Why can’t San Francisco’s tech culture solve the city’s social problems?

Lack of housing supply is the major contributor to our high cost of living, not tech, and this started before tech was a thing in San Francisco. Without our excessive ways to hamper new housing tech would have provided good grounds to fund new housing similar to what we see in Austin Texas.

There definitely are social issues caused by tech, but the fact that tech is raising prices isn't necessarily the responsibility of one single person or business.

But even with having tech as the scapegoat doesn't mean that tech will have the answers (it probably guarantees that the answer isn't in tech at all).

But there are many social issues, in and out of the Valley, where issues are amplified by tech, but not necessarily the ideal way of solving them (for instance, the fact that so many people online engage in trollish behavior, it's a symptom of people and not necessarily one that tech can cure, but tech does definitely amplify it).

Housing had so many different factors that influence it, you can look at everything from governmental policy, cultural changes, land mass and infrastructure to support commuting, and overall consumer preference.

SF's housing issues, while not 100% preceding the rise of tech, definitely were a problem already that tech has amplified.

If a city isn't prepared for economic success, it's going to have a really tough time adjusting to economic pressures (even the success of it's neighbors). However with San Francisco, it's hard to pass it off as being unprepared, but, TBH, while a generally forward thinking community, there is a lot of NIMBY-itis and a pro-conservationist movement that doesn't always desire to compromise. Not having lived there for any great length of time, I'm conjecturing based on what I read, so take my opinion with a large grain of salt :)

Similar to the Utah model you provide social services that help rehabilitate. We can also structure it similarly to theirs. The goal is to free people from the cycle of homelessness. As you can see in the article there is very little that would not improve upon the current situation.