So, this runs rather counter to the news stories I have been reading about the SF homeless situation. That means, either:<p>1) the numbers are bogus (e.g. they are missing a higher percentage of homeless in their count than they did in 2019)<p>2) the remaining homeless are more problematic in their behavior, thus causing more of a problem even though there are fewer of them<p>3) the newsmedia are just printing stories about the homeless in SF more often because it gets clicks, and homelessness is not actually a worsening problem in SF<p>I would be curious to hear from any SF-resident HN readers as to their opinions on which of these options is more likely.
I would like to recommend a podcast called 'According to Need' [0] (by some of the 99% Invisible crew) which talks about homelessness in the Bay Area. I don't quite understand some of the local context, but there's only 5 episodes and I found it really interesting.<p>[0] <a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/need/" rel="nofollow">https://99percentinvisible.org/need/</a>
This report doesn't go into very much detail what "sheltered" means. Does a tent count? Does sleeping in an alcove in front of a store count?
As i read it there was a large increse in shelter capacity. The amoubt of street homelessness dropped by about 20% because there was an increase of shelter space of about 20%. Its of course not a 1:1 ratio but pretty close,. Basically nothing has changed