S.F. pays $61k/year for one tent to shelter the homeless

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/S-F-pays-61-000-a-year-for-one-tent-to-house-16001074.php

by tomashertus • 5 years ago

55 27 5 years ago

sfchronicle.com

leashless• 5 years ago

http://LALAUNCHPAD.ORG had a rather smaller budget

explodingman• 5 years ago

https://outline.com/z4EFpV

imwillofficial4• 5 years ago

This is absolutely indicative of government prowess in running social safety nets. That money would be spent 100x better in a church charity or something similar.

retrac• 5 years ago

As a non-local, I am inclined to interpret this as most likely the effect of massive rent-seekers protected by institutions which are not accountable in practice. Bad government, bad regulations, and bad laws are usually at the core. But it's certainly not a public sector problem alone.

For a possibly off-key analogy, it seems much like the issues with the US healthcare system. The money just gets sucked into a thousand little diversions that have little to nothing to do with actually providing healthcare. But legally, there has to be an environmental impact assessment on replacing that window. And management must have their training updated twice a year at a conference. And there's legal compliance training. And I haven't even touched intellectual property. Or the fact that many of these are for-profit interests, that benefit financially if they get latched into the system permanently like that.

Even without a profit incentive, I think this can happen. We see this same problem in some private charities. Even if they have the best intentions, they are so entangled by yellow tape, the status quo, box-checking, and "that's just how things are done" that it strangles them. It seems to be a particular peril for "awareness" charities which can end up existing almost solely to advertise their existence in order to raise funds for more advertising, endlessly. It's for a good cause! And I'm sure this kind of dynamic happens even in the church.

senkora• 5 years ago

There is an incentive for churches to remove government safety nets so that desperate people have to turn to churches for charity.

This gives churches the chance to try to convert people they otherwise wouldn’t. I think this is bad because it is manipulative and discourages some people from getting help.

We need government safety nets so that they can be applied fairly to all people, and so that everyone is comfortable claiming them if they qualify.

imwillofficial4• 5 years ago

All the church charities that I’ve ever seen have given for the sake of giving. It’s a good look for their cause for sure, but this used to be handled far more efficiently than it is now. Perhaps the modern system is a form of money laundering. People can’t be THAT wasteful, right?

julianapostate• 5 years ago

and what kind of incentives does paying 61K a tent create?

KDJohnBrown2• 5 years ago

That money would be spent 100x better in a church charity or something similar.

Or in the case of an evangelical mega-church to help pay for the tax free mansions and private jets, essentially charging the taxpayers twice.

imwillofficial4• 5 years ago

And still be cheaper, how do they do it?!

ALittleLight• 5 years ago

"The average per-night cost — $190 — is $82 less than what the city pays to shelter someone in the city’s homeless hotel program. But unlike the hotel program, the tents are not eligible for federal reimbursement. According to city data, 314 people live in 247 tents. Fifteen spots are open."

These costs don't make much sense. You could rent the homeless apartments for this. You could just rent them a nice hotel room. How does it cost more to rent a hotel room for a homeless person than it does for a home-ful person? Shouldn't the city be getting some kind of discount and just pass out keys and rooms in bulk?

"The security guards personally knew many of the people who walked in. They screened everyone for COVID-19 symptoms with a temperature check and reminded to keep their masks on at the site."

What do you do if you're homeless and have covid? The security guards stop you from going to your tent?

abernard1• 5 years ago

And for the hotels, that's $272 a night. $272 * 365 = $99,280 a year!

So San Francisco is spending $100K a year per person and billing that to the federal government / everyone else in America. Meanwhile, median income in the U.S. is $31K a year, or 1/3 of that.

curryst• 5 years ago

How does it cost more to rent a hotel room for a homeless person than it does for a home-ful person? Shouldn't the city be getting some kind of discount and just pass out keys and rooms in bulk?

No. Given the rates of mental illness and drug addiction in the homeless community, I would expect a higher than normal number of issues. It's also bad for brand; no one wants to be "the homeless hotel", so there's going to be an upcharge for that loss. And lastly, the homeless aren't likely to be responsible for their incidentals (I can't imagine the hotel would allow that), so damage is more likely. I don't think that's anything related to being homeless, just that people are less careful with things they won't have to pay to replace. I doubt police would do car chases if they had to do it in their own car (not a comment on police, just government workers generally).

So no, I really don't think anyone will rent the city all of their rooms to house the homeless, and especially not at a discount.

A big part of the problem is that people don't want to be near the homeless, so they tend to devalue anywhere there are a lot of them. This is why the Navigation Centers are so unpopular; no one wants their home/business to lose value because it's near a shelter. Everyone agrees we should build them, and everyone agrees we should build them somewhere not near them. So they just don't get built.

