In the last couple years, homelessness in San Francisco has posed a growing issue. Over 6,700 homeless people are currently sleeping on the streets, with numbers steadily increasing.

With Super Bowl 50 scheduled to be played in February of next year, San Francisco will need to look spic and span for the expected 1 million tourists. Will these football fanatics share the streets with the vagrant drifters of San Francisco?

Mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, has made it his latest duty to get these homeless people off of the streets. Recent tourists complain of the pungent urine smell and the sidewalks riddled with needles.

“They are going to have to leave,” Lee said, when summarizing his plan. His procedure is to have the homeless relocated into San Francisco’s new Navigation Center in the Mission where they will be offered housing, rehab, employment, and many other services. If not in the Navigation Center, they will be moved into the 500 supportive housing units that will be opened by the end of this year.

SFPD, Public Works, the Health Department, and Social Services are some of the several organizations helping with carrying out Lee’s idea. The Homeless Outreach Team, formed by Gavin Newsom in 2004, is also putting out an effort to help the cause.

Controversy however surrounds Ed Lee’s plan.  Jennifer Friedenbach, the director of Coalition on Homeless, a nonprofit that protects homeless rights, thinks that getting a major chunk of the homeless population off the streets is nearly impossible. After all, the Super Bowl city is open to everyone, including the homeless. The Navigation Center and the 500 housing units are cramped as is and not nearly enough to meet the needs of the huge homeless community.

Over $167 million gets spent every year for the homeless in San Francisco alone. So why is the homeless population still growing?

Tackling this problem requires focus on the individual. Investing money on outreach and care can, in the future, help curb the growth if need be. It just takes time and cooperation to have the streets clean.

Ed Lee’s strategy intends to meet this goal in a three month window.  This would mean practically forcing hundreds of homeless people into these housing units.  San Francisco is simply too moral and liberal for that to happen.

A different, less urgent path to take on this problem would be more beneficial to everyone involved, homeless or businessman. The issue was never this hurried, but ever since the Super Bowl was to be held at Levi’s Stadium, this was on every businessman’s ballot, especially the mayor’s. Even if Ed Lee manages to get the homeless out, controversy will still stir.
Similar to the prize that the NFL teams will be competing for, Ed Lee has his eyes on a prize too. However, the question is who is the prize truly intended for; the well-being of the homeless people, or the well-being of his bank account?