San Francisco Scrambles to Build Shelters Faster

San Francisco Mayor London Breed is calling for a doubling of the city’s goal to expand its homeless shelters in an effort to get unhoused residents off the streets.

As Maggie Angst explains in the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s original goal, laid out in 2023, called for a 50 percent reduction in unsheltered homelessness by 2028. “Officials projected that achieving the plan’s goals would require adding 1,075 new shelter beds and 3,250 new permanent supportive housing units, as well as financial support to an additional 4,300 households at risk of homelessness. The new goal calls for adding 2,150 shelter beds between spring 2023 and June 2028.” Advocates say the plan largely sidesteps the root causes of homelessness and fails to focus on prevention and permanent housing.

While it is unclear how many units the city has built, it remains far from its goal. “The city has not opened a new permanent supportive housing building since March 2023 and the mayor’s office could not immediately say how many new vouchers had been released since the plan was enacted in April 2023.”

The urgency of the expansion comes in part as a response to a sharp rise in family homelessness in the city, which grew by 94 percent in the last two years.