6,686 A civic disgrace The reduction of homelessness to the extent humanly possible must be San Francisco’s No. 1 priority. EDITORIAL

It persists on the streets of San Francisco through boom times and downturns. It is alternately an incubator and a destroyer of political will, as elected representatives eventually discover that their pledges to address it become their undoing when it doesn’t go away. It takes a heavy toll on the ambience of our neighborhoods, the cost of doing business for many enterprises and the experience of visitors who are stunned to encounter such deprivation in a city of profound prosperity.

It frustrates and polarizes San Francisco like nothing else. There are those who see it as a social-services challenge, those who reduce it to a law-enforcement matter, and a few who think the problem would simply go away if only there were more affordable housing in the city.

On one point we must all agree: The level and pervasiveness of homelessness in San Francisco is a disgrace. It is simply not acceptable to allow people to stay in the squalor of tent encampments or sleep in doorways, parks and freeway underpasses without attention to the underlying issues that prevent them from attaining shelter and stability in their lives. It’s bad for public safety, bad for public health, and bad as a matter of basic humanity.

Its reduction to the extent humanly possible should be this city’s No. 1 priority.

The ultimate goal must be to eliminate, not manage, homelessness.

No mayor, no member of the Board of Supervisors — no resident with heart and a love for this city — should accept the status quo.

That a city can spend $241 million a year on programs and still confront such human misery suggests those dollars are not being spent with anything close to optimal effectiveness. Eight city departments and 76 private and nonprofit organizations draw from those funds in 400 contracts, yet the degree of accountability is highly suspect. There is no system in place to rigorously determine which of those endeavors might be duplicative or less effective. In Houston, for example, the city was able to realize considerable savings by shutting down a homeless-specific job training program and sending participants to other existing similar programs covered by state and federal dollars.

San Francisco has an entrenched Homeless Industrial Complex that is as difficult to track and control as it is to count people living on the streets.

Yes, it surely will require an increased investment in services and housing to give the homeless a credible chance of moving off the streets. It could require bond measures or general-fund spending that will need public support. That assent will be far more attainable if accompanied by confidence that dollars are being well spent.

Programs that are underperforming should be eliminated to free up dollars for those that are showing results. That must be an essential mission for Jeff Kositsky, leader of the new Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing created by Mayor Ed Lee.

One of the recurring themes in our series of news stories in the past week was the frustration of those on the front lines, in government and nonprofit services, that the available programs do not match all the essential needs of people trying to emerge from homelessness. That would include people who have made progress in substance-abuse or mental health treatment who could be in less structured settings — at much lower cost — and people stuck in the austere shelters who could benefit greatly from the array of support services available in the Navigation Centers.

The city needs to evaluate and track people in homeless programs to assure that they are put in the most suitable settings for both effective use of taxpayer dollars and availability of services that will give individuals the support for moving beyond homelessness. Houston and Salt Lake City have established such tracking systems.

The Chronicle’s extensive reporting on the state of homelessness has offered a compelling template for solutions. Again, there are lessons to be learned from other cities. New York City’s FUSE (Frequent Users Service Enhancement) program identifies people most likely to end up in jail or emergency rooms, and directs them to housing and services. A 2014 report showed that 86 percent remained in housing two years after entering the program — more than double the rate in a comparison group.

The severe effects of chronic homelessness on the city budget and life on the streets is no secret in San Francisco. Those with the most acute dysfunction due to substance abuse or mental illness represent a disproportionate strain on the budget. They too often become caught in a brutal cycle of jail stays, ambulance rides and emergency care. Some 1,500 chronically homeless people cost the city about $80,000 a year each; the figure rises to $150,000 for the 338 considered the most needy in the city’s public-health database.

It’s a waste of money, and a waste of lives.

A focus on chronic homelessness will require a considerable public investment — perhaps starting with a bond measure of $200 million just for new housing — but the long-term savings would be worth it. It also will require a summoning of public will to overcome the inevitable neighborhood resistance to construction of supportive housing for the homeless in available spaces.

Pursuit of solutions to homelessness in San Francisco also demands a change of mind-set in significant ways. One: This is not just a San Francisco problem; it needs to be approached regionally, statewide, even nationally. State Sen. Holly Mitchell, a Los Angeles Democrat, is on the right track with SB1380, which would create a state Interagency Council on Homelessness to identify and share best practices around the state. The Legislature needs to pass SB1380 and move ahead with a proposed $2 billion homeless housing bond. San Francisco needs to work together with Oakland and San Jose, which are experiencing their own struggles with homelessness, to assure that they are not merely shifting the burden to one another.

Also, San Francisco, which gets an influx of about 450 chronically homeless people a year, needs to shed any perception that it is a sanctuary for people who are unwilling to participate in programs designed to get them off, and keep them off, a life in the streets. It is neither inhumane nor “criminalizing poverty” to enforce laws against aggressive panhandling, tent encampments or defecation and urination in public places. It would be a colossal waste of money to make the necessary investments in supportive housing and other services without a commensurate commitment to assure that the people who are offered this array of assistance are no longer afforded the option to flout the law with impunity.

This is San Francisco’s challenge of the times. There could be no greater legacy to this era of unprecedented prosperity than to accompany the resources and ingenuity it is bringing to the city with the will to solve this untenable predicament of the human condition before our eyes every day.

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