15% of the homeless in SF have a traumatic brain injury. That statistic means almost 1 in 5 right off the top need long term medical care. "Mere housing" won't do jack for those people.
Even more have mental health issues. Some have physical health issues. The number of homeless who are perfectly healthy and just need housing is vanishingly small--those homeless are generally hiding from someone and won't want to be part of a tracked program.
We know what needs to be done: long term healthcare that needs lots of money.
We know what happened in the past: those facilities were horror shows because of underfunding.
We know what the "solutions" were in the past: shut the facility down and throw those people out onto the streets and let the prision system deal with them.
The starting point for solving homelessness is universal healthcare. Nothing less. Without universal healthcare, everything else to "solve" homelessness is just rearranging the deck chairs.
Even more have mental health issues. Some have physical health issues. The number of homeless who are perfectly healthy and just need housing is vanishingly small--those homeless are generally hiding from someone and won't want to be part of a tracked program.
We know what needs to be done: long term healthcare that needs lots of money.
We know what happened in the past: those facilities were horror shows because of underfunding.
We know what the "solutions" were in the past: shut the facility down and throw those people out onto the streets and let the prision system deal with them.
The starting point for solving homelessness is universal healthcare. Nothing less. Without universal healthcare, everything else to "solve" homelessness is just rearranging the deck chairs.