A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
On Returning to School, Navigating Housing Insecurity, and Surviving a Pandemic
August is the time when parents get to have a break from their kids, and kids get to spend time with their friends. These were the normal circumstances before COVID-19 entered our lives. However, the pandemic has dramatically changed people’s lives, some for the better and some for the worse. Now that the vaccine is being distributed, the School Board is planning on reopening schools once more.
February 4, 1941 – July 29, 2021
Originally published at Glide.org
Janice Mirikitani, the beloved GLIDE Co-Founder and Japanese American Sansei poet, whose activism helped define the social justice culture of San Francisco, and whose verse illuminated her struggles with ethnic identity and personal adversity, died on Thursday, July 29, 2021. She was 80.
Mirikitani was a teacher, artist, and activist whose work and commitment to empower and give voice to the most marginalized has transformed tens of thousands of lives in San Francisco and beyond.
A Look At HSOC and Why It Should Be Dismantled
The Healthy Streets Operations Center (HSOC) grew out of the Mission Police Station in January 2018, with the goal of clearing all the tents from the Mission District. It almost succeeded in that endeavor. But rather than reducing homelessness, the number of folks on the streets actually increased in the district, as did the misery of those who had their flimsy shelter and the bit of dignity that tents provided ripped away.
The clock is ticking for unhoused people staying in San Francisco’s shelter-in-place (SIP) hotels.
The 25 SIP hotels that have sheltered over 2,000 homeless people during the COVID-19 pandemic are scheduled to close operations, a few at a time, according to a plan published in June by the City’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH).
Hotel Diva on Post Street, which the City bought and will convert into permanent supportive housing as part of the state’s Project Homekey program,
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — On Tuesday, July 27, 2021, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10 to 1 to approve a $13 billion budget negotiated with Mayor London Breed. District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston cast the only dissenting vote, citing the budget’s increased funding for law enforcement and the failure to allocate Proposition I funds for social housing. The approved budget will give over $1 billion to policing and incarceration in San Francisco this year alone.
Jesus Perez on Disability, Sweeps and Vaccinations
Jesus Perez is a longtime homeless advocate, and is currently on the Board of Directors at the Coalition on Homelessness.
What do you think is the most pressing issue in San Francisco right now?
All the stuff going on in San Francisco, with the police and homelessness. The last time I was in San Francisco I went out to check on all the homeless folks living in the alley,
These days, all one has to do is to suggest that they and others are working for the greater public good and mention that everyone around the table has the best of intentions, and this appears to be enough to absolve them and everyone else who might be in agreement from any possible unforeseen and unintended or adverse consequences.
This is true even when certain agendas and motivations are actively at play, including potential political and/or financial ones,
SAN FRANCISCO – On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi closed Congress without getting the votes needed to extend the eviction moratorium which expired on Saturday night, leaving millions of Americans to face losing their homes during the second-largest surge of the COVID-19 pandemic. The next morning, a group of her constituents, many of whom are facing eviction, was on her doorstep, demanding a vote on legislation to extend the moratorium. They posted a mock eviction notice on Pelosi’s door and set up a tent outside her mansion on Millionaires’ Row in Pacific Heights.
While a few nations are in no hurry to start vaccinations, many poor countries are struggling to make progress due to a shortage of vaccine supplies.
At a private hospital in Burundi’s capital, emergency specialist Emmanuel Kubwayo is worried for the first time since the coronavirus started spreading around the world last year.
Kubwayo initially shared the government’s view that the small central African country did not need COVID-19 vaccines because it had so few cases.
My name is Yessica Hernandez. I’m 18 years old, a peer organizer at the Coalition on Homelessness and also a member of a homeless family living in an SRO. For me, homelessness is a problem that has multiple solutions, but most of the time people want to solve it by blaming the people who are homeless.
Every day the chance of becoming homeless increases. When people talk about homelessness they mostly feel shame and pity for “those people,”
