Opinion: SF's failure to provide oversight of nonprofits a key reason why homelessness crisis never improves
King George IV of England (r. 1820–30) was a royal—a royal spendthrift.
Susan Dyer Reynolds of the excellent Voice of SF says the quiet part out loud: unaccountable nonprofits and virtue-signalling tech execs have blown through hundreds of millions on homelessness, to little effect.
“Homelessness is not designed to be solved. It is designed to be perpetuated. It is to treat the problem, not solve it.”
— Former mayor Willie Brown in the CNN documentary, “What Happened to San Francisco?”
I have been a critic of San Francisco’s multibillion-dollar homeless and “harm reduction” industries for nearly two decades. I have opined frequently about the absolute failure of the players involved, like the Coalition on Homelessness (COH). Their mantra, as with all “housing first” advocates, is “we just need to build more housing.” Ironically, the very people saying that, from COH founder Jennifer Friedenbach to her mouthpiece Christin Evans to some wealthy tech honchos, have the money to do just that — Friedenbach comes from an almond dynasty, while Evans’s father headed the world’s largest aluminum company and owns a $12 million home in San Francisco.
The hypocrisy is palpable.
Then there’s Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff who helped Friedenbach and Evans push through Proposition C in 2018 to raise millions for “homeless services” by increasing taxes on large businesses. As I wrote in my Gotham by the Bay newsletter, while scrolling through Twitter, Evans came across a post from Benioff, the founder and CEO of software company Salesforce, referring to San Francisco as the “Four Seasons of homelessness.” Outraged, she tweeted back, “Did @benioff just compare SF’s homeless services to a luxury hotel chain? How out of touch can a billionaire be?!?!”
Intrigued, Benioff reached out to Evans and the two exchanged private messages. While Benioff attributed the “Four Seasons” quote to somebody else, Evans saw an opportunity to reel in the CEO of San Francisco’s largest employer. By the end of their chat, Benioff supported the measure, despite the fact it would cost his own company millions. He and Salesforce donated a combined $8 million to the campaign (the most ever spent on a local ballot measure so near to election day). Benioff became Proposition C’s biggest champion, chastising fellow CEOs for “not caring about homeless people.” Even his celebrity friends, comedian Chris Rock and singer Jewel, came onboard, shooting endorsement videos for Evans and COH. “We call her the CEO whisperer,” Friedenbach boasted at the time.
The Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee (OCOH) was set up to ensure the funds are “effectively and transparently used,” but Proposition C’s biggest lobbyist, Friedenbach, was appointed to the committee by the Board of Supervisors.
In May 2023, the Homeless Oversight Commission launched to oversee the incompetent Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (DHSH) and “receive advice and recommendations from OCOH on the administration of Proposition throughout C funds.” Guess who the Board of Supervisors appointed as one of its commissioners? Christin Evans.
According to their website, San Francisco spent nearly $300 million in OCOH funds in fiscal year 2022 (July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023) and added “1,191 units of capacity.” Apparently, that’s homeless industry jargon for housing. So let me get this straight: with a budget of $300 million the “all we need to do is build more housing” folks added less than 1,200 units of housing?
“Permanent Housing is a central component … with at least 50% of the Fund allocated for this service area,” the website explains. During the 2022–23 fiscal year the city expended $94 million on acquisition of new buildings for use as permanent supportive housing and $57 million in housing operations. Overall, the city funded 2,909 units of housing capacity across “several types of housing,” including “783 net units of capacity added in FY22–23.”
Wait. What? A net 783 units of housing? If Tim Cook ran Apple into the ground the way city officials and their nonprofit partners have done with San Francisco, he would be kicked to the curb.
Read the whole thing here.
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