Federal homeless czar lauds local efforts
You’d think that with President Trump’s budgets aimed at killing the country’s homelessness advisory agency, a visit to San Francisco by the head of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness for a first meeting with Mayor London Breed might have a bit of tension attached. Nothing of the sort. Trump’s opening salvos turned out to have been blunted — somewhat surprisingly — by the Republican-led Congress. Not only did the Interagency Council on Homelessness stay in place, but San Francisco actually got $9 million more this year in homeless grants than it did last year.
So when Executive Director Matthew Doherty, otherwise known as the U.S. homelessness czar, met with Breed on Thursday, it was all smiles. This wasn’t the kind of visit that gets trotted out with great publicity, but the stuff they powwowed about was gravely serious — they agreed on just about everything.
The need for more supportive housing? Check. More mental health facilities and funding to rescue severe mental cases from the street, a pet subject of Breed’s? Check. More rehab help for drug addicts? Check.
Breed said afterward she was glad for the chance to talk about “how to better coordinate our local and federal approaches.” Doherty’s counterpart in the city, Department of Homelessness and Supportive Services Director Jeff Kositsky, declared himself “very happy.”
Kositsky then led Doherty on a tour of some of the city’s scruffiest homeless camps and talked about what’s being done to address them.
“I think we showed we’re moving ahead, yes?” Kositsky said at a sit-down with The Chronicle and Doherty at a Tenderloin restaurant before the national czar flew back to Washington.
Doherty, an evaluative sort not given to effusive flattery, said he was “impressed” with the city’s efforts.
Having held the job in both the Obama and Trump administrations, Doherty has seen San Francisco develop its Navigation Center shelters, ramp up streetaddiction treatments and launch other techniques that have helped keep San Francisco’s homeless population flat at about 7,500 while every other street count along the West Coast has ballooned.
“You’re really starting to see the benefit of the consolidation of departments, particularly with the Encampment Resolution Team,” he said, noting that this week marks the second anniversary of the late Mayor Ed Lee creating Kositsky’s department. “I do think it would have been harder to get people into better outcomes without it. Keep it up.”
— Kevin Fagan