San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is launching a reset of the town’s expensive homelessness response system — promising no extra clean checks for organizations receiving public funds in a press release launched Monday.
The Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing plans to transition its contracts — amounting to roughly $500 million yearly, in accordance with Lurie’s workplace — to an “outcomes-based” mannequin that ties funding to a company’s success in really serving to homeless individuals and residents at massive.
“We’re not going to proceed spending $1 billion of taxpayer cash on a failing system—we’re fixing the system so we will ship the secure and clear streets each San Franciscan deserves,” Lurie mentioned in a press release.
Between now and 2029, the homelessness division, which manages large multi-year nonprofit contracts for shelter and supportive housing, intends to competitively re-award these contracts with new language centered on “accountability,” in accordance with the mayor’s workplace.
The company is gathering suggestions from service suppliers, advocates and different stakeholders that may inform future providers and expectations on efficiency.
“We are going to construct contracts with a transparent function, stronger measures of success, and the assets and suppleness suppliers must do their finest work to maneuver our purchasers out of homelessness,” mentioned Mike Levine, govt director of the homelessness company.
The transfer follows years of scandal and lackluster outcomes within the rich Bay Space metropolis, which has traditionally had one of many highest homeless populations per capita in america.
San Francisco had 887 homeless individuals per 100,000 residents in 2024, many occasions greater than the nationwide common — regardless of spending billions on supportive housing, shelters, and different providers for these with out housing within the previous years.
Homeless encampments within the metropolis have declined roughly 85% since 2024, thanks partly to a Supreme Court docket ruling that enables West Coast cities to extra simply implement anti-camping legal guidelines.
Neighboring cities like Berkeley have attracted scrutiny for sprawling homeless camps near elite UC Berkeley campus.
Critics in San Francisco have lengthy thought of the homelessness system wasteful, even verging on outright fraudulent in some instances.
Gwendolyn Westbrook, the previous CEO of nonprofit United Council of Human Providers, was charged earlier this 12 months with skimming funds meant for homeless locals to fund a “lavish” life-style that included luxurious automobiles and trunks full of knickknack.
The group has acquired tens of hundreds of thousands in authorities grants over 20 years.
In 2024, an audit by the Controller’s Workplace discovered that HomeRise, a significant supportive housing supplier, had irresponsibly spent taxpayer {dollars} on worker bonuses and social occasions.
An investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle uncovered critical security failures at HomeRise properties, together with a lifeless physique that decomposed for days — main the town to minimize off funding to the group.
