A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by River Beck
On December 4, a diverse coalition of housing advocates in San Francisco succeeded in toppling a series of obstacles facing a 42-unit housing project for transitional-age youth in the city’s South of Market neighborhood. The permanent supportive housing (PSH) project, which will support LGBTQ+ young adults, is a critical step towards solutions desperately needed to avoid chronic homelessness.
The intergenerational and multi-racial bloc of residents,
by Julian Highsmith
San Francisco took a monumental step forward in addressing its homelessness crisis this week as the Board of Supervisors approved new legislation on a 10-0 vote to extend the duration of rapid rehousing subsidies from two to five years. This landmark decision promises greater stability for families at risk of returning to homelessness by providing longer-term financial support, ensuring they have the time and resources necessary to transition into permanent housing.
The 2024 election is likely to be recorded in history as the year of the billionaires. Their money has influenced this year’s ballot from presidential contests to state and local races.
But even people with ten-figure net worth didn’t get everything they wanted.
Daniel Lurie prevailed in San Francisco’s mayoral race. Lurie is an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, and spent over $8 million in his largely self-financed campaign.
by Jordan Davis
At the September 24 Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Matt Dorsey pulled yet another policy out of his rear end that sounds reasonable on the surface, but in reality further stigmatizes permanent supportive housing (PSH) residents.
Hot off the heels of his proposed legislation to stifle PSH development unless a certain percentage is dedicated to drug recovery housing, Dorsey announced that he was requesting that legislation be drafted that would require that PSH disclose so-called “drug-tolerant”
by Isidore Mika Székely Manes-Dragan
Image courtesy of Wood Street Commons via Instagram
For the third straight year, a group of former Wood Street encampment residents bicycled some 80 miles from Oakland to Sacramento in a show of solidarity with unhoused Californians.
In their annual caravan to the state capitol, the Wood Street Commons residents rode for three days in October to lobby their lawmakers.
by Felicia Mello/CalMatters
Luke Johnson and his neighbors thought they had found the perfect solution to avoid being displaced from their Silver Lake, Los Angeles fourplex: A state program was offering $500 million to help tenants, community land trusts and other affordable housing developers buy buildings at risk of foreclosure.
With their longtime landlords set on selling the building, Johnson and his neighbors persuaded them to sell to a community land trust that pledged to keep rents low.
by Jordan Davis
Within the past year, there have been several scandals involving nonprofits who contract with the City. Kyra Worthy is facing federal charges for misusing over $700,000 in funds from the public safety nonprofit SF SAFE. More recently, Sheryl Davis, the head of the Human Rights Commission and the Dream Keeper Initiative, had to resign her post over allegations of fiscal improprieties.
Why does this matter,
by CJ Ross
“Where am I taking you? Where are you gonna stay tonight?” It was 2016. I Googled “shelters in San Francisco” on my friend’s phone from the passenger seat with about two hours left until we reached the city.
I never thought I’d return to the city where I was born and raised. As I searched, I expected to find lists of places to sleep in a pinch,
In 2008, the Salvation Army opened a community center at 242 Turk St. in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. It’s a Ray & Joan Kroc Community Center, whose stated mission is to provide supportive health services and housing for formerly homeless adults, foster youth and veterans living with behavioral health conditions, and nurture a safe space for the community’s youth. Next to the center is Railton Place, an apartment complex owned by the Salvation Army and managed by the John Stewart Company,
story and photos by Isidore Mika Székely Manes-Dragan
Camp Resolution, the self-governing encampment for unhoused Sacramento residents, received a notice on March 28 for its nearly one hundred members to vacate by May 16, preceding the camp’s clearance on June 1.
On May 15, the residents and their allies organized and marched to City Hall, saying “no.” The city first extended the timeline for removal to May 31. Then the city called off the eviction on June 9.
