Right Now in San Francisco
By: Sean Mckenna
Tags: California, Politics, Homelessness, Housing Crisis, San Francisco

The view out the front door of the proposed Homeless Navigation Center along The Embarcadero would look something like this. Photo: Sean McKenna, 23 April 2019.

As I write this, San Francisco is an international laughing stock. This week’s issue of The Economist, read across the globe, mentioned the fight that is going on in the South Beach neighborhood over a proposed Homeless Navigation Center. Many other local, national, and global news outlets have picked up on this latest example of classic NIMBYism. Wealthy residents and homeowners are claiming, “It’s good that the city is supporting homeless people, but can you make sure that the solutions are Not In My Back Yard?”

As I write this, the San Francisco Port Commission is debating whether to approve the lease for the Navigation Center. Dozens of people are speaking, both in favor and opposition, of the lease agreement. It would let the city government use one of the commission’s parking lots along the San Francisco’s waterfront, which happens to be in an expensive residential district very close to downtown. (I was at that meeting, but I had to leave because my parking meter was about to expire. Now I’m watching on livestream. #CarOwnershipProblems)

As I write this, I’m sitting in Crossroads Café, run by the Delancey Street Foundation. This café is located just a few blocks away from the proposed Navigation Center. It describes itself as “the country’s largest and most acclaimed self-help residential educational center for people who have hit bottom to completely rebuild their lives.” Some of the homeowners commented that they liked living near the Delancey Street Foundation, that they would support the Homeless Navigation Center if it were as well run as the Delancey Street Foundation.

This sentiment exemplifies of one of the most prominent themes that has emerged from my experiential learning thus far: too often, public debate lets the perfect be the enemy of the good. The Navigation Center may not always be spotlessly clean, and some non-trivial percentage of its residents may regress back to homelessness after their 90-day residence eligibility expires. However, those circumstances cannot contradict the fact that some residents will find permanent housing, and that real human beings will avoid the dehumanizing experience of living on the street, if only for a short while.

The sentiment also exemplifies a challenge that we all face, as part of the human condition: as a result of evolutionary instincts, we are disproportionately afraid of the unknown, and seek comfort in things that are familiar. It’s important that we recognize legitimate concerns to safety and well-being, but it’s equally important that we prevent ourselves from indulging in hysteria about unknown future circumstances, like the Navigation Center. On the flip side, we must be aware that our brains subconsciously gloss over unsavory individual details of past experiences if, on balance, the experience was non-threatening, like the Delancey Street Foundation. Recognizing and checking both of these innate cognitive biases allows us to more rationally compare our expectations of the future with our experiences from the past.

As I write this, I’m feeling despair. I’m thinking about the mentally ill homeless man who followed me for a block as I walked from the public meeting back to my car. In perfect poetic irony, it was the block of The Embarcadero bordering the proposed Navigation Center. The man was muttering obscenities and general nonsense under his breath. I have no way of knowing if this man would loiter outside the front of the Navigation Center, if he’d stay in it for a few days and then get removed because of bad behavior, or if he’d finally get the support he needs and find a permanent housing situation. But I know that the status quo is not working, neither for him nor the neighborhood where he was walking around today.

As I write this, I’m re-living a moment while I was walking, and the man was following me. I let out one of my trademark loud sneezes, and he paused his obscenities and muttering to give me a surprisingly gentle “God bless you.”

As I write this, I’m reminded that even in a sea of uncertainty and suspicion, the human condition offers hope.