For Immediate Release: October 24, 2002

San Francisco’s homeless problem is worse than ever, and can be solved using proven experience and common sense

San Francisco, CA — A new study released today by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) says that San Francisco should consider New York City’s model in dealing with the homeless. This analysis of the economic and political issues surrounding homelessness is particularly relevant to San Francisco’s current debate over Propositions N and O.

A Tale of Two Cities: If New York Can Reduce Homelessness, Why Can’t San Francisco?, by Sally C. Pipes and K. Lloyd Billingsley, argues that San Francisco’s policy of large cash grants to the homeless, with few questions asked, is responsible for attracting the homeless to the city.

Recipients spend most of the cash on drugs and liquor, say health officials cited in PRI’s study. As a result, 1,000 homeless have died on San Francisco streets over the past decade, including 183 in 2000.

“In short, San Francisco’s policies are bad for the homeless themselves,” said PRI president and co-author Sally C. Pipes. “Ten years ago, New York City had a similar homeless problem and was regarded as ungovernable," said Pipes. "Today there are fewer homeless in New York, a city ten times larger than San Francisco. Our city needs to learn from that experience.”

There are now about 3,000 homeless on New York City’s streets compared to as many as 14,000 homeless in San Francisco, according to estimates from Mayor Brown’s Office. This is San Francisco’s largest homeless population in 20 years, and the costs are estimated to be as high as $200 million annually.

Heavy emergency room usage from drug overdoses boosts the expense. The study cites the case of one self-described “homeless drunk,” picked up no fewer than 128 times over the past few years, with 11 felony arrests and 24 trips to the emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital, all at public expense.

“San Francisco's policy is a public subsidy for drugs and alcohol, along with the right to abuse them with impunity, without regard to the effect of such abuse on other people, as well as themselves,” Pipes said.

The policies of New York City, by contrast, have shifted spending from General Assistance cash handouts toward treatment, work programs, and efforts to foster personal responsibility. The city’s program includes:

• centralized intake and tracking
• extensive outreach by both social workers and police
• programs treating substance abuse and mental illness, and counseling and employment services
• mandatory, structured rehabilitation programs
• a role for paid work, saving, and personal responsibility
• homeless advocates who reject what does not work and promote what does

“A Tale of Two Cities details the political perils of attempting to launch such reforms in San Francisco. As the authors conclude, “Fewer homeless on the streets of San Francisco will require more than the sure knowledge that giving cash to junkies and drunks is bad for them and everybody else. It will require the abandonment of the victim culture and renewed emphasis on work and personal responsibility.”

###

About PRI
For more than two decades, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) has championed individual liberty through free markets. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the principles of limited government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility.