Roughly almost 600 Billion is spent on the homeless problem. Unfortunately, due to the incredibly high cost of housing, that money doesn't go very far. It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of where exactly all that money goes. Anecdotally, I've read articles of government funded syringes lining some of the streets.

As for why you don't see more high rises going up, that's due to regulations which increase cost. I saw one tech crunch article that said super computers are now required to comply with all the regulations: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/08/why-you-need-a-supercomput...

Ironically, affordability regulations actually drive the cost of building up to the point where no one can afford it anymore and nothing gets built. Why is this allowed? A big chunk of the SF population is deeply conservative ( politically liberal), but actually conservative in that they dont want anything to change. Meanwhile more and more jobs are added every day exacerbating a huge imbalance between housing and jobs, and employers continue to wonder why they can't find "talent".

On the plus side, there's no shortage of fun spots in SF: the fisherman's wharf, the embarcadero, the presidio, etc. Lots of fun restaurants and cafes, etc.