San Francisco Homelessness and Mayro Breed’s Plan

Will Breed’s $ 1 billion homeless plan actually work?

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is donating $ 1 billion to help fight homelessness. The goal is 6,000 home brokers by June 2022, an ambitious but achievable goal – if the city gets it right.

Will the city get it right? I think it can.

There is skepticism that American cities will ever end homelessness. The federal government has missed the crisis for so long that many have given up hope. The pandemic has left people even more resigned.

But for the first time, we have a President and Governor of California who are committed to providing the means to end homelessness. And Prop C is giving San Francisco far more local money to house the homeless than ever before.

San Francisco’s goal of 6,000 placements by June 2022 won’t end homelessness, but it will transform the public and political landscape around it.

So what should San Francisco do with the federal, state, and city on board?

Act with urgency

San Francisco needs to act urgently. This may seem obvious. But as I say in the new foreword to Generation Priced Out, no American city treats homelessness and housing affordability as an emergency. Instead, it is treated like a manageable crisis.

That did not work.

A sense of urgency has accompanied all of the major increases in San Francisco in housing the unhoused. Consider:

• After the earthquake on October 17, 1989, the city signed a contract with the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which I run, to replace the hotel hotline program with our Modified Payment Program (MPP). The sudden demise of the hotline due to the quake prompted the city to go to our MPP, which it had previously implemented gradually. Due to the city’s compulsion to act, more than 1000 formerly homeless hotline participants were soon given permanent accommodation.

• After a lawsuit delayed the launch of Care Not Cash for over two years, Mayor Gavin Newsom was keen to ramp up the program quickly in early 2005. Non-profit organizations were urged to lease SRO hotels at a record rate, and nearly 2,000 former homelessness recipients secured permanent housing.

• The spring 2020 pandemic closed emergency shelters, prompting the city to use FEMA funding to quickly move around 2,000 of the uninhabited accommodations to SIP hotels. A lawsuit dated May 4, 2020, filed by Tenderloin participants alone, prompted the city to quickly accommodate around 400 people who previously lived in tents in the Tenderloin. Why was Mayor Breed’s SIP hotel program so successful? As I wrote in January: “Because the mayor called in staff from the personnel agency, the real estate ministry and her own staff to help HSH. So the expansion of the living space for the uninhabited in San Francisco must take place. “

San Francisco has made its biggest gains in housing people without shelter when it is under pressure to act. When the city lacks urgency – as it did for several months in 2020/21 when thousands of SRO hotel rooms available for rent or purchase were vacant – progress will be made.

Reach the 6000 goal

Several strategies are required to reach 6000 placements. The city will buy a minimum of 1000 SRO units, and adding Project Homekey could bring the total to 2000. Newly released home vouchers could add an additional 1,000. A more efficient occupation of existing vacancies in the cities through permanent supportive housing offers adds another 500.

Add the regular sales of the current master lease units that should bring an additional 1,000 or more placements (estimate based on THC’s total of 337 in 2019, extrapolated to the city’s portfolio). When newly built units will actually open is difficult to predict, but 500 placements by June 2022 seem feasible.

That brings us to around 5,000. The rest can be balanced out with homeless programs for target groups (e.g. young people) and extended Section 8 programs for homeless families. There are enough additional rental subsidy programs to help meet the 6000 target.

San Francisco has more than 6,000 uninhabited people, although the exact number is controversial. So no one should expect the city to end homelessness in the next year. But if the city takes an all-hands-on-deck approach, homelessness will be significantly reduced.

Ultimately, San Francisco cannot end homelessness without opening up affluent neighborhoods to the uninhabited. This struggle is not required to meet the June 2022 goal, but the city cannot end homelessness by only allowing projects in a very limited number of neighborhoods.

The role of the mayor

Mayor Breed faces re-election in November 2023. She recognizes, like past mayors, that voters will judge her by her performance in combating homelessness. Most San Franciscans have focused on their own health, jobs, and the impact of the pandemic to pay close attention to the city’s homeless policies. This will change when the city reopens.

Breed allowed a dysfunctional Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) department to run for too long, but as of May 1, the mayor put a new, more effective team in place. The improvement is already noticeable.

Critics point out that the mayor’s $ 1 billion budget plan is heavily reliant on funding from an electoral measure – Prop C – which she turned down. Point made. But most voters will judge the mayor by how quickly and effectively she uses Prop-C funds.

Randy Shaw

San Francisco’s goal of 6,000 placements by June 2022 won’t end homelessness in the city, but it will transform the public and political landscape around the crisis. Further progress is likely as Prop C, as well as President Biden and California’s funding increases, will continue beyond June 2022.

San Francisco finally has the means to end its homeless crisis. It’s time the city got together and did this.

Randy Shaw
HereafterChron