San Francisco grand jury faults homelessness services for safety gaps

The 2025-26 San Francisco Civil Grand Jury released its report, At Scale, At Risk, on June 23, 2026, after reviewing the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s network of nonprofit contracts, shelters, outreach, placement programs and housing.

HSH spends nearly $500 million a year but does not effectively analyze the information it collects to improve safety, strengthen accountability or identify where clients are at greatest risk.

Permanent supportive housing makes up almost half of HSH’s shelter and housing inventory. Public data cited in the report showed that about 26% of all accidental drug overdose deaths in San Francisco occurred at permanent supportive housing sites in 2024. It also found that the number of people successfully exiting the homelessness response system to stable housing fell 14.3% year over year, even as the city continued to track homelessness through dashboards and other reports on SF.gov.

The Homelessness Oversight Commission has gaps that weaken its ability to press HSH for results. Voters approved the commission in November 2022, and it launched in May 2023, but critical incident reports and other safety data are still rarely weighed in contract decisions.

Recent flashpoints include the death of Eric McCain at the Jazzie Collins Apartments and the planned closure of the shelter at 711 Post Street. It recommended creating a centralized Safety and Compliance function inside HSH, requiring standardized safety metrics in nonprofit contracts and expanding data-driven monitoring across the system.

Ed Cooper, the grand jury’s foreperson: "more effective oversight, more actionable data systems and outcome-based accountability are increasingly required as the crisis continues and the department’s budget plateaus." San Francisco’s January 2026 Point-in-Time Count found 7,972 people experiencing homelessness, down 4% from 2024.