During the 1980s I worked as a Sr. Systems Engineer doing I.T. work for SF. I often got paged to do troubleshooting after hours. Interesting thing about going to City Hall at 3 a.m. was all the homeless zombies walking aimlessly around. Unsettling sight, and made me nervous waiting for the guards to let me into City Hall to service their data center. The homeless slept during the day, but presumably walked around at night so they wouldn't be robbed or assaulted. They pooped in the stairwells to the underground garage across from City Hall, until all stairwells were boarded up - then did it at the curb. I hated going there. The 1989 earthquake damaged the building and the data center relocated to a clean area devoid of homeless.
Yes I remember those times. I was doing benefit enrollments for CCSF employees back then and spent time in almost every part of that City.
None of these homeless could possibly be reasonably expected to change their ways and become successful when even $2000 is considered a cheap rent there nowadays. Miracles do happen though and I guess 9 people being helped out of a homeless state by government is one of them.
What a crazy place.