The problem with those silly numbers represented by bad faith actors is they’re akin to counting your bugs at the end of the year, dividing those into your annual budget and claiming you spent $/bug.
Think about what they’re claiming and how it would change if they were more successful - e.g. if by some breakthrough at the same budget level, they cut the number of homeless people in half —- their cost/person would look much worse…
That 57k would provide a huge runway for people to get their footing. Say 5 months of expenses, where they can maintain their address, phone, shower regularly, have a safe place to keep food, etc.
Once you lose your residence, those things snowball. How do you apply for a job without a permanent mailing address? Where do you keep your nice interview clothes? How can you be contacted when your phone was stolen from your locker at the shelter for the second time that month?
It's never that easy. You'd be surprised the number of homeless folks being in that situation because of things like addiction, mental health issues, etc. Just giving them the money is mostly not helpful.
Even if a percentage just burned through it on drugs, it definitely would be that easy for most of the situational homeless. It would also help to prevent others from falling down the addiction/mental health rabbit hole. Being homeless on the street is a highly stressful endeavor, that constant stress exacerbates the mental health issues, motivates drug use, etc.
Just handing over that money to people about to be homeless would do far more than paying administrators to badly run a shelter that homeless avoid because they get all their shit stolen regularly.
If today you give every homeless person in SF 50k, tomorrow we'll have even more homeless because tomorrow a new batch of homeless people will come to collect their 50k.
Take away the stigma of the homeless and ask, if any regular normal person, drop them in SF with 57K, can they live?
Or would they become homeless too?
Because it is expensive.