Homelessness in San Francisco

3 ways to think outside the box on S.F. homelessness

By C.W. Nevius

Last week Supervisor Mark Farrell held a hearing to evaluate the city's 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness in San Francisco. I wasn't able to attend, but I watched the hearing on the SFGov TV channel. (And I'd like my two hours and 47 minutes back, thank you.)

The idea was to see if the plan is working. Spoiler alert - it isn't.

It's not from lack of effort. The city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past 10 years - this year the Department of Human Services budget alone is $102 million for homelessness. San Francisco has created 2,700 supportive housing units, with 340 more on the way in the next two years. And, since 2004, homeless outreach workers have placed over 9,600 homeless single adults in housing. Obviously, not all of them stay housed, but that's the 10-year total.

The result? In 2005 a city-sponsored count found that there were 6,248 homeless individuals in the city. This year the census found 6,436.

There are contributing factors: a recession, unemployment, and like many cities, San Francisco is a destination for the down-and-out. Almost 40 percent of the city's homeless were homeless when they arrived in San Francisco.

But who among us would say that we are satisfied with the results of the 10-year plan? On the way into the Chronicle building Wednesday, I walked past two men sleeping on the sidewalk and a guy on the corner screaming unintelligibly. Raise your hand if you've had the same experience.

That's not to say Farrell's hearing wasn't worthwhile. There were some concrete recommendations, some of which are already in the pipeline. There's support for a plan to increase the number of homeless outreach workers, for example.

That's nice, but we've been there and done that. It is time for some out-of-the-box thinking. These ideas probably don't have the faintest chance in the world of happening, there were some radical suggestions at the hearing. Just for fun, here are three:

-- Close the homeless shelters. Hey, we said these ideas were radical, but this isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. In fact, the idea of phasing out shelters over a four- to six-year period comes straight from the original 10-year plan.

The thinking is this: The city is shelling out $17 million a year to warehouse people in shelters. Wouldn't it be better to take that $17 million and put it into supportive housing units? You may have seen Sunday's "60 Minutes," which featured the 100,000 Homes Campaign, where the chronically homeless in Tennessee and Utah are given apartments, even before they undergo drug or alcohol treatment.

The math is simple. It costs San Francisco roughly $14,000 a year each to house about 1,200 people in shelters, which, as Trent Rhorer, executive director of the Department of Human Services, said, "is just a little less than what we could house them for." Why not do that and break the shelter cycle?

-- Give the homeless a bus ticket home. Actually, the city already does this. Since 2004, the Homeward Bound program has provided a free ticket to 7,886 individuals at an average cost of just $179 each.

But Rhorer suggested we should station an outreach worker at the Transbay Terminal to meet newcomers. The idea isn't to discourage them from coming here, but to give them the lay of the land. And to say, look, this city isn't for everyone. If you find this isn't working out, we're going to be right here at the station, ready to provide free transportation. Critics will claim the city is just shipping out its problems, but the fact that virtually none of those who took a free ticket in the last seven months have returned indicates they ended up in a better place.

-- Require training and counseling to stay in supportive housing. Cue the screams of indignation from homeless advocates. But the fact is, unless the tenant does something terrible and gets evicted - which only happens about 5 percent of the time, according to testimony at the hearing - residents in supportive housing are essentially there for life.

That wasn't the original idea. This was supposed to be transitional housing, where someone could get himself straightened out and move on to a more productive life. That isn't happening. So the program isn't helping the homeless make a transition, and the lack of turnover means rooms are not being freed up for new residents.

The city's point man on homelessness, Bevan Dufty, mentioned a housing "ladder" system, where residents could move up to more attractive housing options as they succeed and improve their lives. That's worth trying.

Or we could just stick with what we've been doing. Surely another couple of hundred million dollars will eventually have an effect.

After all, it's only been 10 years.