Why San Francisco Is a Homeless Mecca

California has spent more than $20 billion on housing for the homeless since 2020, yet public encampments continue to grow. As San Francisco progressives are learning, government can build more shelter, but that doesn’t mean the homeless will use them.

The city of San Francisco released data last week showing that 55% of homeless individuals rejected shelter when offered it. Days earlier a giant fire destroyed a housing complex under construction. The blaze is under investigation, but residents in the area say they repeatedly complained to the city about fires igniting around homeless encampments.

Mayor London Breed threw her hands up in response. “We can’t force people to accept or stay in shelters and we’re unable to prevent people from setting up an encampment in an area that was just cleaned. This is the situation we are in,” she tweeted Wednesday.

She’s right. San Francisco is under a federal injunction that bars officials from enforcing laws against camping or sleeping in public spaces as long as its homeless population exceeds available shelter beds. As we recently explained, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment creates a right to vagrancy.

Many homeless prefer to live on the streets where they can freely use drugs. “People are coming here for so many different reasons including the ease of access to getting these drugs,” Ms. Breed recently noted.

Since 2016 San Francisco’s homeless budget has ballooned to $672 million from $224 million, yet the number of homeless in shelters has increased by a mere 736. That equates to $609,000 in higher annual spending for each additional person in shelter. This is on top of the $20 billion that Democrats in Sacramento have thrown at the homeless problem.

A 2018 local ballot measure championed by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff increased San Francisco business taxes by some $300 million annually to build more homeless housing. Yet the tax increase has merely given businesses another incentive, on top of rampant crime and shoplifting, to move jobs out of the city.

San Francisco’s homeless epidemic is a result in large part of the familiar problems of drug addiction and mental illness. But a particular problem is the refusal to prosecute drug crimes. In 2014 California’s Prop. 47, which was backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and other progressives, effectively decriminalized drug use and shoplifting. Localities can’t use the threat of jail to induce addicts to receive treatment.

Democrats in Sacramento plan to ask voters next year for approval to borrow $15 billion more to reduce homelessness. Only a progressive could imagine that will this work any better than the last tens of billions. How about instead repealing the misconceived law that is fueling the problem?