Yes, but it's misleading to compare city+state spending in NYC to solely city spending in SF, and conclude that SF is underspending on the homeless.

To be a fair comparison, we'd also have to include what the state of California spends on the homeless.

True, but as far as I know California has never funded homeless programs at the state level. The only thing listed in the 2015 budget is:

"Housing Support Program — The Budget contains $35 million General Fund for CalWORKs Housing Support Program services, an increase of $15 million, which provides additional support to CalWORKs families for whom homelessness is a barrier to self‐sufficiency."

Which leaves medicaid spending, which according to my previous source only 20% of the homeless population in SF receive. Assuming medicaid pays the same amount poer person as in NYC that would bring the per capita homeless expenditure to about $35000.

This is no longer the case. The state recently approved $2B in funding to build and maintain housing for the mentally ill homeless [1]. That's close to $70k per homeless person with mental illness, or an additional $17,500 per homeless person if we don't group by mental illness.

[1] http://fox40.com/2016/06/27/california-lawmakers-approve-2-b...

Why does Thailand have so fewer mentally ill and drug addicted homeless, despite its government spending so much less on social programs for the homeless?

Perhaps for the same reason that head injury rates were lower in WWI before steel helmets were introduced: the mortality rate was higher.

That's a particularly negative take, but would be interesting if true. Do you have any reason to believe it is? I'm not even sure how you would measure this. Suicide rate against attempted suicide rate? Other mental health stats?

No clue. Idle speculation on my part.

I live in Thailand (but not in a big city). Out here it's because if you find yourself without a home, you can go build one out of bamboo. If you have some friends to help you, it can be done in a week.

The key being that the municipality won't give you crap for an "illegal settlement" until the land you're occupying suddenly becomes worth something.

It doesn't have to be worth squat. Your "settlement" just has to rub someone with too much time on their hands the wrong way.

Repealing zoning and building restrictions would go a long way to making the West the same. Land titles enforcement would still put up impediments to construction of makeshift housing, but making it so anyone with land can build a structure without needing a building permit or being limited by zoning would make the creation of housing supply significantly easier. Land is not all that expensive, after all.

Perhaps, but the focus on a specific, more expensive set of homeless people sure is.