Moderate San Franciscans give thumbs-up to SJ’s shift away from Permanent Supportive Housing

Giving a drug addict or alcoholic a tiny home does not solved the root problem.  It may make some feel good, but it is actually harming those in need of recovery or therapy for mental illness.

“The ravaging impact of homelessness on our fellow human beings underscores our moral obligation to find real solutions to the crisis. Drug overdoses, traffic accidents, and untreated conditions like diabetes and heart disease contribute to early death among the homeless. Being unhoused reduces a person’s lifespan by approximately 25%. The lethality of homelessness has only increased in recent years; one analysis showed that deaths among the unhoused surged by 77% between 2016 and 2020. The homeless are also far more likely to be victims of crime. In San Diego, for example, homeless people are 27 times more likely than the non-homeless to be the victims of attempted murder, 12 times more likely to be assaulted, and nine times more likely to be sexually assaulted.”

Build as many tin homes as you want.  Destroy communities and neighborhoods.  In the end the homeless will stay homeless, ill and unwilling to receive help.

Moderate San Franciscans give thumbs-up to SJ’s shift away from Permanent Supportive Housing

Opportunity Now,  5/20/25  https://www.opportunitynowsv.org/blog/moderate-san-franciscans-give-thumbs-up-to-sjs-shift-away-from-permanent-supportive-housing

Centrist coalition SF Briones Society affirms SJ’s focus on interim shelters, reminding that homelessness is also deeply intertwined with issues of substance abuse, drug trafficking, and property/violent crime.

Homelessness in San Francisco is a human and civic catastrophe. According to recent estimates, at least 7,754 people are unhoused in our city out of a total population of 815 thousand, and the majority of those unhoused are also living on the street, unsheltered. The greatest burden of this crisis is borne by the unhoused themselves, who suffer physically and psychologically from lack of access to shelter; but housed people are also affected, as homelessness impedes their access to open and safe spaces that everyone should be able to enjoy.

The ravaging impact of homelessness on our fellow human beings underscores our moral obligation to find real solutions to the crisis. Drug overdoses, traffic accidents, and untreated conditions like diabetes and heart disease contribute to early death among the homeless. Being unhoused reduces a person’s lifespan by approximately 25%. The lethality of homelessness has only increased in recent years; one analysis showed that deaths among the unhoused surged by 77% between 2016 and 2020. The homeless are also far more likely to be victims of crime. In San Diego, for example, homeless people are 27 times more likely than the non-homeless to be the victims of attempted murder, 12 times more likely to be assaulted, and nine times more likely to be sexually assaulted.

Homelessness is also destructive to housed neighbors. Encampments attract drug trafficking and use, both of which increase the likelihood of property and violent crimes. The buildup of tents, makeshift structures, garbage, human waste, and other detritus creates conditions that are debilitating for local businesses and inhospitable for residents. San Francisco’s public resources – our police and fire departments, public works, emergency response teams, and hospitals – are increasingly consumed with addressing problems stemming from unsheltered homelessness. Unhoused individuals represent less than one percent of San Francisco’s population but consume a disproportionate amount of public resources.

For the sake of all of us – unhoused and housed – we should refuse to accept homelessness as a permanent feature of our city. Instead, we should address it by dramatically increasing our supply of interim shelter beds and pursuing a legal strategy for defending our public spaces.

Scaling up shelter

Despite billions of dollars spent addressing homelessness in recent decades, San Francisco remains at least 4,400 beds short of being able to shelter all its unhoused residents. … That is because our leaders have been almost exclusively focused on a permanent supportive housing strategy that has left interim and emergency shelters dangerously underfunded. According to a Bay Area Council report on homelessness, “most of the Bay Area has been defunding emergency shelters to increase permanent housing production” while remaining “unable to scale permanent housing faster than the rate at which residents are becoming homeless.”

Temporary shelters can be built for a fraction of the cost of permanent housing. While not ideal, such shelters can address the acute needs of the unhoused, offering them protection from the elements, access to services, and the dignity of being able to shower and launder their clothing. In Los Angeles, Union Rescue Mission built a Sprung Structure (a high-grade membrane tent) for more than 100 people at the cost of $10,000 per bed – which may seem like a high price, but the tent is heated and air-conditioned, and the price includes six months of 24/7 case management. Seattle is building tiny homes that cost between $6,000 and $10,000 per unit.

If we had the political will and courage, San Francisco could lease the 62-acre Cow Palace, which is owned by the state and currently underutilized, and contract with Connect Shelters to build prefab modular homes for $22,000 per unit. Even at the high end of shelter cost estimates, we could provide a bed for every unsheltered person in San Francisco for $96.8 million. By comparison, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s (HSH) budget for 2022-23 is $672 million – a figure that notably does not include homelessness-related costs borne by other city agencies and departments.

Read the whole thing here.