Why does it cost $16 million dollars for San Francisco to provide 262 tents for the homeless?  That is $61000 per tent.  ?

SF is a disaster! Instead of tents, maybe put up some toilets to get the homeless to stop defecating on the sidewalks!

It was Yahoo that put this question in the Travel section where it doesn't belong.  My fault that I didn't notice, though.

Maybe because the " tents" include looking after the people living in them.....

If this had been asked where it SHOULD be, in Renting & Real Estate, I might have considered answering it.

But, it wasn't.

For that I better get a tent big enough for my BATMOBILE on the third floor.

Somebody in the finance section really knows how to spend your tax dollars.  He should be fired.

Maybe that includes renting the land.?

We know the money doesn't get spent on sanitation.

The cost of the tents not withstanding, they have to pay the government workers something to help facilitate this. They had higher salaries than I did when I was a full-time electrical engineer (my specialty was test systems) in the semiconductor field. (How do I know this? I knew them and they told me.)

@A Hunch: I feel for you. I used to live in Union City until rent became a problem. Too bad Fry's Electronics shut down. I lamented when WeirdStuff shutdown and MicroCenter moved away.. the proverbial "candylands" for engineers. Lots of braindrain going around in California nowadays.

Because in California we don't know how to do basic math.

We buy apartment buildings, hotels, and vacant land for billionsand then turn them into homeless shelters (see project homekey).  So instead of paying $80 a night for people to stay in them hotels with homeless vouchers, we buy the properties that we are never going to recoup the money on.

My city is purchasing an apartment complex for $600M that currently generates $1.5M in property tax.  The complex has 102 units.  In addition, we get income tax, sales tax, and a bunch of other taxes from the current residents. 

- Just with the $1.5M property tax the place generates each year we could have 18,750 nights for homeless in with hotel vouchers.  But instead we are spending $600M for 102 units for 37000 nights per year.

- With the $20M per year we are going to pay for the building, we could have paid for 250,000 hotel vouchers which is full time housing for 684 people.

Too bad we don't vote for people who passed 5th grade math. 

All those liberal pockets lined along the way. The right had the military side to line pockets, the left has always had the social excuse to d the same.

Because the people administering the cause line their pockets, and their friends' pockets, with the money that should be going to the people who need it. These factions of government are doing nothing but giving us excuses for them to steal money form us while they tug at our heartstrings.

That's why.