The Politics of Homelessness in San Francisco

The fourth article in a series highlighting the sociological context of ASA’s next Annual Meeting location . . . San Francisco, California

by Darren Noy, Graduate Student, University of California-Berkeley

As ASA members gather for this summer’s meeting in San Francisco, it will be difficult not to notice homeless people on the city’s streets. Estimates place San Francisco’s homeless population anywhere between 8,000 and 15,000.

Homelessness is especially visible in San Francisco because, unlike in other U.S. cities, where heavy-handed police tactics have driven homeless people from sight, San Francisco’s political left has often managed to stymie such measures. At the same time, however, the city has not been able to develop a cohesive, positive homeless policy with commonly accepted goals and widespread support. By mapping the organizational and ideological field underlying San Francisco homeless policy, my recent research aims to explain why.*

Framings of Homelessness

Despite the fractiousness of San Francisco’s homeless policy field, the majority of actors involved have surprisingly similar understandings of home- lessness and of its solutions. In particular, organizations in the political center and left of the field both “frame” home- lessness within a systemic perspective. That is, they focus on the role of economic and housing systems in causing homelessness, and on society’s failure to provide adequate health care, substance abuse treatment, and other social benefits.

These center and left organizations include those service providers, homeless advocates, and government agencies that are most involved on a day-to-day level in addressing homelessness. Along with their understanding of the systemic causes of homelessness, these organizations also broadly agree on the ineffectiveness of social control or punitive measures in resolving homelessness. Finally, they believe that San Francisco homeless programs are generally doing good work, but are under-funded.

While the center and the left see homelessness in fairly similar ways, their framings are in stark contrast to those of organizations on the right of the policy field, including business groups, public safety and cleanliness organizations, and moderate-conservative neighborhood associations, think tanks, and media. These organizations feel homeless people are responsible for falling quality of life, declining business for merchants, and adverse effects on the tourist industry. Many on the right focus on individual deficiencies—such as substance abuse and choosing to be homeless—as the primary cause of homelessness, denying the importance of systemic causes. Belief that homelessness stems from individual deviance and that homeless people harm the community goes hand in hand with advocacy of increasing social control of homeless people, coercing them into services or institutions, and the enforcement of “quality of life” laws. Finally, these organizations see the city’s homeless programs as a hopelessly inefficient bureaucracy that wastes millions of taxpayer dollars. Some even believe that service providers actively maintain homelessness in order to sustain their organization’s revenues.

The stark cleavage between the center/left view of homelessness versus the right view is complicated by the fact that the right has twice the political influence of the left. As a result, the center ends up caught in between the power of the right and “frame agreements” with the left. The center—and indeed, the whole policy field—is thus torn apart, fractured and fragmented. The city bureaucracy is left without a coherent approach to home- lessness and with fragmented and murky policymaking forums. In fact, the city bureaucracy is the least ideologically coherent of all the sectors of San Francisco’s homeless policy field.

Supportive Housing Model

Amidst this fragmentation, one program model that is growing in popularity across the political spectrum is “supportive housing.” Supportive housing combines the provision of affordable housing with on-site support services, by placing case workers and other support staff in housing developments. Because supportive housing involves an increase in housing units, it resonates with the systemic frames of the center-left. At the same time supportive housing places homeless people within a setting where they can be overseen and managed by caseworkers, and it therefore resonates with the right’s frame of the need for increased social control.

But the supportive housing model is not without contention. Critics on the left point out that resolving homelessness is not only about finding a place to put those who already are on the streets, but also about assuring the security of low income people who are one step from being homeless. While building supportive housing may be an answer for some of the currently homeless, it does not alter the broader systemic issues such as the widespread lack of affordable housing, health care, community-based support services, or living wage jobs. Critics say that San Francisco’s homeless system is already so unaccountable and wasteful, before adding another layer, serious cuts and measures of accountability must take place.

San Francisco’s newly elected mayor, Gavin Newsom, has proclaimed supportive housing to be the centerpiece of his approach to homelessness. Newsom, whose campaign was heavily funded by the right, first took interest in homelessness as a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. In the past year and a half, Newsom sponsored two homeless related ballot initiatives: one that reduced cash benefits to homeless people in lieu of services, and one that increased legal restrictions and fines for “inappropriate” panhandling. Newsom sold both of these initiatives to voters by including in them measures that increased services and substance abuse assessment for homeless people, though opponents of the initiatives claimed the measures to increase services were empty, unfunded advertising gimmicks.

Building a Policy that Works

In his January 8 mayoral inaugural address, Newsom called for San Franciscans to move beyond the contentious stalemate in homeless politics, which has paralyzed them for years, and to work together to find common ground. In my report on homeless policy in San Francisco (see citation below), I suggest that the most effective way to do this would be to strengthen the alliance between center and left organizations, including city departments, foundations, small and large service providers, homeless advocates, community activists, housing developers, and homeless research organizations. Although most of these organizations frame homelessness in similar ways, many are nonetheless deeply alienated from each other. Whether San Francisco can collaboratively develop a workable homeless policy may largely depend on the degree to which center and left organizations come together to develop an authoritative plan based on a systemic framing of homelessness, as well as, the degree to which Newsom is willing to let this happen and to hold his supporters and campaign funders at bay as he does that.