Last month, we received a report from a whistleblower who claimed that illegal aliens were staying in San Francisco’s homeless shelters. Following up on the tip, we visited numerous publicly funded shelters in San Francisco, and spoke to employees and residents about their policies, sometimes through a translator.
We discovered not only that the shelters were housing illegal immigrants but also that they were apparently housing a population of male-to-female “transgender” illegal aliens, who had hoped to obtain “gender-affirming care.” And, to our shock, state and local governments apparently are providing it.
St. Vincent De Paul’s MSC-South facility is San Francisco’s largest homeless shelter, and, in 2024, signed a $66 million service contract with the city. After we arrived at the front entrance, an employee wearing a do-rag and a light green polo shirt showed us around and confirmed that illegal aliens were living there.
“You got a few people here from El Salvador. . . . You got a few people here from Venezuela. You got a few people here from a little bit of everywhere,” he said.
As a rule, he suggested, management instructed employees to refuse cooperation with federal immigration authorities. “When the ICE thing was going around, we all had a meeting, and they told us, ‘We ain’t letting them in.’”
Among the shelter’s residents was a group of Hondurans who identified as transgender. During our visit to MSC-South, whose executive director did not respond to a request for comment, we spoke with two Honduran men, “Lyca” and “Alondra,” who identified as transgender women. Both indicated that the local government gave them shelter and food.
Lyca, who wore long hair and red lipstick, was candid about this arrangement. He confirmed that he was an illegal immigrant and that the shelter doesn’t ask questions about immigration status. “Tengo Medi-Cal,” he said, referring to the state health-care program, which, under Governor Gavin Newsom, began providing “full scope” coverage to illegal aliens, which includes transgender procedures, or “gender affirming care.” He said he was receiving cross-sex hormone therapy—and bore the physical signs of having done so.
Alondra, a muscular man in a camouflage shirt and dyed hair tied behind his head, said he had been in the United States after claiming asylum. According to the translator, the city government had offered to pay first and second month’s rent on private apartments for him and Lyca. But neither accepted the offer—in Lyca’s case, because he might not be able to pay for the apartment after the second month.
At the Embarcadero SAFE Navigation Center, a city-funded shelter on the eastern waterfront that did not respond to our comment request, we heard similar stories. “Jacqueline”—a self-identified “trans woman” from Mexico living at the shelter who claimed to be a lawful U.S. resident—indicated that there were illegal aliens living in the shelter.
Wearing rouge on his cheeks and a low-cut red shirt, Jacqueline flaunted his large chest. He said that he had gotten transgender hormone treatments, and confirmed that he had received breast implants from the state Medi-Cal program. Though Jacqueline claimed to be a legal resident, he suggested that the state also provides implants to illegal immigrants. “Even though you’re undocumented,” he said, “you can get them.”