According to the San Francisco Homeless Services Coalition:
- San Francisco has the highest per capita rate of homelessness of any major American city. 7,000 homeless people live in SF at a given time. Some estimates put the number as high as 15,000 (SF Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness).
- Only 15% of the homeless in SF are from out of state. Another 15% are from out of the city. Over 60% of SF’s homeless are natives (SF Bay Area counties point-in-time counts).
Switching links...
An estimated 6,000 to 12,000 people are homeless on any given night in San Francisco, according to officials with Project Homeless Connect, which was launched by Mayor Gavin Newsom. But the program, and others he’s championed, has resulted in 10,000 people leaving San Francisco’s streets and shelters since 2004, he said.
The results would be more impressive if not for the following.
More than 4,000 of the previously homeless people in San Francisco were returned to their home cities with a bus ticket funded through The City’s Homeward Bound Program, according to the Mayor’s Office.
Gosh, is that considered progressive now? No doubt a complementary one-way bus ticket was how a few of those folks got to San Francisco, but still...
According to the program’s outreach information, Homeward Bound applicants must have a place to reside at the destination city where there's "ample support." Program staff contact family or friends at the destination before the homeless person is given a ticket, and they follow up with the participant one month later to check on their well-being.
However, Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the San Francisco-based Coalition on Homelessness, was skeptical of the mayor’s assertions.
"You can’t claim you housed people by giving them a bus ticket," she said.
In too many bureaucracies, an action passed is an action completed.
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