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Comment by andlarry | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco spends $241 million[0] of it's $8.9 billion budget[1] on programs to help the homeless and to help folks avoid becoming homeless (through housing assistance, etc). The 2015 count of homeless people in San Francisco is 7,539[2].

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...

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From your [0] link.

"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.

Yeah, and those private organizations (mostly non-profits) are very effective at lobbying, so it's hard to terminate contracts to consolidate services.

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

That's a good clarification on the number of people the funds are going to help. Thanks.

> That says a lot about how spending $31,967.10 for every homeless person can amount to, well, no one seems to know.

The "76 private organizations" that all this money is being funneled toward probably know.

That says a lot about how spending $31,967.10 for every homeless person can amount to, well, no one seems to 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-...

Well considering that NO largely gentrified in the wake of Katrina (essentially the rich literally stealing from the poor), maybe we can look for a better model

Proportionally (to population), I'd say it's less than or around the NYC numbers.

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.

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