From the article, since many people seem not to have read this far:
It doesn’t—not even close. “San Francisco is not by any stretch of the imagination the homeless capital of the United States,” says Jeff Kositsky, executive director of the nonprofit Hamilton Family Center, which provides housing and social services for homeless families. “We don’t have any more homeless, either families or single adults, than other cities.” The latest available numbers bear out his assertion: According to federally mandated “point-in-time” homeless surveys—city-specific audits conducted every other year on a single night in late January (and an admittedly controversial metric that many experts insist undercounts the true number of homeless people)— San Francisco had 6,436 homeless in 2013, out of a population of 837,442. By comparison, other large cities with exorbitant costs of living fared even worse. Washington, D.C., had a greater number of homeless, 7,748, out of a much smaller population of 646,449. Honolulu had 4,712 homeless out of a population of 374,658. Closer to home, cities like Los Angeles (34,393), San Jose (7,567), and Seattle (8,949) all tallied more homeless people than did San Francisco, though those numbers represent countywide, not citywide, totals.
I don't doubt this is true due to higher cost-of-living, improved services (and therefore more accurate counts... homelessness is severely undercounted in many places) and the trend that more liberal cities tend not to have the suburbs within city limits (or conversely, cities without suburbs within city limits are more liberal...)
That article does not seem to claim that point in it. Maybe I just missed it. But I checked all usages of high, population, city, and cities, so if the point is made in that article is is done so with different enough language to be difficult to find considering the article's length.
Edit: That all means I am calling bullshit on that being a citation for that fact (or 'fact' depending on your view of it).
The Manhattan Institute's mission is (I paraphrase) to make selfish rich people feel less guilty, so I would be wary of any claims made by the article.
That article is atrocious as any kind of source, it's clearly an opinion piece.
I'm asking for an actual study comparing homeless rates of liberal cities vs conservative cities. Also a list of which cities are actually liberal vs conservative would be nice.
It doesn’t—not even close. “San Francisco is not by any stretch of the imagination the homeless capital of the United States,” says Jeff Kositsky, executive director of the nonprofit Hamilton Family Center, which provides housing and social services for homeless families. “We don’t have any more homeless, either families or single adults, than other cities.” The latest available numbers bear out his assertion: According to federally mandated “point-in-time” homeless surveys—city-specific audits conducted every other year on a single night in late January (and an admittedly controversial metric that many experts insist undercounts the true number of homeless people)— San Francisco had 6,436 homeless in 2013, out of a population of 837,442. By comparison, other large cities with exorbitant costs of living fared even worse. Washington, D.C., had a greater number of homeless, 7,748, out of a much smaller population of 646,449. Honolulu had 4,712 homeless out of a population of 374,658. Closer to home, cities like Los Angeles (34,393), San Jose (7,567), and Seattle (8,949) all tallied more homeless people than did San Francisco, though those numbers represent countywide, not citywide, totals.