Daniel Lurie’s homeless reforms can deliver – Latest News
San Franciscans are battle-weary — amid limitless pushes for tax will increase and calls for for “compassion” by homelessness activists.
That’s why Mayor Daniel Lurie’s August 31 plan to require each homeless companies supplier contracting with town to reapply after which be scrutinized is a breath of contemporary air. It’s the primary time in years City Hall has connected a price tag to the plain.
San Francisco spends as a system that absorbs different people’s money and retains a everlasting caseload. It is a business model. The plan won’t finish homelessness. So is it enough change for us to cheer?
Lurie’s new plan mechanics are plain. For the following three years, town’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will open its contract portfolio back out to competitors — about $500+ million a 12 months — with new contract necessities demanding success.
San Franciscans are battle-weary — amid limitless pushes for tax will increase and calls for for “compassion” by homelessness activists. Anadolu through Getty Images
That’s why Mayor Daniel Lurie’s August 31 plan to require each homeless companies supplier contracting with town to reapply after which be scrutinized is a breath of contemporary air. It’s the primary time in years City Hall has connected a price tag to the plain. Instagram/@danielluriesf
City Hall pays for good outcomes, and “redirect” money when a contract supplier’s strategy fails. That may carry accountability.
Lurie’s plan rollout is phased over time so town can’t be accused of slicing off purchasers cold turkey. This just isn’t a purge, after all. Rather, it’s the scheduled finish to computerized service contract renewal.
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It stands out as the first sincere and well-deserved upheaval within the homelessness industrial complicated in reminiscence.
The present system runs on mere manners. Previously, mayors and the Board of Supervisors (San Francisco’s City Council) handled service vendor renewals as rude to debate.
Contracts counted intakes and invoices, not profitable homelessness exits. Don’t discuss efficiency.
An aerial view of a homeless encampment at eighth and Harrison streets close to the UC Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California, on Thursday, August 20, 2026. The website has confronted years of legal battles, extreme fire and health hazards, and renewed public debate following a viral video documenting dense tent buildings and particles. Anadolu through Getty Images
The metropolis’s Prop C, a 2018 business surtax, locked spending into housing and companies — and created a foyer that treats the tax as untouchable. Spending soared.
Yet San Francisco’s point-in-time homeless rely lingers between about 7,000 and eight,300. Payments to nonprofits have more than tripled.
We residents are charged increased property and gross sales taxes, whereas guests pay a 14% resort tax. Large corporations pay the Prop C homelessness surtax on high of different business taxes.
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Still, activists argue that compassion requires even more spending. It’s a candidate’s frequent marketing campaign rallying cry.
San Francisco has additionally failed, till now, to flag failing homelessness service operators. Organizations contracting with town weren’t judged on whether or not purchasers left their services alive, discovered secure housing, and even left services in any respect.
Lurie’s response to this unhappy state of affairs has been a critical of cautious reforms.
A view of a homeless encampment at eighth and Harrison streets close to the UC Berkeley campus on Thursday, August 20, 2026, in Berkeley, California. The website has confronted years of legal battles, extreme fire and health hazards, and renewed public debate following a viral video documenting dense tent buildings and particles. Anadolu through Getty Images
And so there’s a case for hope. Unsheltered homelessness is at a 15-year low, and tent counts have fallen sharply. A couple of suppliers have really misplaced funding after investigations.
The Board of Supervisors is much less hostile to placing calls for on housing and remedy than it has been. Lurie’s thought of placing each contract in play is the primary significant transfer that to couner town’s sloppiness.
Let’s keep a eager eye on this, with some measured optimism. 2029 is a long means off.
Lurie is asking strained taxpayers and guests to trust him the following few years as he eyes his own reelection bid two years from now.
Meet his request midway. The take a look at just isn’t whether or not homelessness disappears; it’s whether or not this new course of can deny a contract for poor outcomes — and survive the politics circus that may observe.
If that occurs even as soon as, Lurie’s plan might be more than branding. It could have tooth.
Richie Greenberg is a political analyst and neighborhood advocate.
