What on earth? In SF homelessness is caused by the lack of housing. Mental illness is courtesy the Reagan era dismantling of mental health services in CA, and is over-represented for sure.
However, the driving factor for homelessness in SF, is the fact that there is no where for people to live. Thats part of why eviction is so stupidly hard in SF. Once you become homeless it is functionally impossible to get out.
Its not caused by lack of housing, the people on the street are incapable of supporting themselves much less maintaining a dwelling - have you ever been here? Our homeless are mostly drug-seeking tourists who are from elsewhere.
The Reagan canard is also just that; The Supreme court ruling sought by the ACLU during the Carter administration is why people are out on the street, the govt can't legally commit people like that anymore.
Evictions are hard here for the same reasons that its trivial to get fentanyl in front of the federal building that houses the DEA - failed govt policy.
"Roughly 34 percent of the homeless in San Francisco are homeless due to direct economic factors, such as evictions and job losses. Another 12 percent became homeless when they lost the safety net of family or friends."
"About 15 percent are due to drug addiction or substance abuse."
I've spoken with several people working directly with the homeless, 95% of the people on the street are not from SF, most of them are told to say they're from SF so they can get services. There are tons of fake/stilted reports from special interest groups, they're trying to feed the "Homeless Industrial Complex" which has been growing rapidly since 2003.
Even the Mayor of SF has talked about how SF has drug tourists and how they need to be prevented from receiving services. You don't seem to be very informed about SF.
Every single public service is abused by some percentage of people using it. So? The mayor holding a press conference or speaking to the press to score points doesn't make it any more credible than the Reagan's bullshit about drugs in the 80s.
I'm not interested in the incredibly small percentage of people exploiting the system that isn't helping them in the first place, but the large percentage of homeless - transient or long term - that need services but are fought every part of the way by ignorance like this.
They also asserted that if our local DA actually did something about dealing on the streets we'd lose that same number of homeless people and they'd return to wherever they came from before SF, or go to Oakland. SF has turned itself into an "attractive nuisance" due to our unchecked open air drug markets.
Because its illegal to commit someone to an institution who hasn't comitted a crime.
San Francisco is trying a new approach but has only managed to get ONE person into conservatorship in the last 2 years because of all the roadblocks put up by a group called "The Coalition on Homelessness".
To give you an idea, you have to be 5150'ed (aka put on a psychiatric health hold) 8 times in order to receive inpatient treatment. 8 times. If you told someone they'd have to try to kill themselves 8 times before they got help, they'd probably call you nuts.
No, the ACLU sued and its now the law of the land, its probably impossible to undue. Uninformed people blame Reagan for "closing the institutions" but you can't have an institution and nobody to put in it...
However, the driving factor for homelessness in SF, is the fact that there is no where for people to live. Thats part of why eviction is so stupidly hard in SF. Once you become homeless it is functionally impossible to get out.