Staff Reports
According to documents obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco spent millions housing the homeless before spending more to evict them.
Since 2019, the city has spent over $160 million every fiscal year on "permanent supportive housing" (SROs) as part of Mayor London Breed's response to the city's homelessness epidemic, according to documents obtained by the Chronicle.
Breed's administration has evicted more than 400 SRO occupants for violating terms of stay, accounting for a quarter of all evictions in the city despite housing 1.3% of all tenants. Eviction reasons include breaking the guest policy, verbal abuse, and violence towards SRO personnel and other tenants, including assault with lethal weapons, room vandalism, and arson.
Only after a judicial process can tenants be removed, and the destitute receive public counsel. According to city officials, lawsuit costs can reach $25,000 per tenant.
Breed's administration allocated $62.4 million to reduce the backlog of eviction cases in San Francisco, hire more workers to oversee evictees, and enhance their compensation.
Breed's housing projects and removal of evictees, who often return to the streets, cost taxpayers more as San Francisco faces a homelessness crisis. More than 7,700 people are homeless in the city, with 3,300 living in non-profit and municipal-run SROs.
Homelessness causes assaults, smash-and-grab thefts, harassment, public excrement, and graffiti. Residents blame open-air drug use. Kathy Amendola, a small business owner, told ABC News, "We have a meth and fentanyl problem."
People say lack of housing forces local residents into the streets, but James says he came from Texas to San Francisco for the drugs, the non-enforcement of anti-camping laws, and the $820/month in welfare & food stamps. James says he sold fentanyl, 2 weeks ago, to a 15-year-old. pic.twitter.com/5qMr6tmlWs
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) February 9, 2022
The Breed administration faces persistent homelessness. The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is above $3,500. In the city's public schools, chronic absenteeism reached 28.4% in 2021-22.
Voters have responded to these challenges by using'recall measures' to change city leaders mid-term. San Francisco voters dismissed District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who favored mild sentencing, and three school board members in 2022.
Breed has taken a tough-on-crime stance to homelessness violence and proclaimed a state of emergency in December.
Neither Breed's office nor the SFHA replied to calls for comment.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on WND.
