Isn't it quite an oversimplification to say that the homelessness issues in SF are due to stupid politicians? Do other cities somehow have better smarter politicians?
I think it's more likely that a series of cultural, historical, systemic and environmental issues have lead to the current situation, and that our politicians are generally average in competence and intelligence compared to other similarly sized cities, but are dealing with some particularly challenging issues.
Some possible factors:
Cultural: Other cities, such as NYC, house many people in large shelters, on cots, outside of the city center. SF wants to put people in a higher standard of living than a room full of cots, so we can only afford to house about half the people who need it. (Much of that $250M/year we spend goes to housing people)
It's hard for the BART police to kick people out of the stations because homeless advocacy organizations complain about abuse. So the problem stays visibile. Places like Salt Lake City also see the Mormon church active in improving these problems. I don't think there is any such non-govermental organization working at such scale in SF. Generally we think it's the goverments problem to solve, other places think it's a community problem, and take action. We seem to tolerate people visibily using drugs, leaving needles around. More conservative cities would not let that happen a block from city hall.
Historical: Most of SF's services, such as shelters, needle exchange, healthcare, etc, are downtown, this makes the problem very visible. NYC pushes this out of Manhattan and has for years. Neighborhood groups in SF usually protest adding a navigation center to their neghborhood. Imagine if we started putting shelters and navigation centers in the richmond?
Systemic: This could be an essay alone. Rising housing costs, due to downzoning, prop13, discrtionary review, etc etc, and then a job loss, and you can't make rent, you lose your apartment. Now you're out on the street. The city doesn't have enough shelters. And see previous mention of neghorhoods not wanting navigation centers or shelters near them. The city actually has to go in front of the planning comission, just like a private developer, to argue for a new navigation center. Not only do we have a system that makes it hard to build new high end housing, it's hard to build navgation centers, because of all the process involved.
Environmental: California cities have a much higher rate of unsheltered homelessness. NYC has a legal right to shelter. I do wonder if part of this has to do with climate. If NYC had the same number of people living unsheltered through the winter, they would have thousands of people freezing to death. NYC has 75K people experiencing homelessness at any given time. This creates the political will to house people.
So you're elected to the board of supervisors, or as the mayor, you have all this history, all these factors that are making your job of reducing homeless, very hard. What do you do? We've had many many bonds to increase funding to provide housing for people experiencing homelessness, but the electorate consistently votes them down. So your hands are also fairly tied with regards to money. You're left with small incremental imrovements over many years.
I can see why you'd be fed up with San Francisco for these reasons. I just don't think it's fair to blame it entirly on stupid politicians. All that said, I do agree with you that I'd rather see the time spent on more pressing issues than tech company cafeteria bans, and plastic bag bans. Part of this is because we elect people like Aaron Peskin who seem very interested in 1. having the ear of local small business groups, and passing protectionist laws. 2. Putting forward sensational laws that get a lot of media attention. Peskin and his ilk operate on the emotional appeal side of politics. Things that sound good as long as you don't think too hard about them. We'll find those types of politicans everywhere. We have to work to expose them for what they are.