And unfortunately, having good services for the homeless can end up attracting more homeless people. If you start offering a nice hotel room to all the homeless people, what homeless person in their right mind wouldn't head to SF?

Rebelgecko• 5 years ago

How does it cost more to rent a hotel room for a homeless person than it does for a home-ful person?

Homeless people are probably more likely to cause damage to the hotels, and hotels are less likely to recoup their costs from the person responsible. There's also been ~20 deaths (mostly overdoses) which I imagine puts extra strain and costs on the hotels.

I don't know if they're still doing it, but at least for a while SF had a program where they supplied Project Room Key participants with drugs and alcohol so that they'd be more likely to self-medicate in their hotel rooms and less likely to be out and about. I think that might also end up leading to more property damage + smoking fees

DrScump• 5 years ago

  hotels are less likely to recoup their costs from the person responsible

As long as the costs are recouped from the city instead, would they really care?

refurb• 5 years ago

Someone is making good money off these programs.

dzhiurgis• 5 years ago

I guess 99% if that goes to lot rent and rest to buy kmart tents?

tkinom• 5 years ago

Paying daily rate ($20, $30 per spot) in a parking garage for this might be cheaper?

Reasonable airflow, Less chance for Covid spread compare to indoor hotel.

Most of them likely has roof over head also.

eloff• 5 years ago

That's about equal to what it costs my wife and I to live for a year in a luxury 1100sqft downtown apartment in Vancouver, counting food, restaurants, entertainment, transport, clothes, shoes, electronics, and vacations.

And I'd wager most families in the US and Canada live on less.

How is that in any way possible and who is the moron working for the city who approves that.

souprock• 5 years ago

In much of the USA, $61k will get you a 3-bedroom house on a quarter acre lot.

I mean ownership. The house and land would belong to you for that price.

So this is like buying a new house every year.

GauntletWizard• 5 years ago

An awful lot of these homeless would destroy and render unlivable a 3-bedroom house in the course of a year.

Be glad that we’re not spending our resources on that.

stevecalifornia• 5 years ago

Heard this third hand but fairly reliable: owners of a hotel had rooms used to house homeless in SF and they were destroyed and cost a tremendous amount to repair.

aaron695• 5 years ago

Good to remember when someone tries to help homelessness with a better object X.

It's the processes around it that need solving.

For instance how do you secure a mix of people with mental health issues and drug addictions. Even if you reduce sexual assault, if it happens on your watch you are responsible.

It's similar to the inability to invent self cleaning toilets. This commentary about $30 a flush sounds a lot, but dealing with human feces on the street would cost more.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/san-francisco-public-pit-...

imtringued• 5 years ago

Well, this proves something. It's not a matter of money. It never was. I once ran the numbers what it would take to successfully upzone a 2 million dollar house so that the resulting rent would be reasonable. The goal was $3k/month for 700sqft which is well below $61k/year. The minimum upzoning needed would involve a 2 story building with 6 apartments in total. At $5k per month one could probably get away with a triplex that would even fit in with the rest of the neighborhood and by fit in I mean it would be indistinguishable from every other house.

It's not the money. It's that doing the right thing is illegal.

jaygray0919• 5 years ago

S.F. is continuous source of humor and entertainment. Someday City Council meetings will inspire the next version of The Simpsons.

the_only_law• 5 years ago

Pretty sure I’ve told this story several times, but this seems like a decent thread to do so again.

A few months ago I watched a video from sometime in the early-2010s. I believe this was in LA. There was a punk guy who had in his youth experienced homelessness and decided he wanted to help people in that position. He begun crowdfunding for a project that would involve constructing small shelters that had locks, power outlets with a solar panel, etc. to help some people on the street. The project started out rather successful and some of the people receiving the shelters were very thankful and express the helpfulness of this.

Not too long later, the city came back livid. Some people were complaining about their property values dropping due to these shelters (which I don’t particularly get, is having unhorsed or tented people around you going to do better anyway) and the city brought up concerns about these being on the sidewalk taking up space. They offered to relocate the shelters somewhere where they weren’t a safety hazard but the city kind of just told them to fuck off and had them confiscated and destroyed. One of the recipients of one of the shelters commented about a police officer scoffing at him and making a comment a how he should “just get a job”. All the time, there was a city bureaucrat talking about hoe the man organizing this project was helping no one and how his grand plan to “end homelessness was the real solution. I imagine that worked out great.

S.F. pays $61k/year for one tent to shelter the homeless

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