Though it’s well known that San Francisco is one of the wealthiest cities in the world, it’s also clear to anyone who has explored this city that it contains multitudes. In light of the drastic juxtaposition of extreme wealth to the suffering and institutional marginalization that exists within the city, many of the liberal ideals our local leaders espouse ring hollow to the casual observer.

This juxtaposition is perhaps best exemplified in the drastically different homeless populations of districts 2 and 6 (D2 & D6).

Over the course of 9 point-in-time homeless counts in San Francisco, D2 was the only district with under 100 unsheltered individuals in every count, and D6 was the only district with over 1,000 unsheltered individuals in every count. In this case study, I seek to explain why D2 and D6 have the lowest and highest populations of unsheltered homeless individuals in San Francisco.

For context, from 1856–1899 San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors consisted of twelve members elected from twelve different wards throughout the city. In 1900, the Board switched to at-large elections, which continued until a political agitator named Harvey Milk led the charge to switch back to district elections in 1977.

Following Milk’s assassination by fellow Supervisor Dan White, many deemed district elections too divisive and they were eliminated in 1980. Two decades later a coalition of activists introduced a successful ballot initiative to switch back to district elections, which have taken place since 2000.

Though the 11 districts were redrawn following the 2010 census, they largely represent the same general areas and neighborhoods of the city. A basic analysis of demographic and electoral data reveals that the differences between districts 2 and 6 run far deeper than unsheltered homeless populations.

D2 has a median household income of $118,273, compared to $45,072 in D6. The median family income in D2 is $172,912, compared to $61,699 in D6. Per capita incomes show a similar spread, and poverty rates vary drastically, 6% in D2 and 23% in D6.

Supervisors who represent the two districts have also faced significantly different political fates, with three D2 Supervisors (Dianne Feinstein, Gavin Newsom, Mark Farrell) going on to serve as Mayor, one currently serving as Senator, and one currently serving as Governor.

That means two out of three of California’s current top statewide elected officials (Newsom and Feinstein) began their political careers as San Francisco’s District 2 Supervisor. The third, Kamala Harris, first served in elected office as San Francisco’s District attorney.

On the other hand, no D6 Supervisors have been elected to higher office.

Under Mayors Newsom and Lee, approaches to homelessness were primarily framed around criminalization and law enforcement, as opposed to shelter and housing.

Voters reaffirmed their support for further criminalization of homelessness on November 8, 2016 when Prop Q, an initiative that allowed police to sweep (a euphamism for confiscating all personal belongings from) tent encampments along with an offer of a 7-day shelter stay passed with 51.77% of the vote.

District 2 and District 6’s representatives took opposite sides in this crucial fight — Supervisor Farrell supported Prop Q, upholding the Newsomian legacy of tough on homelessness policies dating back to Care Not Cash, while Supervisor Kim opposed it in solidarity with those living on the streets of District 6. Both districts 2 and 6 voted in favor of Prop Q — 54.41% supported it in D2 and 51.62% in D6.

Kim’s opposition to Prop Q appeared to be a significant handicap in her 2016 campaign for state senate against District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, one of the original authors of the initiative. At one point during the 2016 campaign, a town hall hosted by Supervisor Kim was overrun with protestors who pitched tents outside and claimed she supported putting homeless people in tent cities.

Despite expressing similar levels of support for Prop Q, voters in D2 and D6 made significantly different decisions when it came to Prop C, an initiative that would levy a tax on San Francisco’s largest corporations to fund a roughly $300 million increase in shelter and supportive housing services.

Ultimately, the message from voters is clear. On one hand, the district in which they live significantly affects their support for hundreds of millions in new funding for shelter, housing, and other services. On the other hand, regardless of whether voters live in the district with the least or the most homeless people, a majority appear to believe that homeless people do not deserve the same agency or property rights as housed people.

Overall, this data does not point to any one specific reason why so many more unsheltered homeless people reside in D6 than D2. Rather, it highlights drastic, institutional discrepancies between the two districts which likely create the perfect storm for widespread homelessness in D6. D2 doesn’t just lack an unsheltered homeless population, it also lacks a sheltered homeless population — based on available data the highest number of sheltered individuals in D2 at any given point-in-time count was 7, compared to 2,194 in D6.

Conventional wisdom posits that D6 has the highest homeless population because it has the most impoverished housed population and it has the most shelter and supportive housing services. However, conventional wisdom doesn’t explain why D6 residents face dramatically higher levels of poverty, or why so many more homeless services are located in D6 relative to other districts with high homeless populations such as D10.

The answer to these questions lies in a less tangible, less seen variable — political power. For decades, District 2 has been home to San Francisco’s elite including Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and Gavin Newsom, while District 6 has been home to queer activists and a riot during which drag queens vandalized police cars and burned down newsstands.

Simply put, in the collective imagination of San Franciscans, most of D6 is where much of the Bay Area goes to work in downtown high rises but only the druggies stick around past dark.

When you consider that there is no publicly available data comparing district-by-district policing strategies, or the various other methods the city undertakes to move homeless people along from one location to another, it’s not hard to draw the conclusion that there was a concerted efforts to quarantine homeless populations to certain parts of the city.

This would have been especially easy before Supervisors were elected to represent distinct districts, as there was little to no electoral cost to ignoring the needs of the Tenderloin, South of Market, and other impoverished neighborhoods. The result is that the majority of Single Room Occupancy Hotels, shelters, and other supportive housing resources ended up in D6.

Additionally, the massive amount of under-regulated development of largely luxury apartments and condos that has taken place in D6 has likely been a factor in displacing residents, destabilizing median rents, and exacerbating inequality.

The political power hypothesis also explains why D2 Supervisors have enjoyed significantly greater political mobility, while their lack of a mandate to dramatically increase homeless service funding or experience representing a district with a large homeless population likely led to their ineffectiveness in addressing the issue.