Mark Nagel and Lori Brooke : rescuesf – excerpt
San Francisco’s homeless shelters are in crisis. Homeless shelters are supposed to offer people a first step on their journey out of homelessness, but in San Francisco the majority of people leaving homeless shelters are returning to the streets. In 2023, the City might have spent as much as $81 million serving people in homeless shelters who eventually exited shelters for street sleeping. These disastrous results, produced at such enormous cost, are a colossal failure that should shock every resident of San Francisco.
Based on an analysis of previously unreported City data obtained through a Sunshine request, this Comment contains the following findings:…(more)
- San Francisco’s homeless shelters are failing in their primary mission of helping people permanently leave homelessness.
- During 2020-23, 246 shelter guests died in the City’s shelters.
- The City is spending enormous financial resources on shelter guests who return to homelessness.
- The City’s inadequate management practices have allowed this crisis to worsen year after year
This Comment makes the following recommendations:
- The City should conduct a thorough and speedy investigation into the causes of the high rates of shelter exits to homelessness or unknown destinations
- The City should prepare a comprehensive strategy for improving the effectiveness of the shelter system.
- The City should overhaul the reporting on its response to homelessness to make better use of the data it collects….
CONCLUSION
After living with a homelessness crisis for more than forty years, San Francisco needs a plan that will deliver results and end homelessness. The starting point is to have a shelter system that offers people an effective first step to permanently leaving the streets. The shelter system should connect people with the supportive services that they need, such as primary health care, psychiatric care, and drug treatment, as well as pathways to find transitional housing or permanent housing.
While the City is generally aware of these issues, City officials are not acting with sufficient urgency to address the shelter crisis. So long as San Francisco’s homeless shelters fail to bring people inside, thousands of unsheltered people will continue to suffer on the City’s streets, neighborhoods will continue to suffer from poor street conditions, and the City will continue to waste vast financial resources on ineffective programs. The scale of the shelter crisis calls for immediate action to fix the shelter system, now.
Read the entire document here : https://www.rescuesf.org/_files/ugd/fe2840_d265f726a9ef45d5b440a2be3821aca0.pdf