In an earlier blog I said that street people in San
Francisco are a significant cost to the Bay Area. Every San Francisco street person keeps 50
people from moving to the Bay Area.
The core data comes from my study of Maui. Maui is 98% tourism. 2.3 million tourists bring $2.5 billion to
Maui annually to support 115,000 people. The average stay in Maui is 7 days; in
the continental U.S. the average tourist stay is 3 days. San Francisco has 12 million tourists from
out of the Bay Area per year.
Those core numbers...
Those core numbers provide the calculation of the number
people supported by tourism to San Francisco at 250,000; they live all over the
Bay Area. No assumptions so far.
Now we know that Orlando, an area with no visible street
people in Disney World or any other theme park get 48 million tourists per
year compared to San Francisco. I make
the assumption, that street people are offensive to tourists, based on many
public surveys where tourist's worst memory of San Francisco is homeless/beggars.
I further assume that San Francisco could double the
number of tourists in four years if the City had a reputation for 'no visible
street people.' A big assumption, but
actually a modest projection compared to the likely 4 times the number of tourists if everything was done right. Based on only
doubling tourism, the new resident population able to live on the new tourism
would be 250,000 people.
The number of street people in San Francisco is estimated
at 5,000.
That means each street person keeps 50 people from being able to come
live in the Bay Area supported by tourism if tourism were half as great as Orlando's.
My number is a significant under estimate when I only double the tourism. The 5,000 street people don't keep the
tourists away only the 'visible' street people keep the tourists away. The number of visible street people has to be
less than 1,000. Even if a City without
visible street people would only grow by 50% of the number of tourists in four
years, we get the much higher number: each visible street person keeps
125 people from moving to the Bay Area to live here based on tourist revenue.
Street people are costly in lost tourist revenue and consequently in lost potential Bay Area residents.