What the Trump Administration Means for Americans Experiencing Homelessness

by Contributing Author

by Franziska Wild

A move away from housing first solutions to homelessness. Further criminalization of sleeping outdoors. Cuts to housing programs. These are some of the changes advocates and people experiencing homelessness worry could be on the horizon as President Donald Trump moves back into the White House, backed by a Republican-controlled Congress.

During Donald Trump’s first presidential term, he appointed officials who rejected evidence-based housing first approaches to homelessness and cut programs aimed at all low-income Americans.

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Housing First Attacked, Outside and Inside San Francisco

by Contributing Author

by Jordan Davis

Today, Housing First is facing so many threats, but I remember it having broad-based support when I came of age in the 2000s during the administration of George W. Bush. I grew up in a working class Democratic family who hated “Dubya,” and I frequently protested the Iraq war, Bush’s anti-environmental policies, and his overall political platform. I also do not like the recent nostalgia for the Bushes and Cheneys from Democrats in the face of Trump.

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Bullies Seek Pleasure in Causing Pain to Others

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

Once, violence toward me was a normal fact of life. In my youth, I was seen as smaller, thus an easy target. At 60, I don’t stand out any longer as a person toward whom to be violent, but this attitude of total disrespect of a major, fundamental boundary still affects me. Yet, I need to say two things about normalizing violence. My neighborhood in Martinez normalized violence toward others in general,

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“Can’t Get Well in a Cell”: Decarcerate Sacramento Scores a Community Win As Jail Expansion Is Put On Hold

by Contributing Author

by Cathleen Williams, Homeward Street Journal

In May 2024, the police got a call reporting that a man was lying outside an EV charging station with his head on the curb. When the police officers pulled up and got out of their car, they tried to get the man to move. He whispered, “Help me, help me…ambulance.” The man’s voice was so weak it is barely audible on the officer’s body-cam footage,

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“Look, There’s Nowhere Else to Go”: Inside California’s Crackdown on Homeless Camps

by Contributing Author
A tent is in the center of the frame. In front of it is what looks like a white dollhouse, laying flat on the ground. The image is in Black and White

by Marisa Kendall and Katie Anastas, CalMatters

It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed how cities in California and beyond can respond to homeless encampments, allowing them to clear camps and arrest people  for sleeping outside — even when there’s nowhere  else to sleep. 

The July ruling in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson upended six years of protections for unhoused people.

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The City Sets Drug Raids in Motion, Raises Concerns of Human Rights Violations and Rise in Overdoses

by Contributing Author

by Lupe Velez

Mayor Daniel Lurie is delivering on his promise to address the overdose crisis through well coordinated criminalization efforts, much to the worry of drug policy reformers and harm reduction advocates. Throughout his campaign last year, he was vocal about the fentanyl crisis, framing overdoses as the most pressing issue his administration would confront. He stated during his inaugural speech, “Widespread drug dealing, public drug use and constantly seeing people in crisis has robbed us of our sense of decency and security.” He has since passed the Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance through the Board of Supervisors,

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Mental Health Patients are People, Too. I Wish the Psychiatry Profession Feels the Same Way.

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

My first psychotic episode was a risk to life and limb, my biggest test up to that point, my family’s big test and a precursor to what was to come in the succeeding 43 years and running. 

In some respects, a second or third psychotic break isn’t as hard as the first. When I had my first extreme psychotic episode, I had no notion of what was happening to me.

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Humanitarianism and Commitment to Families in the Community from San Francisco/ Humanitarismo y Compromiso con las Familias de la Comunidad de San Francisco

by Contributing Author

by Andrea Bulnes Huane, Maritza Salinas, Helen Merlo, Maria Zavala and Veronica Aguilar

Contine desplazándose hacid abajo para ver en Español

Our hearts felt sad and very sorry to hear so many cases of homeless families with various problems of depression, anxiety and even mental imbalance. This situation is terrible, so many children with worry in their souls and hearts so fragile and innocent that instead of thinking about playing or socializing at school,

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“Volunteer Jail”: How California’s Go-to Solution for Homelessness Became a Housing Purgatory

by Contributing Author
A collage of cut-out images of a dome-shaped shelter building, a homeless person holding a blue tent, a portrait of a person looking at the camera, rows of red shelter tents and text of complaints about the conditions at shelters, which read: "I have black mold all over my walls. I have been exposed to it" and "program staff misusing services and resources intended for guests"

by Lauren Hepler, CalMatters

The records catalog the chaos inside California homeless shelters.

In Salinas, internal emails say the staff at one brand-new shelter grabbed the best donations for themselves and helped friends and family jump the line for housing. In Los Angeles, court records show a leading nonprofit hired a man who was convicted of attempted murder to work security at a shelter, where he committed three sex crimes in one day.

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Resources for People Living in California Shelters

by Contributing Author

By Byrhonda Lyons, CalMatters

In California, there isn’t a central, statewide agency that oversees homeless shelters. Shelters that receive public funding are monitored by local officials, who often handle complaints from residents. In some cases, state officials can also step in if residents report problems. 

A new CalMatters investigation has documented chaos and scandal inside California’s homeless shelters and found that fewer than 1 in 4 people cycle through shelters find permanent housing.

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