On Tuesday morning, San Francisco politicians gathered at Seawall Lot 330, on the Embarcadero, to celebrate the opening of a new, 200-bed Navigation Center. The new facility, which takes up part of a 2.4-acre, city-owned parking lot, will start accepting homeless clients by the end of the year.

The Embarcadero center is San Francisco’s seventh active Navigation Center, and technically it cost the city $4 million to build. But thanks to a long, concerted opposition effort by furious neighbors, it also cost the city enormous and untold amounts in the form of legal defense, staff time and political capital.

The spending isn’t over yet, either.

In an effort to appease those still-angry neighbors, San Francisco officials are also dedicating more Homeless Outreach Teams to the area, and the San Francisco Police Department has committed four cops to a two-block “safety zone” seven days a week. All this despite the fact that the evidence shows no links between the presence of Navigation Centers and neighborhood crime.

The frustrations of the Embarcadero Navigation Center saga is one of the reasons why San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney, whose district includes the new center and who supported its opening, has revived his proposed legislation to force the city to open shelters in every neighborhood.

“In concept, everyone from the Department (of Homelessness and Supportive Housing) to the mayor to my colleagues on the board says they want homelessness services,” Haney said. “But we just keep seeing the same thing happen, which is that all of the services are concentrated in a few districts while the rest of the city doesn’t have a level of seriousness or commitment about tackling this as the citywide problem that it is.”

Haney is right. While nearly every supervisor has claimed they’re open to having Navigation Centers in their districts, only three — Haney, Hillary Ronen, and Shamann Walton — actually have them.

The fact that these three supervisors represent most of the city’s longest-neglected neighborhoods and many of San Francisco’s lowest-income residents is no accident. For too long, San Francisco — like most Bay Area cities — has sought to dump its problems on those who are the least able to fight back.

As the demographic composition of those neighborhoods has changed over the past decade, however, so has the residents’ ability to make their displeasure known.

The fight over the Embarcadero Navigation Center should be a wake-up call to both Mayor London Breed and the rest of the supervisors. If San Francisco is going to adequately address its homeless crisis, every neighborhood is going to have to do its part.

Breed has made the homeless crisis her top mayoral priority, and a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision is leaving her with no choice but to find a solution.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to a September 2018 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that prevents cities from clearing out homeless encampments unless they can offer their residents shelter or housing.

The Supreme Court’s decision effectively confirms the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision, challenging western states to either come up with housing for homeless people or leave them alone.

The court decision will have a more immediate impact on places like Sonoma County, where officials are struggling to produce enough homeless housing to shelter an enormous homeless encampment that’s burgeoned on county parkland.

But the fact is that San Francisco doesn’t have enough shelter for all of its homeless residents, either. The waiting list for shelter beds consistently hovers around 1,000 people; there are thousands of applicants for every new affordable housing unit in the city. In the midst of these dire shortages, it’s hard to see how San Francisco can adequately address the homeless crisis as long as some supervisors, like Gordon Mar, are still saying that Navigation Centers aren’t appropriate for their districts.

“I think residents will be much more open if we clarify what the centers are and if we get everyone on board,” Haney said. “Even for me and Shamann (Walton) and Hillary (Ronen), what happens when the (Homelessness) Department proposes another center in our districts? It’s going to be hard for us to support them if no one else is doing their part.”

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.