Jeff Kositsky has been tapped by Mayor Ed Lee to head San Francisco’s new Department of Homelessness & Supportive Housing to address one of the city’s most pressing problems. The newly created division (with 110 city employees) will have a budget between $160M and $175M and start work July 1.

A key goal will be coordinating the city’s many homeless relief programs, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. It's hoped centralizing these functions will shape a unified strategy to address the problem. A similar approach has found success in Houston and Salt Lake City.

Jeff also plans a Homeless Management Information System that can track information on the homeless across the byzantine array of nonprofits and government agencies. It will assign a score to each individual measuring health and situation, hopefully to determine the neediest and sickest.

He joins government after a career in homeless rights advocacy. Jeff previously was an executive director at the Hamilton Family Center and at the Community Housing Partnership before that. In both roles, he was responsible for providing housing and health services to homeless or formally homeless individuals.

Homelessness in San Francisco has been a particularly thorny issue. The city spends $241M on the problem while some residents feel increasingly unsafe. Last year’s survey of the homeless saw a 3.8% increase from the previous census. It remains to be seen if the new department can meet Mayor Lee’s goal of helping 8,000 homeless leave the streets in his second term.

A better response to the city’s homeless crisis could increase property values in the blighted Tenderloin district and spur development in the area. Some developers participate in or support assistance programs for this vulnerable segment of society. [SFC]