A Department of Public Works cleaning truck waits near a homeless encampment on Larch Street in San Francisco on Feb. 28, 2023. The city that has long been on the forefront of finding solutions to homelessness currently finds itself locked in a pending legal dispute over whether it can clear tent encampments in the name of public health and safety even if the displaced residents have nowhere else to go. (Joe Dworetzky/Bay City News Foundation)

On Dec. 23, 2022, San Francisco’s unsheltered population got a Christmas present of sorts: they were allowed to continue to sleep on the city’s sidewalks.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu forbade the city from enforcing, or threatening to enforce, a variety of laws and ordinances that would otherwise “prohibit involuntarily homeless individuals from sitting, lying, or sleeping on public property.” 

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Joe Dworetzky is a second career journalist. He practiced law in Philadelphia for more than 35 years, representing private and governmental clients in commercial litigation and insolvency proceedings. Joe served as City Solicitor for the City of Philadelphia under Mayor Ed Rendell and from 2009 to 2013 was one of five members of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission with responsibility for managing the city’s 250 public schools. He moved to San Francisco in 2011 and began writing fiction and pursuing a lifelong interest in editorial cartooning. Joe earned a Master’s in Journalism from Stanford University in 2020. He covers Legal Affairs and writes long form Investigative stories. His occasional cartooning can be seen in Bay Area Sketchbook. Joe encourages readers to email him story ideas and leads at joe.dworetzky@baycitynews.com.