"Eight city departments oversee at least 400 contracts to 76 private organizations"
That says a lot about how spending $31,967.10 for every homeless person can amount to, well, no one seems to know.
I'm curious what happened in New Orleans and the other places referenced that have seen success helping their homeless populations. Knowing even a little bit about systems, layering more complexity (and money) on top of a dysfunctional effort in SF isn't going to meaningfully help.
One thing to clarify is that, because some (~$60 Million in 2015 [3]) goes to housing assistance. The people helped by the budget includes more than 7,539 represented by the point in time count, so the $31K/person number is a bit high.
That said, SF spends a lot of money on homeless and the homeless population hasn't significantly decreased in over a decade.
[3] http://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/FileCenter/Documents/56... page 6
The "76 private organizations" that all this money is being funneled toward probably know.
"As Randy Shaw points out (in an article that has other problems, but gets this absolutely right), almost half the money that the Chron identifies as “homeless” spending is actually money spend on people who are in supportive housing. That’s housing money, not homeless money."
http://48hills.org/2016/02/16/five-myths-about-the-homeless-...
Something really interesting: "Hawaii has the highest homeless rate per capita in the nation, according to federal statistics."
Hawaii the state spends something around 40m a year on the homeless.
But a lot of Hawaii homeless live in tents on the beach!
Just some interesting numbers. I know a lot of the homeless kids in Hawaii also get picked up by school buses as well.
This measure doesn't increase spending on the homeless issue but, honestly, the San Francisco govt has shown the ability to absorb funding increases without noticeable impact in services. This is especially true of homeless services.
My impression is that this measure is born of frustration with the governmental inaction on the homeless problem in SF.
[0] http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends-record... [1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-budget-increase-aim... [2] http://sfgov.org/lhcb/sites/default/files/2015%20San%20Franc...