The City should do even more on Homelessness.

San Franciscans have an appetite for our city and leaders to do more when it comes to managing our response to street homelessness. While a recent poll from the SF Chamber of Commerce reports a quadrupling of the number of San Franciscans who say homelessness and street behavior has improved, and a two and a half times increase in the number of San Franciscans who say that street cleanliness has improved, just 44% of San Franciscans approve of Mayor Lurie’s handling of providing shelter to homeless (while 39% disapprove).  The first step in doing more to address street homelessness in San Francisco is limiting the influence of bad actor organizations.

And that starts with perhaps the most egregious: The Coalition on Homelessness. 

Most recently, the Coalition filed a frivolous lawsuit against the city - and the City settled for $2.8 million because it was likely cheaper to settle than it was to litigate the case in the courts. The purpose of the Coalition’s lawsuit was to stop encampment sweeps—a moot point based on the Grants Pass decision, which allows cities like San Francisco to more easily move people from the streets into shelter and treatment.

This organization, led by Jennifer Friedenbach, has obstructed the advancement of the population it claims to be serving at every step of our city’s homelessness response. The Coalition advocated against building more shelters (before later suing the city for not having adequate shelter capacity), and has vehemently opposed moving RV dwellers into shelters; in her advisory role on one of the five citizen committees that’s supposed to address homelessness, Friedenbach voted against improving conditions in SROs. 

While this settlement amount is just a small percentage of the city’s overall budget, the value of the settlement could fund 22,400 nights of filled shelter beds for Transitional Aged Youth (TAY), or 12,750 nights of filled family shelter beds. While obstructionist groups claim victory, both the city’s coffers and real people suffer. 

While it’s important to acknowledge that there are many well-run and effective non-profits in San Francisco, we can no longer afford to reward bad behavior from bad-actor organizations. Because of San Francisco’s ‘community input first’ approach to municipal governance, people like Friedenbach have been elevated to great, behind-the-scenes power from within the very government she constantly picks (expensive) fights with. 

San Francisco’s shortcomings in addressing homelessness don’t just end with organizations like the Coalition on Homelessness. Ineffective management in the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) has further stymied our city’s progress - while also leading to a tremendous amount of financial waste.

Despite a ballooning HSH budget from FY19 to FY24 (from $368 million to $846 million), homelessness has increased in San Francisco. Said differently: for having more than doubled the HSH budget since 2019, we have made no demonstrable progress on reducing homelessness. This department’s performance is another blemish on our city’s ability to manage disorder on our streets.

HSH’s budget deserves a high degree of scrutiny in future budget revisions. At a time where every dollar matters, it’s unacceptable that, per a 2024 Budget and Legislative Analyst report, HSH is not adequately tracking its own spending. For its failure to adequately address street homelessness despite unprecedented resources to do so, HSH needs to see its budget reduced - and the savings need to go toward addressing our structural deficit. 

If this city is ever to make progress on some of its most intractable issues, pragmatic voices need to be elevated within and without city government instead of being given control of massive pots of money and a unilateral voice in how it is spent. Otherwise, we will continue on this merry-go-round of poor governance. 

At a time of unprecedented challenges and a critical moment in our city’s recovery, we must put pragmatism before ineffective and broken ideology. We must hold actors within government accountable to deliver results, and limit the influence of the bad actors outside of City Hall.