I've lived in SF for 10 years and seeing this problem grow everyday led me down a rabbit hole where I tried to understand what I could do politically and who I should vote for and support to at least show that I cared about the problem. It led me down a path where I came to understand housing and it's role in Europe and China. The most important thing I've learned is people don't care about the homeless and just think they are unsightly. It's a humanitarian crisis in the same way your dirty dishes are a humanitarian crisis, for most people. These are not people to be saved, but dirt to be washed off the sidewalks.

There are 4 ways to deal with the homeless that I've summarized:

(1) Kill them. I mention this one first so that it's in the back of your mind as you read about how politicians, nationwide, strike down any effort to alleviate this problem. It's the feeling I get when people say "we should do something" but then oppose any housing-first approaches.

(2) House them. Another poster mentioned it in this thread but this is essentially the approach to Vienna took. House people, in houses, not shelters, unconditionally. Once they have housing, then you can work on rehab and social/mental work. Without housing, the mental problems are impossible to solve. Of course, this would require effectively socializing the housing market and people & blackrock would scream about asset prices.

(3) Inprison them. This arguably more expensive than (2) but it doesn't affect asset prices as much. You could even recoup that cost with free prison labor. Sure most of the guys who argue we should do this are also the ones that say vaccine mandates are an infringement on basic freedoms and that being forced to wear a mask is essentially 1984. Of course you would have to figure out where you would build this prison, and the NIMBYs would prefer you built it on the Moon (they wont say that though, they will say something like "Building prisons is racist").

(4) Let them camp on the streets. This is unsightly, but it costs the less and maybe you will get a bit of (1) too when they die of exposure. Most cities already employ (1) through (4), they just wait for winter to roll around and problem solved. And as we see in San Francisco, as long as the housing market is sufficiently limited, then having a homeless camp outside your window wont reduce your property values all that much, and you get to use them as a political tool to prevent even more housing from being built.

Barring some political revolution or deadly plague I've become doom-pilled about this situation ever being resolved. Too many people, either directly or indirectly, largely benefit from the status quo. Paying $1B/year and extracting taxes from Salesforce is ultimately preferable solution than tanking the housing market.