Will the Coalition on Homelessness lose its golden goose?
Mayor Lurie makes long-needed changes to residency requirements
There is a bypass for getting SSI without actual proof of residency: a letter from the Coalition on Homelessness written by Friedenbach. ‘Then the GA [General Assistance] program doesn’t even question it. Her letter is like a grantee loan certification from the program.‘
— Former colleague of Coalition on Homelessness founder Jennifer Friedenbach gaming the residency system
Anyone who followed my nearly two decades as editor in chief of the Marina Times newspaper knows I’ve been a vocal critic of Jennifer Friedenbach, well, for nearly two decades. I’ve referred to Friedenbach as “CEO of the city’s de facto homeless marketing agency,” spending their money on Sharpies and cardboard to make the handwritten signs they hold up at City Hall protests. Last August, Friedenbach and former District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston stood on the steps of City Hall giggling together with a group of people who feel the same way as they do. One attendee held up a sign reading, “Downtown is for Drug Users.” In a disturbing twist, the event came after the group Mothers Against Drug Deaths and Addiction held a morning vigil for the thousands of friends, sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters lost to opioid overdoses.
So what is Friedenbach’s motivation if not to help the homeless get off the streets? In 2023, I wrote an article for the Marina Times about the possible reasons — mostly ideological, but also financial. One of her former colleagues, who asked to remain anonymous (we’ll refer to him as “Carl”) for fear of retribution (“Jennifer is known to be vindictive”), saw that article and reached out with some observations about Friedenbach’s ascension, which he witnessed firsthand in the early days of his three decades helping the homeless. In fact, he helped give Friedenbach her start.
After beginning his career as part of MultiCrisis, meeting the homeless population at night wherever they were staying, from parks to underneath bridges, to educate them about the dangers of dirty needles, and to encourage them to get tested for HIV, Carl moved into triage with San Francisco’s General Assistance program (GA), helping homeless individuals get stabilized and find housing. He has spent over 20 years with In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS). Funding for the program is split between federal (60 percent), state (30 percent), and the city (10 percent) but doesn’t cost taxpayers anything.
“Almost 50 percent of the homeless are single adults with no family, and most are from out of state,” Carl said. A person only needs to establish that they’ve lived in San Francisco for two weeks in order to apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), but the standards are stricter than most realize. “You have to have an actual address, not a P.O. Box,” Carl explained. “You have to show proof, like a PG&E bill.”
There is, however, one bypass for getting SSI without actual proof of residency: a letter from the Coalition on Homelessness written by Friedenbach. “Then the GA program doesn’t even question it,” Carl said. “Her letter is like a grantee loan certification from the program.”
When Carl and his colleagues started SSI GA, Friedenbach was establishing herself on San Francisco’s homelessness front, so they asked her to be part of their program: “We explained that when we help someone with the application process, it can take from two to five years to get approved.” Friedenbach declined the offer — until she realized the money involved. “After that long period of time, once the person does get approved, the check is sizable,” Carl said. “It can be anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000. When Jennifer saw the dollar amount, she wanted a piece of the pie, and suddenly she was interested in participating.”
When Friedenbach said people must be willing to make their own decisions about treatment, a former colleague pushed back: ‘If they were able to make their own decisions they wouldn’t be here!’
There were stipulations for the SSI GA program, including accountability on the part of participants. “Without accountability you have nothing,” Carl said. “We would get them into job training or the trades or retrain them for something else if they had a disability that prevented them from using their previous skills.” As homeless programs go, SSI GA was a success, with approximately 50 percent of participants staying the course. There was also a social worker on-site at each of their buildings 24/7. If a resident was causing problems, or was dual diagnosed with mental illness and addiction, they had to leave the program and go into a rehabilitation or locked facility. Friedenbach had a huge issue with that. “She said, ‘You can’t force someone into treatment, they must be willing and make their own decisions,’” Carl recalled. “And I said, ‘If they were able to make their own decisions they wouldn’t be here!’”
Friedenbach saw things differently, so she began taking over the program and molding it to meet her own agenda. “She didn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg,” Carl said. “Jennifer wanted to be the middleman. Instead of having the money go back to cover the program’s expenses so that it wouldn’t fall on taxpayers, she wanted a piece of the pie. She didn’t want to be involved until she heard the ‘ka-ching, ka-ching!’”
