Former Supervisor and onetime mayoral candidate Bevan Dufty has left his role as Director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement (HOPE), a.k.a. the city's "homeless czar," but a brief release from the Mayor's office about this replacement says nothing about the reasons for Dufty's departure, and does not include a quote from Dufty himself.

Dufty served three and a half years in the post, and the Mayor has now appointed his interim replacement, Sam Dodge, who has been helping lead the Homeless Navigation Center program and previously worked as Program Director at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic.

“You have to give residents hope, and I look forward to working with Sam in his new capacity to champion our City’s efforts to combat homelessness,” said Mayor Lee in the statement. “I thank Bevan for his commitment to making a real difference in people’s lives and tackling the challenges of homelessness in our City, and for implementing this new Navigation Center model of care and compassion for residents on our streets. I also thank Bevan for his more than 30 years of public service and for mentoring and preparing Sam for this new challenge."

That makes it sound like Bevan prepared for this departure, but the Bay Area Reporter characterizes the departure as "unexpected."

SF Mag's Joe Eskanazi says Dufty is simply leaving to spend more time with his child, but surely there must be more to it than that?

San Francisco's homeless problem has of course remained an intractable one, with the most recent homeless census numbers very similar to those of two years ago, and four years ago — there was actually a 3.8 percent uptick between 2013 and 2015.

Did Bevan and the Mayor clash at all over Mayor Lee's controversial statements about clearing the homeless from downtown in preparation for the Super Bowl?

More on this if and when it develops.

Related: Video: Step Inside The New Homeless Navigation Center In The Mission