And here's the tricky part, if one city puts more money on the problem, the problem will only get bigger, because it will attract homeless people from other cities (though I can't blame them).
This is not an issue that's solvable only from the criminality/police side but not exclusively from the social side neither.
The vast majority of homeless people are homeless for financial reasons, like the loss of income or the lack of affordable housing. The fastest growing demographic of homeless people are entire families, because of financial reasons.
Therefore the most effective solutions are economic and perhaps anti-trust.
Though affordability issues seem to be the main issue today (especially) in CA and also that some statistics consider homeless people that are living with family or acquaintances by necessity.
Even the extremely "progresive" mayor pointed it out.
SF's homelessness is not about any of the things you've noted.
I’m going to avoid these political / non-technical threads on HN going forward.