A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
It’s a rare chilly morning in August, and I’m not fully awake when I hear the sound of an incoming message on my phone. I force myself to sit up and grab the phone from the nightstand. I see that it’s a message from Jeannie, an acquaintance from high school. There’s a video attached to the message. Jeannie likes sending me funny videos that she finds on YouTube—this one is called “Fake Mental Disorder Cringe.” Right away,
Invest in housing and mental health services, not criminalization
The CARE Court Governor Newsom is backing is dangerous! Senate Bill 1338 would establish “C.A.R.E. Courts’’ in California. C.A.R.E Court has a $65 million starting cost and claims to combat houselessness and support people with mental health disabilities, but provides no funding for permanent supportive housing or mental health services.
CARE Court can require participants to take medication against their will. If they refuse medication for any reason,
(In memory of Luis Temaj Tomas)
I
On Tuesday, October 12, 2021
TV news announced
That a homeless man
Had died from his burns
He had been sleeping
In his sleeping bag
The previous Friday
When someone set his
Sleeping bag on fire
At 25th street and South Van Ness
In the Mission neighborhood
In San Francisco’s Latinx neighborhood
He was Latinx.
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.
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,
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,
Rental assistance for 2,000 households, seven street crisis response teams and over 1,400 units of permanent supportive housing for adults, families and youth are some of the highlights from draft recommendations for the city’s Our City, Our Home (OCOH) fund, presented on April 21 and 22 by the OCOH Oversight Committee.
The OCOH fund, required under Proposition C, was created by San Francisco voters in 2018 to fund permanent solutions to homelessness. The fund raises over $300 million per year through a tax on gross corporate revenue.
In the 2021 San Francisco budget process, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously supported the implementation of the Compassionate Alternative Response Team (CART), but Mayor London Breed refused to execute this ordinance, which would activate the peer-led CART teams, because she launched her own version of street outreach called Street Wellness Teams. Yet, $3 million in funding was secured to begin the implementation of CART, which currently sits untouched in unallocated reserve for a year.
Four walls. A roof. Doors that can be locked with a key. These are things that provide you with security, safety and stability when you’re housed. It’s easy to take these feelings for granted. I sure did until I lost my housing, and I had to struggle to keep my security, safety and stability in my newly unhoused state.
Now, imagine if you’re trying to avoid some asshole who’s harassing or bullying you,
I arrived in San Francisco from Anchorage, Alaska on Feb. 20, 2008. I stayed with the father of my children and my two sons. We stayed in my mother-in-law’s apartment in the Alemany projects. It was there I conceived my second son. I drank and did drugs during this time, while working for my brothers-in-law and my kids’ father through In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS). I went to jail due to domestic violence incidents between me and my partner at the time,