As Friedenbach’s influence grew, the program fell apart. “I left because of her bulls—, and within two years the program was gone because of her,” Carl said. “People called her ‘Fraudenbach’ in your article, but that’s too kind. I call her the ‘homeless pimp.’ We stabilized their lives; she wanted to make money as their middleman. Even a lot of homeless people hate her because the Coalition takes a cut. …”
Well, thanks to San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, that’s about to change — the city will “no longer accept letters from community-based organizations for unhoused individuals or accept self-attestation of residency.” It’s all part of a plan Mayor Lurie revealed last week to strengthen proof-of-residency requirements on the homeless who receive monthly cash payments. As Carl said, and as most sensible San Franciscans know, the majority come from out of town. The executive directive signed by Lurie on March 17 is the first policy to acknowledge that taxpayers have been funding drug tourism and out-of-town encampment dwellers for years. Starting in May, the County Adult Assistance Program will “verify San Francisco residency electronically through the city’s various systems of record if they lack fixed addresses,” according to the agency’s emailed response to questions from the San Francisco Examiner. San Francisco distributed nearly $40 million through the Adult Assistance Program in the most recent fiscal year, which ended in 2024. In January 2025, 6,600 people received benefits — an increase of 800 recipients from January 2024.
I applaud Mayor Lurie for being the first San Francisco official to push back in a meaningful way against the Coalition on Homelessness and their inhumane dogma, but Lurie’s plan has two major flaws. The first is that you only need to live in San Francisco for 15 days to be considered a resident. I’d like to see Lurie change that to a minimum of one year, preferably two to five years. The second flaw is the sky-high amount San Francisco pays out. Currently, the County Adult Assistance Program provides monthly payments of up to $714 to adults without children, the second largest in the Bay Area after San Mateo County, which pays $732 (Alameda County pays $336 and Santa Clara County pays $343). I have frequently asked homeless people in San Francisco why they came here from other places, and the vast majority give the same three answers: “The cops leave us alone,” “The drugs are easy, and you can do them wherever you want,” and “San Francisco pays the most money.” When I mention that San Mateo County pays more, they say, “It’s not as easy to get and use drugs there, and you get arrested.” (When I ask, “Arrested for what?” the answer is always the same: “For doing drugs in public and stealing stuff.”)
Remove Friedenbach from oversight of Proposition C funds
The next big move I would like to see Mayor Lurie make is the removal of Friedenbach’s seat on the Our City Our Home oversight committee, where she is the emergency shelter and hygiene liaison, but according to numerous sources, she makes the majority of the financial decisions. In 2018, the Coalition on Homelessness drafted a plan to raise $300 million a year for “homeless services” by increasing gross receipts taxes 0.5 percent on San Francisco businesses making more than $50 million annually. Friedenbach’s close friend Christin Evans, a longtime homeless activist whose parents own a $12 million home in the city thanks to her father heading the world’s largest aluminum company, became their spokeswoman. (Friedenbach, by the way, is also from a wealthy family — she’s an almond heiress). Known as Proposition C, the measure got some unexpected financial and personal support from Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce, after Evans bullied him on Twitter. Later, Benioff chastised his fellow CEOs for “not caring about homeless people.” Friedenbach, normally critical of the tech industry, gushed about Evans wooing Benioff to the media, saying, “We call her the CEO whisperer.”
The Our City, Our Home Oversight Committee (OCOH) was set up to ensure the funds are “effectively and transparently used,” but Proposition C’s biggest lobbyist, Friedenbach, was appointed to the committee by the Board of Supervisors. In May 2023, the Homeless Oversight Commission launched to oversee the incompetent Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and “receive advice and recommendations from OCOH on the administration of Proposition C funds.” Guess who the Board of Supervisors appointed as one of its commissioners? Christin Evans. What does that mean? The two top lobbyists for Proposition C are deciding how the funds are spent.
According to their website, San Francisco spent nearly $300 million in OCOH funds in fiscal year 2022 (July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023) and added “1,191 units of capacity.” So, with a budget of $300 million the “all we need to do is build more housing” folks added less than 1,200 units of housing. The website continues, “Permanent Housing is a central component … with at least 50% of the Fund allocated for this service area. During the 2022–23 fiscal year the city expended $94 million on acquisition of new buildings for use as permanent supportive housing and $57 million in housing operations. Overall, the city funded 2,909 units of housing capacity across “several types of housing,” including “783 net units of capacity added in FY22–23.” Translation: Friedenbach and friends spent over $150 million during fiscal year 2022–23 — nearly $60 million on “operations” — for a net 783 units of housing. If executives at Lurie’s nonprofit Tipping Point Community spent that kind of money on such pathetic results, I doubt he would be happy about it. The real proof, of course, is what you see on the streets. Does it look like San Francisco spent $150 million over one fiscal year to house the homeless? Time to kick Friedenbach and Evans to the curb and redistribute the OCOH funds to someone without multiple conflicts of interest. Oh, and Mayor Lurie, please audit every dime.