A Preventable Tragedy

by Quiver Watts

Coalition on Homelessness Statement on Officer-involved Double Fatality on May 19, 2022

Rising rents and a lack of stable, affordable housing have pushed many people into homelessness in San Francisco, like they have in cities up and down the West Coast. Living without stable housing is difficult and traumatizing, and it has long-term health consequences for those forced to endure it. With no door to lock and no safe place to rest, unhoused people live without the fundamental stability and safety a home provides.

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After Permanent Housing Added, Shelter Legislation Moves Forward

by TJ Johnston

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s shelter legislation is going to the full Board of Supervisors after the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee approved it on a 3-0 vote on May 26.

After several amendments through two committee meetings in May, one thing is for sure: Mandelman’s “Place for All Ordinance” is now a different animal from the legislation he introduced two months before with its primary focus on shelter softened as it moves to the full board on June 7.   

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Early SF Homeless Numbers Down — Shelter-in-place Hotels, Prop. C Cited as Factors

by TJ Johnston

San Francisco got a sneak peek last month of the results from its 2022 homeless point-in-time count, which showed a drop in some kinds of homelessness. Advocates say directing public money into certain programs played a key role.

The count indicated a significant drop in the number of unsheltered homeless people and chronically homeless people, as well as a large bump in the number of people staying in shelters and transitional housing.

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City College Cutbacks Could Harm the Community. It Doesn’t Have to be This Way.

by Justice Taylor

City College of San Francisco has already laid off 38 faculty members with more staff cutbacks to come while reducing classes and student resources. Instructors and staff have already taken a pay-cut to encourage class maintenance, while the boards have increased their personal pay. Students and staff are demanding transparent and open statements from the board: why are classes and teachers being cut during a California budget surplus?

City College is facing another round of class and service cuts under the stance of budget reform.

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Seeking Greener Pastures, Only to Find Homelessness in the Bay Area

by Samel Leparan Ntiwuas

My name is Samel Leparan Ntiwuas. I live just down the street from the house where I grew up.

I grew up in Oakland and San Francisco. My folks succeeded in their own ways, at one point owning a home, which was once considered the very foundation of financial stability. Then, when life chose to give me a bitter test, I joined the surging number of unsheltered immigrant people who spill out around freeways,

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Home — James Jefferson

by Robert Gumpert

Name: James Jefferson

Age: 39

Date: June 17, 2021

Place: Florida and Treat streets

Homeless: 12 to 13 years

“Does a tent afford privacy? I can do whatever I want within the four walls, but in this situation it feels like you’re an endangered species. Like you’re being hunted really slowly and silently. You never know when they’re going to come and uproot you.

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Women and Children First … or Every Man for Himself?

by Olivia Glowacki and Tracey Mixon

Don’t Wait Until We Break!

On Wednesday May 4, homeless and formerly homeless moms, children, and individuals converged on San Francisco’s City Hall to deliver one message, loud and clear: “Our mothers need housing.” The action was designed and carried out by unhoused members, mostly moms.  In planning the action, they talked about how being homeless is literally breaking their mental health and came up with the slogan “Don’t Wait Until We Break”

Age-old sayings tell us to save “mothers and children first” in any crisis or catastrophe.

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Love Letter to the Community

by Curtis Bradford

As a person who has lived and worked in the Tenderloin and Central South of Market communities for well over a decade, I have a message for my community about the recent actions of the San Francisco Redistricting Taskforce.

First, to my beloved Tenderloin & Central SoMa family and friends.  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry because I know you trusted me to be a voice for you in this process.  You asked me to fight to secure justice for you and to protect you from harm brought against you by a political and financial elite of this city. 

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Where’s the Care in the Proposed “CARE Courts?”

by Jade Arellano

In early March, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court program, which would create yet another separate court for poor and unhoused people with mental health conditions and substance use disorders. Governor Newsom has explicitly discussed CARE Court as a tool to address street homelessness, and the proposal is consistent with a string of bills nationwide that seek to increase the power of the state to institutionalize unhoused people under the pretense of “compassion.” The devil is in the details,

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Why Mandelman’s Shelter Expansion Plan Doesn’t Fall into Place

by Sara Shortt

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman has been trying hard to get houseless people off the streets. But judging by his new bill, his definition of getting people off the streets does not mean getting them into housing. 

For the second time in two years he is proposing legislation to the Board of Supervisors, where it will be heard first at the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee on May 12. If it passes, it would put people into temporary shelter: a tent in a sanctioned camp,

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