An open letter to Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness:

Dear Jennifer:

I got your most recent e-mail Thursday. As usual, it explains that I have it all wrong on homelessness. There are stats and numbers, which I know you would love to debate for days. I’ve been down that rabbit hole before.

But here’s the thing. Thursday’s column wasn’t about numbers. It was about how the tent city on Division Street was frightening and intimidating residents and merchants. It talked about the feces, urine and hypodermic needles, as well as accounts of assaults and intimidation. Since it was written, even more reports have come in of volunteers at the SPCA getting harassed and pelted by rocks.

And something happened that hasn’t happened in all the years I’ve been writing this column. I got dozens and dozens of e-mails, and every single one of them was supportive of the premise of the column — that the situation was out of control and needed direct action — except one. Yours.

Once again, according to you, I had it all wrong. The homeless aren’t the problem. I’m the problem. The city bureaucracy is the problem. Vitriol against the homeless is the problem.

But I’m a columnist taking the pulse of the city, and when the city responds positively, it seems I’m doing my job.

Now, you may say you’re doing your job, too. You’re a die-hard advocate, and that’s fine.

But that doesn’t mean everyone is wrong if they don’t see the homeless crisis the way you do.

I get e-mails from people who think homeless people are animals who should be locked up. Those people are nuts. But they have their opinions. I send back something generic and ignore them.

Like you, they haven’t been elected, appointed or nominated.

They’re concerned citizens with an opinion about city business. Noted.

But why should you influence city policy? Or claim that you represent the residents of the city? I’d say the coalition is in the minority. Your influence is outsize partly because, in the interest of balanced journalism, we’ve made you the voice of the homeless.

And now when the homeless crisis is at a peak, all you do is blame others for the plight of these people.

Even when the city tries to do the right thing — opening Pier 80 with 150 beds, showers, three meals a day and long-term residences — it’s not good enough. You said they aren’t real beds, just mats on the floor. And, as you said in your recent e-mail, what they really need is “a door to lock.”

So the city hasn’t even fully opened the center yet, and it’s already inadequate. Apparently we have to build individual houses with a locking door.

Not a mention from you about the urine and feces. Not a word about the severely mentally ill people roaming the streets. Nothing about the intimidation the tent cities make people and businesses feel.

The beaut was this: During Super Bowl week, you appeared on the CBS national news broadcast talking about the controversy over the $5 million San Francisco had to pay for the weeklong extravaganza.

You said that money could have been used to house 500 homeless people for a year. “Kind of shows what the city’s priorities are,” you added.

Seriously? Priorities? This just days after a comprehensive story by The Chronicle that reported that the city is allocating a record $241 million this fiscal year to homeless programs — almost half of the operating budget for the city of Oakland and an increase of $84 million since 2011.

Between 2004 and 2014, a Chronicle story found, the city had housed 11,362 single adults. And, in the case of Care Not Cash, that’s housing for life. As long as the rent is paid — and it is because it comes out of their general assistance check — they’re in. They can drink, use drugs, whatever.

And the city continues to add programs and facilities. Pier 80 is just another incarnation of the Navigation Center, an innovative shelter.

But I’m not supposed to report that some of the sidewalk campers have no interest in going to Pier 80. Why? Well, as you explained, that information “benefits city officials because they are off the hook for addressing the problem (saying) ‘See, we are trying, but they don’t want help so there is nothing we can do.’”

I find it odd that while I see genuinely concerned city officials devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to the issue, you see them as slackers trying to duck their responsibilities.

So yeah, I think the homeless programs say a lot about the priorities of the city. But sometimes I wonder about yours.

Sincerely, Chuck

C.W. Nevius is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His columns appear Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail: cwnevius@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @cwnevius