San Fran­cis­co May­or Lon­don Breed is call­ing for a dou­bling of the city’s goal to expand its home­less shel­ters in an effort to get unhoused res­i­dents off the streets.

As Mag­gie Angst explains in the San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle, the city’s orig­i­nal goal, laid out in 2023, called for a 50 per­cent reduc­tion in unshel­tered home­less­ness by 2028. “Offi­cials pro­ject­ed that achiev­ing the plan’s goals would require adding 1,075 new shel­ter beds and 3,250 new per­ma­nent sup­port­ive hous­ing units, as well as finan­cial sup­port to an addi­tion­al 4,300 house­holds at risk of home­less­ness. The new goal calls for adding 2,150 shel­ter beds between spring 2023 and June 2028.” Advo­cates say the plan large­ly side­steps the root caus­es of home­less­ness and fails to focus on pre­ven­tion and per­ma­nent hous­ing.

While it is unclear how many units the city has built, it remains far from its goal. “The city has not opened a new per­ma­nent sup­port­ive hous­ing build­ing since March 2023 and the may­or’s office could not imme­di­ate­ly say how many new vouch­ers had been released since the plan was enact­ed in April 2023.”

The urgency of the expan­sion comes in part as a response to a sharp rise in fam­i­ly home­less­ness in the city, which grew by 94 per­cent in the last two years.