Board holds lengthy "Place for All" hearing as HSH proposes $992 million plan to reduce unsheltered homelessness

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors convened a Committee of the Whole on March 21 to hear "A Place for All," a report from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) that outlines options to substantially reduce unsheltered homelessness over three years.

HSH presented a modeling-based plan developed with consultants that compares a balanced package of interventions (prevention, shelter and permanent supportive housing) with a shelter-focused alternative. The department said it revised the cost assumptions in the report after initial release, lowering the up-front three-year start-up estimate from roughly $1.45 billion to about $992 million by shifting some assumptions about acquisitions versus leases and other development choices.

What the department proposed: HSH and its modeling partner Focus Strategies said a balanced investment would add approximately 3,810 permanent supportive housing units and 2,250 shelter units (plus prevention and staffing) and that, under their assumptions, these combined actions would eliminate unsheltered homelessness in three years while avoiding the recurring need to keep building more shelter indefinitely.

By contrast, HSH also modeled a shelter-first strategy: that approach could eliminate unsheltered homelessness in three years only by adding roughly 5,500 shelter beds, but it would require the city to keep adding shelter capacity year after year unless parallel investments in prevention and housing were also…