A homeless encampment run by San Francisco costs the city $60,000 per year, per tent, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The city’s six “safe sleeping villages,” provide homeless people tents, three meals per day, security and washrooms.
The city is looking to renew the program for a cost of about $57,000 per tent, of which there are about 260.
The Chronicle noted that if the funding is approved, the city will be paying about twice the median cost of a one-bedroom apartment for each tent.
A 2018 business tax known as Proposition C, funds the “villages.” More than $1 billion is expected to be spent in the next two years by San Francisco on homelessness, mostly funded by Prop. C, the Chronicle reported.
“It is a big deal to have showers and bathrooms, and I don’t dispute that,” Supervisor Hillary Ronen said at a budget meeting Wednesday. “But the cost just doesn’t make any sense.”
