Mayor London Breed of San Francisco made waves recently with a major policy shift.

Before providing a shelter bed or any other services, city workers must first offer every homeless person they encounter a bus or train ticket to somewhere else.

Those who decline any help may be at risk of being arrested for illegally camping in a public place.

Niki Jones, Executive Director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, says, ''In general, the ability to travel back to a place where you have a home is really important and can be a life-saving service, in fact, and can help to reunite families."

However, some activists worry they can be used coercively to move unhoused people out of sight to a new destination where they might then remain homeless.

Since July 2022, San Francisco has relocated a total of 1,070 unhoused clients via Journey Home and other programs, according to city data.

While San Francisco has gotten an outsized amount of attention for putting its busing program at the forefront of its homelessness strategy, other California cities and nonprofits continue to quietly send small numbers of unhoused people all over the country.

The City of Los Angeles doesn't run a busing program, but multiple nonprofits within the city offer similar services.

PATH helped 313 clients reunite with family in the last fiscal year and a little more than half of those clients left LA County.

A Safe Place for Youth also helps young people reunite with friends and family outside LA.

These programs are garnering attention at a time when city leaders are facing pressure from all sides, including from Governor Gavin Newsom, to get rid of homeless encampments but lack the resources to give everyone a home or shelter bed.

With CalMatters, I'm Marisa Kendall.