborhood — from the many shelters and supportive housing developments there to what they describe as relatively slower response times from first responders. The neighbors described recurring incidents such as property damage, break-ins, and open-air drug use.
Neighbor Fernando Senegal, who is a renter in SOMA, said those issues led him to get involved with the neighborhood association.
“I started off with the association just with a lot of frustrations most neighbors would have, just the cleanliness and how we operate as a neighborhood itself, as far as safety,” Senegal said.
Neighborhood association members said they decided to file the complaint after years of what they describe as inaction from the city.
“This complaint basically says ‘segregation is illegal, so you should– the state requires you to take affirmative steps to de-segregate, that’s all we seek,'” said Alex Ludlum, a SOMA resident who is on the board of the neighborhood association.
This complaint by the SOMA West neighbors is one of several recent efforts in the city to diversify where resources for the unhoused and those with substance use disorder are located. Many, including these SOMA West neighbors, feel that other neighborhoods in the city are not supporting their “fair share” of resources.
In January of 2026, a new city ordinance went into effect, limiting the city’s ability to place a new homeless shelter, transitional housing facility, or behavioral health facility in a neighborhood where “the neighborhood’s share of the City’s shelter and transitional housing beds exceeds the neighborhood’s share of the city’s unsheltered persons.”
“It seems like it hasn’t done anything to slow the pace down of concentrating everything into this neighborhood,” said SOMA resident Lara Hashimoto of the city’s new ordinance. Hashimoto, who supports the neighborhood association’s complaint, has lived in SOMA for 17 years.
“This isn’t a NIMBY [issue], it’s not a YIMBY issue, this is really about equity, and it’s about reducing the amount of hyper-concentration that’s occurring in this neighborhood, and for us to see fair distribution, really to benefit the whole city,” Hashimoto said.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said on Saturday in response to these concerns from the SOMA neighbors, “We have to do better in SOMA, we have to do better in the Tenderloin and in the Mission, and in communities across San Francisco.”
Lurie added that the city will be setting up a pilot project in the SOMA neighborhood in the form of a RESET center, a place where people who are publicly intoxicated can be temporarily held rather than going to jail or the hospital.
Shaun Aukland with the SOMA West Neighborhood Association told NBC Bay Area that SOMA already has a disproportionate number of shelters relative to the number of unhoused people living there, and that the city “is deepening this concentration by forcing RESET onto 6th Street.”
“Geographic equity is a state civil rights mandate, and SOMA cannot remain a permanent catch-all while the City shields wealthy, well-resourced neighborhoods from doing their fair share,” Aukland said.
Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness, said that her organization also opposes this RESET center because they believe that temporarily detaining these people will worsen their addiction disorder and won’t solve the root issues they’re facing.
Friedenbach does support adding more homeless resources to other areas around the city.
“But it shouldn’t be ‘We don’t want it in our neighborhood, we want it in other neighborhoods,’ we should all be coming together to fight for more resources for everyone,” she added.
Friedenbach noted, “SOMA does have a fairly large portion of people living in poverty and people who are struggling and living without housing who need resources that they’re currently not getting.”
But she also added that the neighborhood also has some resources for people experiencing homelessness that are “really helpful.”
A woman named Josephine Dreaney, who said she sleeps on the streets in SOMA, told NBC Bay Area on Sunday that there are many resources for people who are unhoused nearby.
Dreaney said she wants to see more people in the city, “just care for each other.”
“You know, if they see that I’m struggling, I think that’s the time they approach me,” she said.
NBC Bay Area reached out to San Francisco’s Planning Department as well as the California Attorney General’s Office, and the California Department of Housing and Community Development for comment. We are waiting to hear back.
