Majority of San Francisco Homeless Have Government Funded Homes

Liberalism in action, California style:

The mayor and others are now admitting what the grand jury reported - that a majority of those on the streets are not homeless. The head of the city’s homeless program, Dariush Kayhan, estimates that 50 to 75 percent of street people live in supportive housing.

“We just warehouse addicts,” said the grand jury’s Stuart Smith. “Granted, it is a nicer place for them, but it doesn’t address the problem.”

Almost three out of four people on the street live in supportive housing. The article explains that people who live in or move to San Francisco accept that things are going to cost more there because of all the caring they are compelled to do for all the “homeless people,” but I wonder if they all know they are spending “$186 million a year on homelessness, six times what was spent in 1993-94.”

What do you get for that kind of money? The status quo:

Hardly a week goes by without a note or e-mail from a tourist who was shocked by behaviors and conditions downtown. When San Franciscans supported Mayor Gavin Newsom’s “Care Not Cash” effort in 2004, many felt that getting the homeless into housing would solve the problem.

The fact is, despite a supportive housing effort that has gotten national attention, the streets don’t seem that much better. And there doesn’t seem to be a standard of measurement for what the programs are trying to accomplish.

How many homeless are we talking about here? There are 744,000 homeless people in America, with the People’s Republic of California housing 170,000 of them. So right now, the City of San Francisco is spending over a thousand dollars a year for every homeless person in the state. So what is the total count for just San Francisco, the city with “the most pervasive homeless problems in the country?”

6,377 people. And that number is up from 2006.

Allow me to lay some mathematics on you: According to the above numbers, San Francisco is spending $29,167 a year on each homeless person in the city, and not only can’t they solve the problem, it’s getting worse.

Remember Quinn’s First Law: Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it’s stated intent.

This is a great example of what he is talking about. Like the jury member above said: “We just warehouse addicts.”

Think it is time to change what you are doing?