A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by Jordan Wasilewski
In one of his corny anti-graffiti videos, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood talked about how he is all about the data. However, data can have many shortcomings and might not be able to tell the whole story, as we have seen with low-income people being evicted from housing that is supposed to help them stabilize.
I went to the Homelessness Oversight Committee’s October 1 meeting.
photos by David Elliot Lewis and Zoey Laird
left to right: Hannah Beazely, Lukas Illa, Couper Orona, Carolyn Goosen, Dean Preston, and Maurice Byrd at the Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore on October 6, 2026. They spoke at a panel on San Francisco’s response to street homelessness.
“Our city is brushing people under the rug like we don’t exist. We exist and we belong somewhere,
by Christin Evans
The November election is nearly here and you should have received your ballot by now if you are registered to vote.
There are three ballot measures to support when you fill out your ballot: Vote YES on Propositions B, C and I. Each of these props will help us expand our City’s affordable housing stock. With rents soaring, we need to spend more of our City money on expanding the number of permanently affordable homes for San Franciscans making less than $90,000 per year.
By Kidest Yigezu
At the October 1 meeting of the Homelessness Oversight Commission, several community members weighed in on a plan to recontract more than $500 million in annual grants and contracts that will affect the homelessness response system, or “reprocurement” as the City calls it. It was the first hearing on the plan since the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) held three “listening sessions” in September.
Among the critiques were the short-notice announcements of the sessions and the expectations placed on service providers.
by Lukas Illa
In San Francisco, the richest and most powerful industries in the world are spurring a devastating affordability crisis, where a median one-bedroom apartment is going for $4,000 per month and pre-IPO stock is being used as a bartering chip when touring rental units. We are in desperate need of affordable housing for the working people of this city that are consistently at the whims of the ever-greedy speculative real estate market.
Street Sheet recognized for community organizing of people living in vehicles
It is with great pleasure to announce that Street Sheet was nominated for an award at the International Network of Street Papers (INSP) for its coverage of San Francisco’s RV parking ban and the push to organize vehicle dwellers while guiding them through a new permitting process.
Street Sheet made the shortlist in the Best Campaign category,
by Jordan Wasilewski
On September 3, I rolled out of bed, went to the Homelessness Oversight Commission (HOC), saw that the director’s report did not include the annual report of evictions from permanent supportive housing, and, as is my style, called them out on it in the loudest and most profane way possible. I had a copy of the FY2025-2026 eviction data in my hands, but after channeling my best Peter Finch from the movie “Network,”
by Eliza Macaluso and Kalevi Kaukonen
Mayor Daniel Lurie’s administration has terminated its contract with the Sixth Street Self-Help Center, forcing the Center to close by December 31, 2026. The closure comes as City leaders attempt to “revitalize” the Sixth Street corridor.
Hospitality House, a nonprofit that has served San Francisco’s housed and unhoused residents since 1967, operates the Sixth Street Self-Help Center and six other programs.
by Jordan Wasilewski
I want to share something I learned in high school, a parable from South Asia about the blind men and the elephant. Several blind men touched the elephant in different parts of their body and came back with various different descriptions of the animal, which, although accurate, was incomplete. Together, the blind men could have painted a picture of the elephant and all its multitudes. I am also reminded of a quote by deaf-blind disability advocate and socialist Helen Keller,
The City of San Francisco, at the direction of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office, is pursuing a “residency requirement” before unhoused folks can receive homeless services. It hasn’t unveiled the plan yet, or had planning meetings around it that are open to the public. The public doesn’t yet know which services or what this would look like, but the intent is obvious: more political scapegoating.
The “magnet theory” political trope is as old as mass homelessness in the U.S.
