In June, Mayor Ed Lee made a promise: His administration would house 50 homeless veterans who had federal vouchers for housing but no luck convincing a landlord to rent to them.
Politicians' pledges can be meaningless, but this one is panning out. So far, 54 veterans who had vouchers at the start of 2012 have been housed. The previous average wait time between receiving a voucher and finding housing was 270 days. Now, it's 83.
The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded the city $2.7 million in March to pay for an additional 200 vouchers. Sixty have been designated for residents of Veterans Commons, a new supportive housing complex for homeless veterans co-run by the nonprofit Swords to Plowshares.
An additional 75 vouchers are tied to veterans seeking housing through West Bay Housing, which tries to place low-income people in housing throughout the Bay Area. Sixty-five more veterans are working with case managers to find private apartments.
Securing a unit in a private apartment building has proved difficult for veterans, despite the city's campaign. Bevan Dufty, Lee's point person on homelessness who is leading the effort, called the response of private landlords just "OK."
In today's scorching rental market, fueled by the technology boom, landlords are much more likely to rent to well-dressed young tech workers with good credit scores and fat bank accounts than a homeless veteran.
The city is instead trying to tie more vouchers to projects such as Veterans Commons, and Dufty hinted that another 33 veterans may soon be housed at a separate complex.
"We're doing really well, and I think people are really excited about the partnerships we've had over the past year," Dufty said.
Never one to pass up an opportunity, he hastened to add that Swords to Plowshares is seeking flat-screen TVs for its new rooms at Veterans Commons. The units are small and cannot easily accommodate bulkier television sets.