It’s time to recognize that Housing First is a flawed policy. One of the core tenets of Housing First is that grant-receiving organizations must prioritize those most in need: the chronically homeless, the unsheltered, and those with severe mental illness or substance-use disorders (heavily overlapping categories). In practice, this often means neglecting those whose conditions are not yet deemed sufficiently desperate to warrant assistance.

California has spent a record $24 billion fighting homelessness over the past five years, according to a state audit published last month. In other words, the homeless population and homelessness spending have grown in tandem. How is this even possible?

At 5 a.m. on April 18, 1906, San Franciscans were jolted out of their beds by the first tremors of an earthquake whose vibrations would be felt as far away as England. The massive quake brought down lampposts and split gas lines, causing several small fires that quickly converged into one giant conflagration that burned for three days. The fire destroyed more than 28,000 buildings and left a quarter-million residents homeless.

In March, San Franciscans will vote on Proposition D, an anticorruption ballot measure to tighten city rules regarding gifts to public employees. The proposed law follows a massive scandal in which private contractors and real-estate developers bribed government officials to obtain contracts and construction permits.

In March 2021, San Francisco’s Mission Hotel held a joint funeral service for seven residents. The hotel is one of the sites leased by the city to house the unsheltered population, and resident deaths have become so frequent in these facilities that joint memorials have become the norm. Although the causes of the deaths vary, drug overdose has been responsible for 40 percent of those memorialized at these services.