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I don't think it's a resource allocation issue. SF government alone spends almost a billion a year[1] on trying to improve the situation. That's not including the non-profit spending. Money won't buy the city out of this situation as long as there exist people who don't want to live in homes and play by the rules.

1: https://hsh.sfgov.org/about/budget/



1 billion dollars / 8500[1] homeless people = 117 thousand dollars. The median household income in SF is 119 thousand[2]. I get that you wouldn't want to just pay them a salary because of second-order effects, but that kind of spend without even getting them sheltered strongly suggests resources are not being allocated well.

[1] https://www.sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-populat...

[2] https://smartasset.com/retirement/average-salary-in-san-fran...


If you gave them $117K a year they would be dead within a month ODing on the mass quantities of drugs they can now afford. Money is not the issue with homelessness, and until people get that out of their heads the problem will not be solved.


They cleaned it up for President Xi's visit.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/14/city-clears-homeless-encam...


Seems you need to evaluate the effectiveness of that spending to conclude that it can't be a resource allocation issue.


Maybe a problem could be on the allocation side rather than the resource side.


> spends almost a billion a year

That sounds like an allocation issue. There aren’t enough beds. If you became homeless in SF tonight, you would be on the street.




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