London Breed: "Building more housing won't work"

The greatest quote I’ve ever read in the San Francisco Chronicle—the most truthful, anyhow—is this: “The [homelessness] problem is not going to be solved by building more housing.” It was San Francisco Mayor London Breed who said that. She added, “Thank goodness for the Supreme Court decision.”

Let’s break it down.

First, would you ever have imagined a major politician saying that building more housing will not solve homelessness? For years, “build more housing” has been the mantra, the Holy Grail of everyone who weighed in on the topic. Building more housing, especially affordable housing, is the exhortation of every politician, every media editorial, every “expert.” And now, here comes London Breed, shooting down the entire concept!

It’s astounding. I might have said it (and I have), but the Mayor of San Francisco?!? Let that sink in. What does Breed mean by such apostasy? According to the Chronicle story, she did not offer an explanation, except to say that San Francisco needs to move beyond being “a compassionate city” to “a city of accountability.” We can read between the lines: Breed has finally figured out that not all of those homeless people everyone feels so sorry for are innocent misfortunates who have been screwed by unaffordable housing prices and an uncaring society. Some are; many are not, but instead have scoffed at society’s laws and mores, have chosen to drop out of the system, actually enjoy street life, gotten themselves twisted on drugs, and are incorrigible, at least temporarily. For these misfits, suggests Mayor Breed, “accountability” means that “law enforcement [will] probably be more involved moving forward.” San Francisco will soon launch “a very aggressive” crackdown on encampments.

At last, someone is speaking truth!

Can you imagine Sheng Thao saying anything like that? Or Libby Schaaf before her? Or any of the City Council members? No. All of them have bought in to the “compassionate” shtick, and in fact helped fabricate it, for purely political reasons: not because they felt any particular sympathy for homeless people but because they knew the issue resonated with a lot of sentimental Oakland voters who are, shall we say, less than clear-eyed about the reasons and solutions for homelessness. They said what they said to get elected and hold on to power, and the vacuity of their policies has been proven over and over by the fact that homelessness just gets worse and worse, despite the compassionate lip service and hundreds of millions of dollars that Oakland has thrown down the homelessness rat hole.

If Breed is serious about her crackdown and follows through, how long do you think it will take for hundreds if not thousands of San Francisco homeless people to fare-cheat on BART and come here? And what if San Jose follows suit and also cracks down on encampments? And Berkeley? And Vallejo? Because we know one thing for sure: As long as Nikki Bas, Carroll Fife, Rebecca Kaplan and Dan Kalb run the City Council, and the clueless Sheng Thao is Oakland’s mayor, there will never be a crackdown on encampments here, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that it’s fully legal to roust tenters. Oakland may occasionally be compelled to clean up something as disastrous as Wood Street because of enormous political pressure, but these electeds will never do anything to actually get rid of encampments. If they did, they’d have to admit they made a horrible mistake all along: calling homeless people our “unhoused brothers and sisters” and inviting them (as Libby Schaaf did) to move here. And if there’s one thing a wokester cannot do, it’s admit they got something wrong.

Steve Heimoff