The Board of Supervisors approved a five-year extension Tuesday to the law that allows San Francisco to nimbly — or, according to its critics, ineffectively — address homelessness.
Legislators grappled Tuesday with how much latitude to give city officials responding to the ongoing homelessness crisis at a time when many question whether San Francisco is spending its money wisely.
Given the scale of homelessness in San Francisco, The City adopted a policy in 2019 that allows the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to readily ink deals to expand homeless services without normal processes such as soliciting competitive bids.
In October, Mayor London Breed proposed extending that policy into 2029 but met pushback from supervisors.
“HSH has a budget of over $600 million and has had a contract waiver in place since 2019, allowing them to circumvent the city’s standard oversight process without any real results,” Supervisor Connie Chan, who chairs the board’s Budget Committee, said in a statement Tuesday.
In justifying the policy — which sets the departments of Public Works and Homelessness and Supportive Housing apart from other corners of city government — officials have explained that homelessness is an issue that demands a flexible, prompt response.
They noted that in the most recent Point-in-Time Count, a biennial census of The City’s homeless population, the overall number of people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco in 2022 had slightly declined while other Bay Area counties saw an uptick since 2019.
Ex // Top Stories
When people come to The City, London Breed opines, visitors won’t residents hanging their heads — they’ll find San Franciscans building the future
Previous elections offer insight into the road ahead this fall, Ben Kaplan argues
Polling for a $300 million affordable housing bond measure on the March 5 ballot showed support falling just short of the two-thirds needed for passage
Several supervisors had questions, but the board ultimately adopted the proposal to extend HSH’s latitude over such deals on Tuesday by a 7-4 vote. Supervisors Ahsha Safai, Aaron Peskin, and Matt Dorsey joined Chan in voting against it.
The City’s spending on nonprofits and homelessness services was questioned in a 2023 civil grand jury report that noted San Francisco does not have a standardized way of evaluating the efficacy of services it funds.
In explaining her vote, Chan pointed to scandals plaguing San Francisco nonprofits. Last week, NBC Bay Area reported that federal Housing and Urban Development officials inspected a vehicle triage site operated by Urban Alchemy for potential violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Last year, the nonprofit United Council on Human Services was cut off after an audit of the homeless-services provider — which had received about $28 million in City contracts — found financial mismanagement and a litany of other issues.
The streamlining policy does not create a contracting free-for-all. The Board of Supervisors must receive an annual report on streamlined contracts and still have to sign off on any deals that amount to over $1 million.
City officials have said the exemption from a normal bidding process can trim about three months off the time it takes to get a new project up and running.
In its first four years, the policy streamlined 159 contracts to 52 nonprofits, amounting to 10,199 units of supportive housing, 2,858 shelter beds and additional homeless services, according to HSH.
