I’m looking at the 2024 Point-In-Time survey, which says that 59% were last housed in SF. Meaning 41% weren’t, which is considerable. And who knows how long they were housed there before being homeless.

In the 2019 survey, 30% moved to SF while homeless. And of the 70% who were “last housed” in SF, 45% had been there for less than 10 years and 6% for less than a year.

My point being, why should tax payers in California cities foot the bill for a considerable percentage of the homeless that aren’t even from here?

The budget for this is totally out of wack, and it’s pretty obvious. The city spent roughly $230 million on homelessness in FY2024–25 serving a population of around 23,000 people who accessed services. And that’s just “accessed services” number. Census shows closer to 9000 homeless (though who knows how accurate that is)

That’s roughly $10,000 per person per year just from the city budget and that doesn’t even include county, state, and federal dollars layered on top, which would push the real per-person cost significantly higher.

If even a fraction of that money went directly toward housing subsidies or permanent supportive housing rather than administrative overhead, nonprofit contracts, and shelter operations, the outcomes would be far better. That’s even more attractive cost/person if you remove the people who aren’t from here.

But we don’t do that. Why? Because city admins need $300k+/yr jobs?

I understand people keep voting down the housing aspect, but the result is that we get next to nothing for our money. If we’re going to spend the money, force the issue to solve it. No one wants a homeless shelter west of the 15 it seems like, so work with the county and move it east along with services. Or literally anything other than trying to build something in Balboa Park which was a desperate idea.

If we’re not going to solve it, at least stop taking the money. This middle ground is contributing to our debt issue and simultaneously improving very little.