To be fair,
The Bay area in general, particularly Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco, are in a pretty wild time in regard to homelessness. Are they vast post apocalyptic wastelands? no. The majority of all of those areas are great. But there are some areas thickly concentrated with people outside in varying degrees of crisis.
The demographic of people living in unstable housing situations is very, very wide. COL is insane, but there is demand for low wage (but still better wages than elsewhere) labor, forcing many families and otherwise single people into temporary housing situations, living out of a vehicle, or without a home. People ask me how I can afford to live in SF when I work in SJ, but San Jose is now the most expensive city in the country.
The Bay Area is not alone in the opiod crisis, but it's worn pretty visibly. It's a massive issue. SF spends A LOT of money to address "homelessness" but collectively, we haven't figured out "what to do".
Criminalizing poverty vs quality of life of others
Personal Autonomy vs Forced Care
Harm Reduction vs Whatever other plan people think will work.
As always, homelessness, poverty, mental health, and drug use is not a "problem" until it's visible. But whatever the answer is, we haven't reached it yet.