Snap today is an unusual day for news in San Francisco. Must all of the news outlets, news papers, TV, and Internet will focus on one topic, homelessness. The project was championed by the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. They will take the on -- unauthorized docs approach. To put the problem a contest, San Francisco has the largest number of homeless people in capital in the nation topped only by New York City. I spoke with the Chronicle editor in chief Audrey Cooper about the project. Think you for joining us. The Chronicle has covered homelessness for years. What prompted this collaboration now? We always looking at new ways of getting the journalism two people and making sure that they read and. The specific idea was inspired by one of the readers. I give tours of the newsroom to our subscribers once a month. There was one day when there was a person outside he was screaming and it was so loud in the newsroom that I lost my train of thought. One of the people on my tour turned to me and said you should really do a story about the solutions to homelessness. My face totally fell. We do these news stories all the time. I started thinking about what we could do that was difference. This idea struck me that I know a lot of editors of other publications. I started asking if you what they would think. Now we have more than 70 organizations just in San Francisco and this effort has spread across the country. Your paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, you will be putting forward a potential solution. You will be talking in your articles about what might work. What are some of those examples that you are going to be putting forward? We have an entire week of coverage that includes how we got to the situation, what the data looks like, how the situation has changed over the decades. The solutions that we are examining, we are doing in a thoughtful way. A lot of people think they know what the solution to homelessness is. We do not know all of the implications. Some estimates say as high as 50% of the street population have severe mental illness. Why is that? What can we do about that? Is delusional -- institutionalization is illegal in California. Community health centers are legal but there are limits on how you can get people there. We're going to propose some solutions and say what would have to change and more importantly, what they would cost. Supportive housing, drug addiction help, all of these are possible but they will take money. We need to be able to make really conscious decisions about what the best use of the money is. Are you afraid any of this is going to spill over into advocacy journalism? Absolutely not. I think it is looking at a topic and say in what the status quo is and what the obstacles are in the way. To me, that is not advocacy at all. We're not proposing a specific thing that we want politicians to do. We are looking at the solutions and telling people how we got here and why it is not an easy fix. There seems to be a sense and some of the back story of this effort that homeless people were bothering the non-homeless so much that now is the time for a solution. Is that a fair way to read some of the inspiration for this campaign? Not the inspiration for it. My inspiration is the fact that you walk anywhere in San Francisco and you see people that are suffering and it has become an expected part of being in San Francisco that I think there are some people who live here that are deadened by it. There is no way that a city as compassionate as San Francisco should be tolerating what we see on the streets. It is not passionate for the people who live on the streets. It is not compassionate for the people who live here. It is not an acceptable way to run one of the greatest cities in the world. Others have characterized it as an open play for media awards. I think the best way to get a media award is to plan to win why. I think that is a ridiculous criticism. What we are trying to do is really -- for lack of a better word, very noble on its face. We are trying to cut through the noise bring the power of the state down to better educate the community about a crisis. Anybody who says it is any more than that is not accurate. For the audience? Is this relentless focus on homelessness throughout the week -- do you feel issue fatigue in the audience? I'm sure some people will be tired of hearing about it by the end of the week. To that criticism, I would say I'm not sure I really care. The truth is the issues are complex. Anyone who thinks that they are easily solved is wrong. There are a lot and this going on about the community. Our rule at the San Francisco Chronicle and media in general is to promote civic dialogue. I think this project has succeeded and it will continue to succeed just because it is different and it will be smart journalism. At the end of the day, that is our priority. What is a realistic outcome for this project? Realistically, at the end of the day what I'm hoping for and what I tell our staff that we are looking at is 100% public understanding of the issues involved here. 100% -- is that ambitious? Yes. If anything was going to get close to it, I think this project will. I think clearly keeping the pressure on politicians, some have said this is not fixable. That is not an acceptable outcome. At the end of the day, I became a journalist. I'm sure most journalists pursue this line of work because you believe that smart people in the community armed with good information can make intelligent decisions about how to operate their communities. At the end of the day, success is people are smarter about this issue. I've been speaking with Audrey Cooper editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle. Thank you. Thank you.
Nearly all of San Francisco's news outlets are part of an unusual collaboration this week. They're focusing on a single topic: homelessness.
The project was championed by Audrey Cooper, the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle. The paper will offer solutions to the city's seemingly intractable homeless problem.
San Francisco has the second largest number of homeless people in the nation per capita, topped only by New York City, with 6,686 homeless adults. Cooper said her paper's coverage will focus on what would have to change to make various strategies feasible and what they may cost, but it would not turn into advocacy journalism.
"We’re not proposing a specific thing we want politicians to do," Cooper said. "We’re looking at the solutions and telling people how we got here and why it’s not an easy fix."
Cooper also rejected criticism that the initiative, called the SF Homeless Project, is a ploy to earn an award.
"It’s become such an expected part of being in San Francisco, that I think there are some people who live here who are deadened by it. But there is no way a city that is as compassionate as San Francisco should be tolerating what we see on the streets," Cooper said. "What we’re trying to do is, for lack of a better word, very noble on its face. We’re trying to cut through the noise and bring the power of the Fourth Estate down to better educate our community about a major crisis."
Cooper joins KPBS Midday Edition Wednesday with more on how she started the project and the other cities that have joined the effort.
