San Francisco is stuck between a rock and a hard place: Progressive good intentions are running up against big government.
It’s no secret that it’s difficult to get new buildings approved in San Francisco, and if they are approved, they are expensive to build. It turns out that same principle applies to the latest progressive policy innovation to help the homeless.
The city of San Francisco wants to build a village of cabins for homeless people to live in. It would be built in an abandoned parking lot that the city already owns in the Mission District neighborhood and consist of 70 tiny houses. The idea is not new. Trisha Thadani writes for the San Francisco Chronicle:
Tiny cabin villages — a relatively affordable and fast way to get people off the streets — are seen as the next frontier in sheltering the homeless. The private cabins, which are about 64 square feet each, have comforts such as heat, a desk, a bed and a window. The surrounding site has bathrooms, showers, a dining facility and security. Advocates say they’re a more humane and dignified way to get people off the streets than group shelters and that homeless people are more likely to accept placement in them.
The model has been widely embraced by other Bay Area cities, such as Oakland and San Jose. San Francisco currently has one village of 70 cabins at 33 Gough St., which HSH director Shireen McSpadden told The Chronicle in September 2021 the department “might want to replicate” in other parts of the city if the pilot was successful.
But the politician who pushed for the Mission District site has changed her mind after “overwhelming opposition” from her constituents.
Some residents were concerned because the village would be close to an elementary school. Others were concerned about the ability of the city to maintain the site.
The costs of construction far exceed similar projects in other areas. City officials estimated that the tiny cabins would cost $100,000 to build, and that doesn’t include the costs to maintain and operate them. Similar units in Oakland only cost a tenth of that. The existing San Francisco site, which was built by a nonprofit, had units that cost $15,000 each. Thadani quotes a homelessness activist who said, “There are benefits to having a nonprofit and not the government building these things.”
You don’t say. Thadani writes:
[The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH)] said the higher per-cabin cost for the Mission site is due to several factors, including increased construction costs amid inflation. Both Ronen and Cohen of HSH said the $7 million was an estimate and they are hopeful the prices will go down as the Department of Public Works gets bids from contractors.
Inflation is too high, but it isn’t 900 percent. And down is not usually the direction that prices go as government projects progress.
A report from HSH found “various barriers in the city’s way,” Thadani writes, “including the glacially slow approval process, long construction timelines — and finding a location that is both financially viable and acceptable to neighbors.”
In other words, the latest progressive scheme is running into the barriers that San Francisco’s progressive government erected — the same barriers that make it difficult for just about anyone to build just about anything there.