Spending 60 times the money? San Francisco housing the homeless, enriching itself? -Spend 60 times the money? San Francisco to house the homeless for $61,000 a tent? Why?

San Francisco is paying $16.1 million to house the homeless in 262 tents that will be placed in vacant lots around the city. Since the beginning of the Epidemic, the city of San Francisco has set up six such “safe sleep village” tent camps that provide bathrooms, three meals and 24-hour security. Their annual price of more than $61,000 per tent is equivalent to 2.5 times the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. The average cost of $190 per night is $82 less than the city of San Francisco’s daily cost in its homeless hotel program.

The $16.1 million allocated to the Safe Sleep program is just a fraction of the more than $300 million San Francisco spends each year on homeless services, and the 2018 referendum authorized an additional $250 million to $300 million per year that could be raised for the homeless.

The homeless department said Wednesday that San Francisco has paid for the program through a combination of state appropriations, city general fund and 2018 business tax dollars because it was initially thought the tent program would be reimbursed by FEMA, however the tent program is considered a group shelter and is not eligible for federal reimbursement, especially with San Francisco’s projected $650 million budget deficit over the next two years The costs are staggering and must be revisited in light of the situation. The homelessness department said it is “analyzing” the tent program and figuring out how to move forward.

San Francisco’s mayor has asked all departments to cut at least 7.5 percent of their budgets to cover the $650 million deficit caused by the outbreak. To close the deficit, San Francisco’s leaders will have to make tough choices in the coming months until the federal government provides more financial assistance.

Netizens commented, “That’s outrageous! Even at $1,000 a tent, that’s only $262,000, and they’re actually spending 60 times that amount. I wonder whose pockets it is that all this money is going to.”

Another user commented, “This is how they divide the money among their own groups and pay their own men, so 80% goes to administrative matters, 10% is set aside for reserves, and 10% is used to set up the tents.”