> Federal government's historical role to serves as a social safety net This is not true. Medicare, section 8 housing and social security are (relatively) new

> Federal government's historical role to serves as a social safety net This is not true. Medicare, section 8 housing and social security are (relatively) new inventions, and Medicaid is run by individual states, with some funding from the federal government. By volume, most social programs are either state or county run, from job training to mental health and food assistance and so on. As for what SF can do, it can designate emergency shelter space sufficient to get out from under the federal regulations preventing them from breaking up permanent camps. They can make cash payments contingent on going through some service which pushes people towards getting mental health care, addiction treatment, housing / job assistance, etc. So long as they are paying people to be homeless, and managing themselves into a corner where they can't stop illegal camping, some people will choose to stay that way for one reason or another, and they will choose to do so in SF.