There are 6,436 homeless people living in SF.
Walk down Market St. in San Francisco, and you can’t help but be struck by all of the homeless people in our city.
I’m generally ignorant about the issue, and I don’t do enough to help.
So I did some research in order to get educated and find ways to get involved. I thought my friends might benefit from understanding the problem, as well, and I plan to do more and write more about the issue. I don’t want to be an apathetic, unhelpful person. This post is purely to share some important numbers and begin a conversation. More to come on what we can actually do to be meaningfully helpful, but for now just some stats.
By The Numbers: Homelessness in SF
What I found out with just some very basic research was interesting.
- There are 6,436 homeless people in San Francisco [SF Examiner] (as of June 2013)
- Of those, 3,401 are living on the streets. That’s 52.8% of the total homeless population. [SF Examiner]
- Mental illnesses, substance-abuse problems and physical disabilities are 3 key issues plaguing the homeless [SF Examiner]
- “63 percent of the total number of homeless counted reported having a mental illness, addiction or debilitating physical condition as opposed to 55 percent two years ago [2011]” [SF Examiner]
- “About 40 percent of the homeless people were homeless before they came to San Francisco, with 17 percent saying they came to look for work and 14 percent for social services” [SF Examiner]
- 5,000 supportive housing units [SF Chronicle]
Not sure how to reconcile the 6,436 and 3,401 numbers with the 5,000 units idea. Are there vacant supportive housing units?
- Bevan Dufty is the mayor’s point person for homelessness (made me wonder who exactly in government, and not, is working on the issue) [SF Examiner]
- In 2011, SF saw “a drop in chronic homelessness — from 62 percent in 2009 to 33 percent this year [2o11]”, attributed by the city…to the city’s strategic focus on the issue [SF Examiner]
(If this is true, then it’s an encouraging signal about what can happen when the city focuses itself on an issue. Although the efforts began in 2004…so the solution may just take a long time, or there might be confounding variables here.)
- “The percentage of chronically homeless people dropped from 62 percent in 2009 to 33 percent in 2011. It’s now at 31 percent, city data show.” [SF Examiner]
But the total number of homeless people hasn’t dropped in recent years. So, does that just mean a rise in temporary homelessness even if there’s been a drop in chronic homelessness?
- “Also, the percentage of military veteran homeless reportedly decreased from 17 percent to 11 percent since 2011.” [SF Examiner]
- The Chronicle has an entire section of its site dedicated to this topic: http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/, and wow, it has SO much content [SF Chronicle]
- The city spends $200 million annually “trying to get homeless people off the streets and into a better way of life” [SF Chronicle]
($200,000,000 spent /6,436 homeless people= $31,075.20 spent per homeless person in SF annually. Median household income in the US is $51,017. “$23,492 a year for a family of four, or $11,720 for an individual [is] considered to be living in poverty.” This may be an oversimplification, but doesn’t that mean SF is spending nearly 3x the ‘poverty line amount’ per homeless individual…but we still have our current situation? I’m not suggesting that the programs are all ineffective. But what gives? Also, poverty and homelessness are not the same thing, and a homeless person with certain needs may require more support than the average person, yes. But still, these figures made me scratch my head. [CNN])
- “In 2004, the city estimated that each chronically homeless person costs taxpayers $61,000 a year, compared with the $16,000 it costs to put one person into supportive housing.” [SF Chronicle]
- The median age of a single homeless person is 53 (2010) [SF Chronicle]
- “The result [of the spike of homelessness in the early 1980s attributed to severe recession and crack cocaine] is that the median age of single homeless adults was 53 in 2010, compared with 34 in 1990, according to a study by social scientists led by a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.” [SF Chronicle]
- “The widely accepted life expectancy on the street is about 64.” [SF Chronice]
(Compared to 76 for the US as a whole. Might not seem like a lot, but 12 years, or living 18.75% longer, is indisputably significant.) [World Bank]
- “27 percent of those surveyed had become homeless elsewhere and then moved to the city.”[SF Examiner]
- “The largest percentages of homeless counted were in District 6 (44 percent), which includes the Tenderloin and South of Market, and District 10 (26.3 percent), which includes Bayview-Hunters Point. The lowest numbers were in districts 7 and 2 (0.3 percent), which respectively include Parkmerced and Twin Peaks, and the Marina and Pacific Heights; and District 11 (0.7 percent), which includes the Excelsior and Outer Mission.” [SF Examiner]
- “For the first time, this year’s homeless population also was surveyed on sexual orientation. Twenty-nine percent of both youths and adults identified as LGBTQ, Dufty said.” [SF Examiner] (compared to 3.8% nationally [About] [Williams Institute])
- “Pendleton said one factor to keep in mind is that “90 percent of chronically homeless people grew up disadvantaged from the start, in abusive or underprivileged homes.” [SF Chronicle]
- There is no equivalent [benefactor] in San Francisco, but Pendleton and Bamberger say there’s one potential source that has not been tapped nearly as much as it should be: the cash-rich tech industry. “If I was there, I would say to the tech industry leaders, ‘The money is important, but why don’t you loan us one of your brightest executives for a couple of years to help us organize a system to bring together the city, the state, the nonprofits — everyone?’ “ Pendleton said. “You need a champion.” [SF Chronicle]
Additional Links
I plan to share more about what we as a community can do, and what I’m personally doing. In the meantime, it would be a waste for you to read this and not have a way to do anything if you want to do something.
Get Involved
Hand Up — https://handup.us/ — Direct giving to the homeless
Larkin Street Youth — http://www.larkinstreetyouth.org/ — Larkin Street Youth Services
Project Homeless Connect (http://www.projecthomelessconnect.com/volunteer)
Volunteer Match (https://www.volunteermatch.org/search?l=San+Francisco%2C+CA%2C+USA&k=Homeless)
For help checking if someone is OK — “You can call San Francisco’s Homeless Team at any time at (415) 734-4233 to report on someone who may be in distress, homeless or intoxicated. Please include a physical description of the person, so that the mobile team can look for the person if he or she moves. You can also call the San Francisco Mobile Crisis Treatment Team at (415) 970-4000 for people who appear to need mental help.” http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/07/help-homeless-san-francisco/
Suggestions for others? Email me personally — me@jasonshah.org or comment with thoughts.
Articles
http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/07/help-homeless-san-francisco/
http://www.sfgov3.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=4819
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-starts-enforcing-rules-on-sitting-at-Powell-5636846.php
http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Older-homeless-expected-to-die-off-soon-4387071.php
As I said, I plan to write and do more on this topic in the near future. I’d love any ideas you might have — me@jasonshah.org.
