Housing First, Paperwork Later: San Francisco Seems to Transfer Individuals Off the Streets Extra Shortly
Meanwhile, reports have also shown that hundreds of the city’s permanent supportive housing units may sit vacant on any given day. Advocates for unhoused San Franciscans have criticized the stark contrast between the volume of vacant units and the city’s well-documented need for housing.
San Francisco’s vacancy rate for units that are eligible for the rapid housing program is currently at around 9.5%, or around 1,000 units, according to Chris Block, housing placement manager at HSH. Only about a third of those units are immediately available, he said.
“This is a real opportunity for us to move people directly off the street and into housing,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of HSH. “It really helps with our vacancy rate in permanent supportive housing.”
The city’s main housing pipeline will continue to function as-is. That program, called Coordinated Entry, is used to assess someone’s needs and prioritize their placement for limited subsidized housing slots.
This new effort comes after San Francisco and other cities in California opened up hotels for people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic and were able to rapidly house thousands of people by reducing some bureaucratic barriers before moving them in, Cohen said.
Shireen McSpadden, director of the Dept. of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, sits in a newly renovated room at the Abigail Hotel in San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
The city has already started using the so-called “presumptive eligibility” approach and housed seven people in September, Block said.
The approach focuses on people who are engaged with social services but may not have all their necessary documents to show they qualify for housing.
HSH is currently using the approach for vacant units funded directly by the city. Cohen said that her department has requested permission from federal officials to use the same process for some federally funded housing sites.
Although the city sheltered thousands of people through short-term pandemic relief programs, San Francisco still has a higher portion of its unhoused population living outdoors compared to cities such as San José, Long Beach, Denver, Boston and Washington, D.C., according to a 2023 report from the city’s controller (PDF).
In addition, more than 340 people were on the city’s waiting list for temporary shelter as of Wednesday morning.
