In a system stripped of accountability - at the individual, nonprofit, and government levels - the news that a San Francisco homeless services executive has been charged with multiple felonies is not a surprise. It is symptomatic of a structure that stopped demanding results.
Since the nation adopted Housing First as a universal mandate in 2013, homelessness has climbed nearly 35%, despite the promise it would end within a decade. For years, HUD measured essentially one outcome: placement into permanent housing for six months - housing that required nothing of the individual placed there. No sobriety. No engagement in treatment. No work. No expectation of forward movement.
As long as that minimal benchmark was met, nonprofits and local governments were effectively assured a steady stream of continued funding, regardless of whether homelessness declined or conditions improved.
Responsibility cannot thrive where it is not required, especially when its absence cascades from the top down. In San Francisco alone last year, 12 homeless-serving nonprofits were under investigation for fraud, even as chronic homelessness rose 11% between 2022 and 2024.
The good news: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) is now implementing a long-overdue course correction -
one that reestablishes accountability at every level of the system: for
individuals, for service providers, and for the government agencies through
which HUD distributes the majority of its homelessness funding. HUD is
establishing clear expectations, demanding measurable results, and enforcing
consequences when programs fail the very people they were meant to serve.
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