New San Francisco campaign seeks to house 1,100 homeless

"Some people are fed up. Some people are exasperated, some people are just giving up and we need to bring all of those people and say, 'Listen, here are solutions that you can get behind,'" he said. "We're all going to have to sacrifice a little bit."

Homelessness and the housing crunch have come to define San Francisco, as much as the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz Island. A one-night count found the number of homeless increased 17% over two years to more than 8,000 people this year. At the same time, the city is booming with well-paying tech and finance jobs that some say are squeezing out the city's working and middle class.

Lurie, a San Francisco native and founder of Tipping Point Community, says he wants to focus on finding housing. He has raised the $100 million he pledged two years ago to address the issue, and he hopes to find homes throughout the city for 1,100 people by 2022.

He says there is land available to develop and landlords willing to accept vouchers to rent to people trying to move out of homelessness. Lurie said he needs to find more such landlords, and encourage voters to support building in a city where homeowners are sometimes quick to protest projects in their backyard.

Residents of San Francisco's Embarcadero, for example, are suing the city for approving a temporary homeless shelter along the waterfront, saying it is the wrong fit. An announcement of a location for an RV homeless shelter prompted both support and opposition.

Joe Wilson, executive director of Hospitality House, which operates a shelter, says he believes the campaign can make a difference. "No single thing we do is going to solve all of the problem, but we have to be taking necessary steps forward and definitely the scale of the solution has to meet the scale of the problem," he said.

Wilson is also glad the tech industry is stepping up. In fact, some billionaire tech entrepreneurs have taken a more visible role.

Marc Benioff, a city native and founder of cloud-based software company Salesforce, publicly backed a successful November 2018 measure to tax wealthy businesses for homeless and addiction services. Benioff sparred on Twitter with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who opposed the measure.

But both entrepreneurs this year backed a GoFundMe campaign in support of the homeless shelter along the waterfront.

San Francisco voters rejected in 2015 a ballot measure to restrict Airbnb rentals after heavy spending by the Francisco-based company. Critics said Airbnb added to the city's housing crunch by encouraging landlords to take rooms off the long-term rental market in favor of short-term stays.

Asked if Airbnb might encourage hosts to rent long-term, the company's public policy lead for California, Hawaii and Alaska said, "we've not gotten that far in this process."

But Matt Middlebrook said the company will spread the new awareness campaign to its "hosts" and the company's 3,000 workers. "We're going to be sharing information with all of them about the 'All In' campaign and in ways they can engage in this effort," he said.