The way homelessness has been tackled in Finland is by offering free housing, no string attached, to homeless people.<p>I think there is a culture of "but people need to deserve it", and I guess because housing is so expensive in San Francisco it might seem like it's unfair that homeless people get free housing whereas someone with a job needs to spend 50% of their pay in housing. But if you want the problem to be solved, this seems to be way to go about it.<p>Of course, governments need to also provide programs for reinsertion and rehabilitation, but people need the stability while they recover which is a process that will be full of ups and downs. For these people any barrier might be too high. So I think the rest of us need to come to terms with "giving away free stuff", that's just what works.<p>Free housing for the homeless, no strings attached.
SF spends ~$1B/y on homelessness with little to show for it. Maybe they need to invest in more SROs on the outskirts and/or a federal declaration of a disaster including voluntary resettlement with comprehensive support. It's too big of an issue to solve at the local level, and it's too expensive to solve in the most expensive areas.
Just build free housing for the homeless. Build a large camp style rehab center. If you’re sleeping on the street you get arrested and get a choice to go to one of these two places. These homeless bums are currently provided with housing but since they can’t shoot you there they refuse to use them.