There is political support for clearing homeless encampments, but some elected judge decided that they cannot force them off the street until there is shelter space.

At which point you reach the current impasse. How do you get enough shelter space? By building more.

San Francisco is faced with two options:

1. Allow open-air drug markets, mass homelessness, rampant and organized property theft, and mass defecation on the streets, OR

2. Building more housing

If you know anything about San Francisco, you know that they will NEVER allow more housing to be built, no matter how egregious the alternative is. Too many people have too much equity and rent income that depends upon their self-inflicted housing shortage. Even their so-called "socialist" members of the board of supervisors are multi-millionaire landlords.