No — Spending more without other changes won’t help us
Afew years ago, Micah moved in with our family. A U.S. Navy veteran with a ready smile, she found herself living in her car after not being able to make ends meet as a house cleaner. After many nights playing board games and sharing meals with her, I can tell you that people experiencing homelessness aren’t “other” — they’re us. They deserve a thoughtful and aggressive plan to end this crisis.
Homelessness is out of control in San Francisco, across California, and in many of our nation’s cities. Changing its trajectory will require new solutions, a more effective government, and smart coordination within our community.
My company, Stripe, makes it easier for people anywhere to start and run a business online. We employ about 1,000 people in San Francisco. We’ve contributed to efforts to expand affordable housing and to help former homeless or incarcerated San Franciscans get back on their feet. We don’t deserve special credit for these efforts. But because we care about the city, opposing Proposition C on the San Francisco ballot this November is an unlikely and uncomfortable position for us.
We know how easy it is for wellintentioned measures to fall short of their desired goals. Because of the importance of the homelessness issue, it’s important to be rigorous in assessing Prop. C’s merits.
Prop. C will likely hurt more than it helps. It would permanently raise taxes and double spending for homeless services without a comprehensive plan, at a time when the city already lacks accountability for the more than $300 million now spent on homelessness every year.
There is no evidence that spending more, without other changes,
will help. The city has spent roughly $2 billion over the past decade on homeless services but through most of that period has had no effective system even to track how the money is spent, who’s being helped, and which programs are working. While there have been modest improvements in accountability, the budget has tripled to more than $300 million, and the homeless population has only grown, now to more than 7,500.
Prop. C will place new burdens
on San Franciscans already struggling to stay afloat and could easily push more people into homelessness or out of the city altogether. The city’s own Office of Economic and Workforce Development says that the measure will disproportionately impact San Franciscans who work in grocery stores, retail shops, and other low-margin businesses.
This is a regional problem that requires a regional solution and coordination among service providers, law enforcement, hospitals, courts and many others. Prop. C does none of that. As Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently said, Prop. C could make the problem worse by encouraging more homeless people to come to San Francisco.
It doesn’t do enough to address
the root issue: housing supply and affordability. The city and state have to make it easier to build apartments, protect tenants, and require that new housing projects include more affordable units.
We should give Mayor London
Breed a chance to develop a comprehensive plan to tackle homelessness and fix a broken bureaucracy. The mayor is bringing fresh thinking and a renewed focus on homelessness and housing affordability to City Hall. The city elected her to lead, but doing so takes time and partnership.
She may propose new taxes on businesses, which we’re not opposed to if part of a comprehensive plan.
The choice in November is between an ill-conceived half-measure in Prop. C and giving the mayor San Franciscans elected the time to develop an approach that will work.