Just When We Thought San Francisco’s Taxpayer Waste Problem Was Bad They Totally Outdo Themselves
How many commissioners does it take to screw in a light bulb?
It depends on how much taxpayer money is available.
A team of San Francisco city officials recommends “eliminate five homeless oversight commissions that collectively cost taxpayers $2 million a year to operate,” in a report submitted Friday, according to the San Francisco Standard. (RELATED: San Francisco Opens First-Ever Sober Homeless Shelter, and the Results Are Exactly What You’d Expect)
The recommendation came from five senior staff in the city’s Office of Administrator and Comptroller, the Standard reports, and was sent for review to the Commission’s Streamlining Task Force.
“It is not clear that having multiple state agencies overseeing the homeless makes the city’s anti-homeless work more effective,” the report said, according to The Standard.
Uh.
You can’t solve “homelessness” if you think about it in those terms.
Last November, Gov. @GavinNewsom cleaned up San Francisco for Chinese President Xi. Now Newsom is cleaning house for Kamala Harris. Everyone knows this won’t last because Newsom doesn’t really care about anyone who lives here. pic.twitter.com/yayjWJB5dF
-Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 26, 2024
“Very few people end up on the streets simply because they can’t pay the rent,” writes Michael Shellenberger, journalist and author of “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities.”
“The evidence is overwhelming that the majority of people on the streets are there because of untreated mental illness or addiction, which leads people to use all their money to support their drug habit and get high, rather than work,” Shellenberger continues. “People who can’t pay the rent but are able to work and are not plagued by addiction or untreated mental illness find cheaper housing, move to a less expensive place, or live with family and friends.”
There are 52 “politically appointed commissioners” on San Francisco’s five homeless oversight commissions, according to The Standard.
The report alleges that these commissioners failed to discover “several recent high-profile cases” in which homelessness nonprofits “either misused funds or mismanaged service delivery.”
The Standard refers to their own reports of such mismanagement.
San Francisco spends more than $100,000 a year per homeless person to keep them addicted to fentanyl for as long as they can, until they die. That’s a sweet deal for nonprofit executives who earn between $350,000 and $679,000 a year in salaries to run the city’s mentally ill killing program. pic.twitter.com/KULUHF0TgT
-Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 7, 2025
Baker Places and the Positive Resource Center asked San Francisco for millions of dollars in emergency funding a few months later. receiving $1.2 million in emergency funding, the Standard reported in October 2022, citing sources inside City Hall.
Then there’s the United Board of Social Services, which is under investigation for alleged mismanagement of funds. San Francisco apparently did not know that the homeless nonprofit’s status had been suspended.
San Francisco was expected to spend $1.7 million on a single public toilet, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in October 2022.
The restroom opened in April 2024, according to NBC Bay Area, and “actually only cost the city about $300,000 after two companies donated materials and installation.”
Still, many San Francisco residents prefer to do their business on public sidewalks.
The city also paid more than $8,500 per park bench, according to the Chronicle. At least those funds came from a donation.
A 2024 statewide audit concluded that two of California’s five homelessness programs were cost-effective. Auditors were “unable to fully evaluate” the other three programs because California “did not collect sufficient data on program outcomes.”
California allocated $24 billion for “homelessness and housing” from 2018-19 to 2022-23, according to the report.
Hey, who hasn’t lost a billion or two between the couch cushions?
California funds Continuums of Care (CoC), public and private organizations that are “responsible for promoting and implementing evidence-based, best, promising and emerging practices to prevent and end homelessness.
“In several CoCs across the state, we found a small number of likely fictitious customers,” the auditors reported.
“We identified over 100 registration records with customer names such as ‘Mickey Mouse,’ ‘Super Woman,’ or a name indicating they were a test customer, such as ‘Test Participant.’
Poor Mickey. Fame is a cruel mistress.
Gavin Newsom’s Lawless California: Beloved Social Worker Executed by Crazy Homeless Man After Asked to Stop Openly Smoking Fentanyl in Front of Families at San Francisco Library https://t.co/Gs7dgYgWLy pic.twitter.com/jeBGSE2n3F
– Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) October 8, 2025
San Francisco lists approximately 116 active commissions and boards as of August 15. These include the LGBTQI+ Advisory Committee, the Commission on the Status of Women, the Commission on Aging Advisory Council, the Food Safety Task Force, the Immigrant Rights Commission, and the Sugary Beverage Vending Tax Advisory Commission. (RELATED: ‘No More Excuses’: Gov. Newsom Calls on California Cities to Ban Homeless Encampments)
The Committee Rationalization Working Group is responsible for evaluating the other committees on the list.
A starting point?
The Access Appeals Board canceled 19 meetings in 2024. It held 5.
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
