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San Francisco Weighs Continuing Homeless Encampment Program That Costs $60k Per Tent Each Year

Jeffrey Cawood
San Francisco Weighs Continuing Homeless Encampment Program That Costs $60k Per Tent Each Year
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Elected officials in San Francisco will soon decide whether the city should keep spending millions on “safe sleeping villages” for homeless people as its COVID-19 emergency response winds down.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s homelessness department “is pushing to continue an expensive tent encampment program that it says is crucial for keeping people off the sidewalks, despite its high price tag of more than $60,000 per tent, per year.” The outlet reported that “the program currently costs $18.2 million for about 260 tents,” and “the department is now asking for $15 million in the upcoming fiscal year for a similar number of tents, which amounts to about $57,000 per tent per year.”

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