A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
Content warning: The stories throughout this issue may be especially activating for some readers. Many of these pieces involve descriptions of traumatic experiences including sexual violence, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, queer/transphobic violence, in addition to the violence of states and false borders.
The rate of homelessness in San Francisco is currently alarming and it’s quite unfortunate that I have been a victim of it. My name is Jocey, a 28-year-old divorcee,
I have not been homeless in almost a decade.
But my homelessness was deeply influenced by the fact that my mother was homeless before me, for many years.
I loved her so much. When your own mother hits the streets, you learn something. When she was homeless, a part of me was homeless.
That is actually how the Buddha sees homelessness: If you suffer, I can embrace that. This is not an embrace as if it is a burden.
Originally published on thepaltrysum.com
In the middle of the storm it is hard to see the wood for the trees, the wind from the rain or the good from the bad. I lived in that storm for most of my adult life, and it is only in the last week that I have been inside looking out at the storm from a position of relative safety that I have been able to take stock.
San Francisco, like many cities, is in a challenging place economically with over 200,000 workers on unemployment, a $1.5 billion deficit due to loss revenue, and exponentially higher needs for city services such as rental assistance, health care, child care and other city essential activities. San Francisco has a very unique budget process, where the legislative branch receives the budget from the much more powerful executive branch and has the opportunity to cut things out of the Mayor’s budget in order to fund other things they deem as higher priorities.
By Darnell Boyd
The homeless population has grown to 9,800 people — how did this happen?
I’ll tell you how: Our elected officials feel as though the homelessness problem is too great for them. My answer to them is, if so, then you should resign and let someone else who can fix it have your job. Quit catering to the special interest groups, pull up your sleeves and get to work.
What better way to foster a community of empathetic and understanding individuals than by shaping the perspective of our children, who will one day act as allies, friends, leaders, freethinkers and aware members of society?
This is the question Mike Boyce, a senior at California College of the Arts double majoring in Graphic Design and Illustration, focuses on in his final project—a children’s book that tries to make visible what many people intentionally hope remains invisible: homelessness.
Homelessness continues to be a pervasive social contemporary problem within the San Francisco Bay Area. Advocacy organizations and service providers of homeless people seek to implement policies that minimize barriers that homeless families, youth, and adults are facing. In fact, focus groups consisting of members of the homeless population and/or front line service providers in 12 different homeless service providers and advocacy organization took place.. The survey outcomes revealed interesting findings of barriers within the homeless system.
Mayor Lee recently cut funding for two new Board-funded housing subsidies, affecting 175 households across the city. The funding would have provided critical rental assistance for seniors, families, and people with disabilities.
These funds were backed by the Board of Supervisors and totaled $2.5 million—125 subsidies worth $1.5 million for seniors and the disabled, and another 50 subsidies worth $1 million for families with children.
“We have to invest the resources to keep people in San Francisco,” says Brian Basinger,
