New SF Head of Homelessness Already has a Game Plan in Play
San Francisco Chronicle
By Heather Knight
August 12, 2016
For fed-up San Franciscans wondering just what City Hall is doing about the frustrating problem of homelessness, Jeff Kositsky’s office whiteboard provides some heartening answers.
On Monday, Kositsky officially becomes the director of the city’s first Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. He’s been on the job since June 1, but because of a quirk in the city’s byzantine budgeting system he has technically been deputy director of the Human Services Agency.
Kositsky and his team are squeezed into a small, temporary office on Van Ness Avenue where a whiteboard is filled with 28 immediate priorities and 23 longer-term goals. The latter column is called the “parking lot,” but — considering Kositsky’s obvious determination — the ideas probably won’t be parked there for long.
He’s already making headway on many of the department’s goals, which align closely with the four solutions offered by The Chronicle’s S.F. Homeless Project series in June. As part of a first-of-its-kind Bay Area media project — in which more than 80 organizations participated — The Chronicle outlined ways to create supportive housing, add Navigation Centers and improve traditional shelters, bolster mental health care and provide stronger law enforcement.