From Town Halls to Postcards, Budget Advocacy Mobilizes LGBTQ+ Community

Some 250 people gathered inside North Light Court at San Francisco City Hall on May 12 to deliver about 1,500 postcards to Mayor Daniel Lurie, urging him to restore $100 million in proposed cuts to the upcoming City budget, including LGBTQ+, HIV and homeless services, among others.

The cards were strung together and held by members of the People’s Budget Coalition, who chanted and marched in procession up the stairs to the doors of Lurie’s office,

READ MORE

Blast from the Past: The Gender-Neutral Bathroom Law That Could Only Happen In San Francisco

by Jordan Wasilewski

If you told me when I was a little and in the closet that I would eventually get a first-of-its-kind law passed that would help transgender and disabled people, I would have laughed in your face. However, that is what happened.

In 2015, I was placed into a permanent supportive housing SRO. I spent three months in a unit without a bathroom.

READ MORE

Price of Prejudice: What is Lost When We Reject Trans Identity

by Monteque Pope-LeBeau

“What are you?”

These are words that another person felt they could say to me. I don’t know why they thought that was OK. Maybe it was the same reasoning that drove doctors to “treat” the “illness” of my gender, ravaging my body when I was an adolescent so many years ago. I still carry the injuries.

Countless others have had similar experiences that they didn’t deserve.

READ MORE

“I Could See Pieces of the Puzzle But Not the Big Picture”

by Adriane Dietrich

Trott-war: I’m very excited to hear what you have to say. Before we get started, a simple but very important question: How are you?

Lea: I’m doing well! A lot has changed since back then. Above all, a lot of things have settled; four years ago, it was all new and different. I still didn’t know where all this was going to take me.

READ MORE

A History of Homelessness: This Was Never Inevitable, and We Still Have a Chance to End It

Modern homelessness has unfolded in two chapters in the United States. The first chapter was of course the Great Depression, a period of displacement and poverty that was corrected for by a mass investment in housing and the passage of  the Housing Act of 1949that guaranteed decent housing for impoverished people. The second chapter opened in 1983, when Ronald Reagan eliminated 76% of the federal housing budget and abandoned the commitment made by that same Housing Act. 

READ MORE