As Newsom took over following the 2003 San Francisco mayoral election, the then-mayor-elect said that December he intended to "aggressively" make ending homelessness in his city his administration's top priority.

The plan involved a 10-year strategy to end chronic homelessness with "tens of millions" of federal dollars in funding to create 550 "supportive housing" units for the troubled homeless, SFGate reported at the time.
"If you build it, they will come"
Fast-forward to December of this year and the announcement of that strategy is now two decades old. San Francisco, along with the rest of California, is far from solving the problem.

In fact, the growing homeless population has become a central issue in California's political debate.

California's homeless population grew by 5.8 percent to 181,399 this year. This increase, reported in the federal government's latest count, comes as the state spends billions on the crisis, including more than $1 billion this year on housing and prevention programs.

Of California's 181,399 homeless, nearly 70 percent sleep outside—marking the highest unsheltered rate of all states, including those with mild climates such as Hawaii, Arizona, and Nevada. In California, more than 123,000 lack shelter on a given night, according to a Friday report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.