Board Hears Civil Grand Jury Critique of Homeless Spending; City Officials Defend Supportive‑housing Strategy

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee on April 1 heard a civil grand jury report that faulted San Francisco for lacking clear, consolidated accounting of its homelessness spending and for continuing street-level problems even after housing placements.

Patricia Knight, the grand jury foreman, told the committee that "at the time we wrote our report, there was $186,000,000 allocated to the problem of homelessness," and urged three actions for the Board of Supervisors: update the city’s analysis of homeless spending, commission a comprehensive cost‑benefit analysis of supportive‑housing programs, and require program-level attention to quality‑of‑life impacts on the streets.

Dariush Khayon, the mayor’s homeless director, said the administration has centered its strategy on permanent supportive housing — housing combined with on‑site services — and disputed the implication that spending alone explains street conditions. "It's more expensive or as expensive for someone to be homeless as it is to house them in supportive housing," Khayon said, and he described outreach teams and pilot street interventions the city is testing.

Mark Trotz of the Department of Public Health, who leads the department’s housing and urban health work, said targeted supportive housing reduces high-cost emergency usage: he described analyses showing intensive users can cost the system "$150,000 to $200,000 a year" while direct access housing can cost roughly "$30 to $50 a day" in housing. Trotz also outlined a multi‑project pipeline of supportive‑housing developments the department expects to open over the next three years.

Joyce Crum, director of Housing and Homeless Programs at the Human Services Agency, described a recent internal inventory and a Single Adult Supportive Housing (SASH) work group. HSA reported an inventory of roughly 3,623 supportive‑housing units, said operating‑costs per unit in its review ranged widely ("from $700 per person up to $19,000 per person" in the transcript), and told the committee it would issue a request for proposals and set standardized outcome measures; the department stated an operating guideline of "$8,163 per unit" as part of that work.

Public commenters and provider representatives urged both stronger oversight and caution. Thomas Picariello, a Tenderloin resident, pressed for benchmarks and performance standards for nonprofit contractors. Jeff Kositzky, executive director of the Community Housing Partnership, commended the city’s work while criticizing elements of HSA’s evaluation process and urging coordination across departments.

The committee did not adopt final responses at the hearing. Chair Ross Mercarini closed the discussion and scheduled continued consideration of the homelessness recommendations for the committee’s next meeting to allow staff to craft formal responses and any amendments to the resolutions.

What happens next: The civil grand jury asked the board to respond to specific findings and recommendations; the committee directed staff to continue work on its response and to fold technical recommendations into upcoming budget and monitoring work. The hearing record and department responses will inform the board’s formal reply to the grand jury.