Daniel Lurie’s homeless reforms will finally deliver accountability

San Franciscans are battle-weary — amid endless pushes for tax increases and demands for “compassion” by homelessness activists.

That’s why Mayor Daniel Lurie’s August 31 plan to require every homeless services provider contracting with the city to reapply and then be scrutinized is a breath of fresh air. It’s the first time in years City Hall has attached a price tag to the obvious.

San Francisco spends as a system that absorbs other people’s money and keeps a permanent caseload. It is a business model. The plan will not end homelessness. So is it enough change for us to cheer?

Lurie’s new plan mechanics are plain. For the next three years, the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will open its contract portfolio back out to competition — about $500+ million a year — with new contract requirements demanding success.

City Hall will pay for good results, and “redirect” money when a contract provider’s strategy fails. That could bring accountability.

Lurie’s plan rollout is phased over time so the city can’t be accused of cutting off clients cold turkey. This is not a purge, after all. Rather, it’s the scheduled end to automatic service contract renewal.

It may be the first honest and well-deserved upheaval in the homelessness industrial complex in memory.

The existing system runs on mere manners. Previously, mayors and the Board of Supervisors (San Francisco’s City Council) treated service vendor renewals as impolite to discuss.

Contracts counted intakes and invoices, not successful homelessness exits. Don’t talk about performance.

The city’s Prop C, a 2018 business surtax, locked spending into housing and services — and created a lobby that treats the tax as untouchable. Spending soared.

Yet San Francisco’s point-in-time homeless count lingers between about 7,000 and 8,300. Payments to nonprofits have more than tripled.

We residents are charged higher property and sales taxes, while visitors pay a 14% hotel tax. Large firms pay the Prop C homelessness surtax on top of other business taxes.

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Still, activists argue that compassion requires even more spending. It’s a candidate’s frequent campaign rallying cry.

San Francisco has also failed, until now, to flag failing homelessness service operators. Organizations contracting with the city were not judged on whether clients left their facilities alive, found stable housing, or even left facilities at all.

Lurie’s response to this sad situation has been a serious of cautious reforms.

And so there is a case for hope. Unsheltered homelessness is at a 15-year low, and tent counts have fallen sharply. A few providers have actually lost funding after investigations.

The Board of Supervisors is less hostile to putting demands on housing and treatment than it has been. Lurie’s idea of putting every contract in play is the first meaningful move that to couner the city’s sloppiness.

Let’s keep a keen eye on this, with some measured optimism. 2029 is a long way off.

Lurie is asking strained taxpayers and visitors to trust him the next few years as he eyes his own reelection bid two years from now.

Meet his request halfway. The test is not whether homelessness disappears; it’s whether this new process can deny a contract for poor results — and survive the politics circus that will follow.

If that happens even once, Lurie’s plan could be more than branding. It will have teeth.

Richie Greenberg is a political analyst and community advocate.