San Francisco is part of the 9-county Northern Californian Bay Area, containing four of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. With a population exceeding 7 million, the SF Bay Area has an increasingly expensive housing market that is difficult for many to afford. In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to rent a two-bedroom apartment. San Francisco has several thousand homeless residents, despite extensive efforts by city government to address the issue. The prevalence of homelessness in the city is widely noted by visitors and other residents, and has been described as "San Francisco's most intractable problem" by guide books.
Video Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area
Historical Background
Some sources date the increased prevalence of homelessness to the 1970s due to a decrease in mental health services and more Vietnam War veterans living in the city. Other sources mention the decline of industrial jobs in the 1960s and 1970s.
The city government's first organized efforts to address the problem date to the 1980s. In 2002, the city shifted resources away from general assistance payments and toward treatment programs through an initiative called Care Not Cash, though the impact of the initiative has been debated. In 2004, the city launched the Ten Year Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness.
Maps Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area
Prevalence and Visibility
According to the Bay Area Census data, the number of the individuals in poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area grew from 573,333 (8.6%) in 2000 to 668,876 (9.7%) in 2006-2010. While poverty rates vary significantly across the SF Bay area, in 2015, the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies published that the poverty rate was 11.3%, having a slight downward trend from 12%, however, it was still above the historical average rate of 9%. As of 2014, the city is believed to have approximately 7,000 homeless residents. By 2016, according to a report by urban planning and research organization SPUR, San Francisco had the third highest per capita homelessness rate (0.8% or 8 in 1000 persons) of all large US cities, as well as the third highest percentage of unsheltered homeless (55%). ("Unsheltered" means sleeping somewhere not designated as a permanent living location, and includes tents, automobiles, and RV's, but does not include people staying in designated homeless shelters.)
As SPUR explains in one of their publications:
"For anyone who believes, based on their own eyes, that San Francisco has the worst problem with homelessness in the country, this statistic -- the number of unsheltered homeless people per capita -- is the "smoking gun." East Coast cities have adopted a very different set of strategies, emphasizing shelters as a low-cost, temporary solution and in many cases forcing people to go into those shelters, as opposed to allowing them to choose to sleep in public spaces. Indeed, New York State has a "right to shelter" law that compels the city and state to provide shelter beds to all New Yorkers who are homeless by "reason of physical, mental, or social dysfunction." While some critics decry the New York approach as "warehousing" homeless people, it's clear that they have been vastly more successful than large California cities in getting people at least minimal shelter and in addressing the quality of life impacts on city residents. By making "real housing" with wraparound social services the only acceptable solution, without having enough money to actually scale up that solution, Bay Area cities, especially San Francisco, have created the conditions in which thousands of people are living on the streets."
Causes
As of 2015, approximately 71% of the city's homeless had housing in the city before becoming homeless, while the remaining 29% came from outside of San Francisco. This figure is up from 61% in 2013. Of that 71%, 51% had lived in San Francisco for less than 10 years before becoming homeless; 11% had only lived in San Francisco for a year before becoming homeless. Reasons cited for homelessness in the 2015 survey commissioned by the City include job loss (25%), alcohol/drug use (18%), eviction (13%), argument/asked to leave by friend/family (12%), and divorce/separation (11%). Reasons for coming from outside San Francisco at the time of homelessness include seeking a job (25%), LGBTQ acceptance (11%), to access homeless services (22%), was visiting and decided to stay (17%), accessing VA services or clinic (5%), and family/friends are here (13%).
Even through real income rates in the Bay Area have been increasing over time, it was published in 2011 by the American Journal of Economics and Sociology that low-income residents are left with less leftover income after their rental payments that the equivalent in the 1960s. Gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area is of increasing concern, a research and action initiative of UC Berkeley in collaboration with researchers at UCLA and Portland State University has produced The Urban Displacement Project to "[examine] the relationships between investment, neighborhood change, gentrification and displacement." This study indicates rising levels of segregation in relation to increasing income inequality in the SF Bay Area. A mapping tool has been also been developed through the project to track displacement and gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Current efforts to address the issue
There has been an increasing need for solutions to social issues such as homelessness since the 1990s, these solutions are not anymore solely based in government reliance or the economic market, rather through volunteerism and charity. Unfortunately, there are many limiting factors of these efforts. "Social Innovation Clusters", SI Clusters as they are called have emerged as an alternative framework for creating solutions through social innovation. SI clusters are a result of socially-oriented organizations working in close proximity with like-minded companies, which has developed more ideas for social entrepreneurship and venture philanthropy. While these ideas have developed well, the social issues like homelessness in the Bay Area are still prevalent.
In 2014, the City of San Francisco spent $167 million annually on housing homeless residents. By 2016, total spending (including housing and treatment) was believed to be $241 million annually. However, much of this spending is focused on housing the formerly homeless, or those at risk, and not the currently homeless. The city's shelter program has approximately 1,200 beds, and several hundred people are on a waitlist to be housed. Even with 1,200 shelter beds and several hundred on waiting list, most homeless avoid the shelter for various reasons such as: overcrowding, safety, and rules that, among other things, separate people experiencing homelessness from their possessions, pets, and loved ones. In 2015, the Navigation Center shelter was created to address these issues.
Additional ongoing efforts include the California Housing Partnership Corporation (CHPC). Established in 1988 as a private nonprofit organization, it aims to sustain access to affordable housing through project partnerships with other non-profits and government housing agencies, in addition to being a resource for affordable housing policy efforts. CHPC has been successful in preserving more than 60,000 homes through over $12 billion in private and public partnerships.
There has been increasing efforts to keep the homeless away from the public eye, through forced removal, or harassment sweeps. These efforts have come to be known as the "war on the homeless". The Homeless Coalition has been an active body in the fight for homeless rights and decriminalization of the homeless. The "Right to Rest Act of the Homeless Bill of Rights Campaign" has been a large effort to allow the homeless to sit, rest and sleep on sidewalks and in public. This effort is seen as essential especially when there is a significant shortage in affordable housing.
The Navigation Center started as a pilot intervention program and is a collaboration between the City of San Francisco and the San Francisco Interfaith Council. It is funded by a $3 million anonymous donation and is based on the belief that people experiencing homelessness would be more receptive to utilizing shelters if they were "allowed to stay with their possessions, partners, and pets." The first Navigation Center opened in 2015 at a former school building in the Mission District. Unlike other shelters, the Navigation Center allows clients to come and go as they please and tries to get them permanent housing within ten days. Navigation Center provides otherwise unsheltered residents of San Francisco with room and board while case managers work to connect them to income, public benefits, health services, shelter, and housing. Navigation Center is different from traditional housing units in that it has few barriers to entry and intensive case management.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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