Why Bay Area homeless sweeps no longer hinge on big events like the Super Bowl

San Francisco swept homeless camps downtown when the Bay Area last hosted the Super Bowl in 2016. Before last year’s big game in New Orleans, authorities relocated homeless people away from the Superdome to a warehouse miles away, citing “safety and security.”

This time, Bay Area leaders say they won’t do anything different at all.

As Super Bowl LX brings a national spotlight and a surge of fans and celebrities to the region this weekend, officials in San Jose, San Francisco and Santa Clara say they have no plans to alter their approach to homeless encampments.

The reason is simple: In many Bay Area cities, sweeps have already become standard policy — not a temporary response to a marquee event.

As far back as 2022, when San Jose voters elected Mayor Matt Mahan, Bay Area residents ha backed candidates who ran campaigns almost focused heavily on clearing homeless encampments, including San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. Both defeated better-funded, better-known opponents in cities where homelessness had become increasingly visible, signaling political support for aggressive enforcement.

With encampment clearings already underway year-round and an emphasis on temporary shelter, leaders in both cities say they will not step up efforts for the Super Bowl — even as sweeps continue at a scale that has reduced large camps and pushed more people into vehicles and scattered sites.

“These efforts are part of San Jose’s ongoing, year-round strategy to reduce homelessness with compassion, dignity and long-term solutions — not a one-time response tied to a single event,” Mahan’s spokesperson, Tasha Dean, said in a statement.

That business-as-usual posture runs counter to how cities have traditionally prepared for major sporting events, when homeless people are often moved out of sight in a hurry.

Cities do that, advocates say, because officials fear encampments will be perceived as an eyesore for visitors.

Louisiana’s decision to warehouse homeless people for the 2024 Super Bowl in New Orleans was a “particular disaster,” said Eric Tars, senior policy director at the Washington, D.C.-based National Homelessness Law Center. Media reports found the warehouse lacked basic services, and some advocates compared it to a prison.

Similar concerns are already surfacing in Los Angeles, which will host the 2028 Summer Olympics. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that Mayor Karen Bass plans to clean more streets and homeless camps ahead of the games, offering a preview of the pressures cities face when hosting global events.

In San Jose, Mahan, who took office in 2023, has made encampment clearings a centerpiece of his administration. The city has broken up clusters of RVs and directed residents into short-term shelters, including tiny homes and hotels. In 2024, the city intensified its crackdown on camps and last year added more than 1,000 temporary shelter beds.

Between February 2025 and last week, San Jose conducted more than 2,000 encampment clearings citywide, according to Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services spokesperson Amanda Rodriguez. From July 2024 through February 2025 alone, the city reported clearing 530 encampments.

“With more visitors expected in San Jose this weekend, we want the city to look its best,” Rodriguez said. “But this work isn’t being done in response to a single event.”

Small encampments remain scattered across the city, but only one large camp is left, said Housing Director Erik Soliván. Under Mahan, San Jose has diverted millions of dollars from permanent housing projects to rapidly expand its network of temporary shelters — a shift that has drawn criticism from housing advocates.

Mahan declined a request for an interview on the subject last week.

The Super Bowl will be played Sunday at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, where city officials say they also do not plan to conduct sweeps tied to the event.

Santa Clara has “no plans to do a sweep regarding unhoused people,” spokesperson Janine De la Vega said.

In San Francisco, which has hosted most of the NFL-sponsored Super Bowl events this week, Lurie told reporters last week that the city would not change its approach to homelessness. That marks a contrast with 2023, when the city relocated homeless people away from security zones during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Like Mahan, Lurie has prioritized clearing encampments while offering shelter beds and behavioral health treatment, using a mix of outreach workers, street “ambassadors” and police.

“We are going to do that during Super Bowl week,” Lurie said. “And we’re going to do it the week after the Super Bowl.”

Under Lurie, San Francisco has expanded shelter and treatment capacity and increased outreach to encampments. Tent camps are declining citywide, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, but more people are living in RVs, and residents in neighborhoods such as the Tenderloin and Mission say enforcement has pushed problems into their communities.

Shelters in the Mission District were preparing this week to receive more people from downtown, according to the San Francisco Standard, though Lurie’s office denied that a broader crackdown was imminent.

Advocates in the South Bay say the timing of ongoing sweeps raises red flags — regardless of official assurances that the Super Bowl is not a factor.

Silicon Valley De-Bug and other advocacy groups published an open letter last week criticizing Mahan and San Jose police over a Jan. 15 sweep 2 miles south of downtown, far from hotels and tourist corridors. Nearly a dozen people were arrested during the operation on outstanding warrants or drug charges.

“This is all particularly appalling, and we believe intentionally timed, given the backdrop of the Super Bowl coming to the South Bay,” the groups wrote.

The debate is unlikely to fade once the game ends. Mahan’s approach to homelessness is expected to feature prominently in his newly launched campaign for governor, and the region is preparing to host additional major events this year, including March Madness basketball games and World Cup soccer matches — each bringing renewed scrutiny to how Bay Area cities balance visibility, enforcement and long-term solutions.