[mikeyouse]

A huge portion of that $400M is spent getting people off the streets - they aren't spending $400M on 10,000 homeless people. They're spending 400M on tens of thousands of housing insecure people and after all of the rent support, healthcare, and mental health expense, there are still 10,000 people that they haven't been able to get off the streets.

[conanbatt]

This is the SF housing project's self-defense argument. But the budget has doubled and homelessness has increased. It's also a sorry defense of the city gov to say that such a small city actually has much higher homelessness numbers that are masked by ludicrous spending.

[mikeyouse]

I mean.. have you seen what has happened to rents at the same time? The core problem is that housing costs way too much here. Obviously more people are going to become homeless when rent prices increase by 20% per year, and obviously it is going to cost more to service homeless people when the prevailing rent has increased as much as it has. None of these things are mysteries.

[bifrost]

The cost of housing isn't the problem, this has been proven over and over again in SF. Yes, housing helps, but its not a cure. During the CV outbreak SF has had a hard time getting people to go into hotels when offered, because people had to abstain from drinking/drugs and to take their medication.

There's a really interesting character from SF who posts on twitter (@MyTwolffamily) about his personal experience of being a homeless drug addict, it might be enlightening to read some of his posts.