The very very poor live in taxpayer subsidized housing called SROs, or camp-out in parks or on the street. Blue-collar families who were lucky enough to buy in the '60s and '70s often have multiple generations in their spots, or sell, profit many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and relocate to cheap suburbs. Otherwise they reside in subsidized housing projects or just live in the 5 or 6 bad neighborhoods where crime is high and rents are cheap such as the 'loin, bayshore, hunter's point, the south side of potrero hill, tortilla flats, the far outer-mission, or ingleside. Most of these neighborhoods are being aggressively squeezed out of existence through gentrifaction.

Most residents without families have roommates. Tweens who make up the majority of the workforce naive enough to work for start-ups live 3-5 people in older victorian or "railroad" apartments where the dining rooms and living rooms have long-since been converted into bedrooms.

These apartments are rent controlled, so it's common for these units to be priced below market if the lease holder has had their lease for a significant period of time.

I have several friends who spend $600-$900/month to share such a unit with 3-4 others, whilst the leaseholder pays $1,000-$1,500/month for the apartment. Often the leaseholder no longer resides in the unit, and sublets it as an income source.

Our rent control law was ill-conceived covering only buildings constructed before the bill was passed in the'70s. Landlords burdened by rent-control statues are only permitted inflationary rent increases. Landlords of newer constructions may set rates as they see fit when contracts come up to renewal. This artificially restricts the supply of available units and helps keep rents high.

My last apartment, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath in SOMA cost me $2900 when I signed up for it two years ago. They raised the rent to $4,200 this summer and I had to move to Oakland. It turns out Oakland is pretty awesome, but it's not home. Everything closes early, there are some 'hoods I bike through which are shady enough that I keep pepper spray mounted on my seat stay and a quick-action folding knife in my pocket.

There is very little violence in San Francisco directed at white/asian, upper-middle class people, like the suburbanites bitching in this thread. Most violence is crackheads killing crackheads, or gangs killing other gang members. I've walked every street in this city day and night, drunk, high, and sober, carrying a $2k laptop and a $3k camera on my backpack.

Panhandlers mostly stick to the neighborhoods locals avoid. The yuppie neighborhoods and the tourist neighborhoods. But honestly, if the fear of panhandlers keeps you from moving to the city and sticking in the south bay or the peninsula, awesome. You're not going to contribute anything to this city besides the money you spend at restaurants and bars, anyways, so you're just part of the invading gentry, you're not part of our city. Stay away. It's dangerous here. The poor are out to get you because they're poor and you're rich. Go back to Palo Alto where you belong. Please. They have coffee shops and women too beautiful for you nerds to ever sleep with.