Five Myths About Homelessness in San Francisco
We are a group of 11 friends and 8 children who have been spending the last couple months learning about homelessness in San Francisco. We've learned a lot, and have come across some faulty assumptions, especially in our own minds. Myth #1. Those who experience homelessness want to live in tents; tons of shelter beds go unused. We've heard this a lot: that the people on the streets want to be there. They don't want to go to shelters where they can't bring their partners or pets. They want to be free to use drugs on the streets. While that may certainly be true for some people, the data indicate a very different problem. The San Francisco 90-day emergency shelter system operates 1,203 beds and the waitlist is 1,092 people deep (as of this writing on 4/27/18). Furthermore, San Francisco's most recent homeless census counted 7,499 people on the streets. It's highly unlikely that the vast majority of these folks want to be out there. The easie
