Many view the Bay Area as America’s innovation hub. But San Francisco is still struggling to find creative solutions to some of the city’s biggest problems, like homelessness. Currently, the city has only one bed for every five in need.

The Navigation Center is hoping to get people safely off the streets with fewer shelter rules: The Center has no curfew, and no ban on pets, partners and possessions.

“We’re trying to lower the barriers on the street to access shelter,” Julie Ledbetter, director of the shelter, told Marketplace. “We don’t want to create a place that breaks down the very little supports that they have. It’s about starting with what they have and building up.”

According to Marketplace:

The goal is to get them on their feet and into housing in about two weeks. The center has government services on site to help with housing, benefits, and jobs.

Bevan Dufty is San Francisco’s housing director. He says the city is under pressure to innovate like this.

Dufty says, “The technology companies here want to see us do a better job responding to homeless.”

Dufty hopes the center will prove the city can be successful, and that tech companies will then start chipping in more — because the center isn’t cheap. It’s funded by a $2.4 million anonymous donation, and it accommodates only 75 people at a time.

San Francisco is not the first city to implement a shelter with fewer rules. Boston’s terrible winter kept the city scrambling to find enough beds for its growing homeless populations. Advocates reopened the Boston Night Center, a last resort for people living on the streets who can’t or won’t go to a shelter. As I reported in February, the Night Center is a small room where sometimes more than 80 people sleep on mats on the floor. Unlike a shelter, people can come and go throughout the night.

Marco Simonetti, a San Franciscan who has stayed at the Navigation Center sees a big difference between it and a typical shelter. “They treat you more like a regular person here,” he told Marketplace. “They help more. They want to see you progress. They don’t want to see you stagnate.”