Let that sink in. Two of the other most notoriously expensive, homelessness-plagued cities in America, and we outspend them — together — on a per-capita basis. And what exactly do we have to show for it? Walk down any major corridor in SoMa, the Tenderloin, or the Mission and you already know the answer.

This isn't a compassion problem. San Franciscans are among the most generous people in the country when it comes to funding social services. The problem is that generosity without accountability is just waste. Billions of dollars flow through a labyrinth of nonprofits, city agencies, and overlapping programs with minimal transparency and even less in the way of measurable outcomes. We keep writing bigger checks and the situation keeps getting worse.

As one Bay Area resident put it bluntly: "We might just have to accept that some don't want to follow any social contract and are abusing altruistic hospitality." That's not a heartless take — it's an honest one. When encampments turn public sidewalks into biohazard zones that would trigger massive fines for any tax-paying citizen or business, something is structurally broken in how we're approaching this.

Another local pointed out a factor that rarely makes it into the discourse: "In the South, they don't actually count these people as homeless. They just have really cheap land that people go park their RVs on." Fair point — geography and cost of living matter. But that context doesn't excuse the sheer inefficiency of our spending. Cheap land or not, other cities are producing better outcomes with a fraction of the budget.

The uncomfortable truth is that San Francisco has turned homelessness into an industry. There are organizations whose entire operating model depends on the problem never actually getting solved. And City Hall keeps feeding the machine because cutting funding would require admitting the approach isn't working — political suicide in a town where "more money" is the default answer to every crisis.

What if we tried something radical: tying funding to results? Sunset clauses on programs that don't hit benchmarks. Independent audits with teeth. Actual competition among service providers. You know — the kind of accountability we'd expect from literally any other billion-dollar operation.

San Franciscans deserve better than the most expensive failure in American urban policy.