San Francisco spending millions to evict homeless it spent millions to house

San Francisco, California, has spent millions of dollars housing the homeless before spending more to evict them, again, according to recent documents obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Since 2019, the city has spent over $160 million every fiscal year on “permanent supportive housing” – i.e. single-room-occupancy hotels (SROs) across the city – as part of Mayor London Breed’s administration’s response to the city’s homelessness crisis, according to the documents obtained by the Chronicle.

Breed’s administration has also evicted more than 400 tenants from these SROs for violations of conditions of stay, making up a quarter of all evictions in the city despite housing 1.3% of all tenants. Reasons for eviction range from breaking the policy on guests to verbal abuse and violence against SRO workers and other tenants, with instances including assault with deadly weapons, destruction of rooms, and arson.

Tenants may only be evicted after a judicial process, the entire cost of which is funded by taxpayers, with the homeless receiving public defenders. City officials interviewed by the Chronicle estimated that the cost of litigation can range up to $25,000 per tenant. – READ MORE