Victims of a Failed System

Coordinated Entry is known to most folks experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. It is a system designed to coordinate and manage the limited resources available to unhoused people in San Francisco, and to prioritize who has access to housing subsidies and who does not. The evaluation is very strict and asks a range of questions about the health, income, and current living situation of those who enroll. 

There are people with jobs who work full time,

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Families Speak Out About Coordinated Entry

Since 2018, the City of San Francisco has been using a system called Coordinated Entry to distribute housing resources to homeless people. Coordinated Entry is mandated by the federal government, and requires the city to score homeless people with points, to identify which people are the most vulnerable. The people with the most vulnerabilities (for example disability, substance abuse, or mental illness), are the first ones prioritized to receive housing. The Coalition on Homelessness hosted a listening session in August with 35 families who were experiencing or had experienced homelessness to get feedback on how Coordinated Entry has been going for people.

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Board Will Vote on Proposed Safe Parking Site at Candlestick Park

On Tuesday, October 19, the Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to approve the proposed Vehicle Triage Center (VTC) at the Candlestick Point State Recreation Area in the southeastern corner of San Francisco. The site, funded by Proposition C dollars released in this year’s budget, would be large enough to accommodate up to 155 vehicles with 177 tenants. According to the Department of Housing and Supportive Housing’s (HSH) proposal for the VTC,

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Looking Back In Anger At Homelessness

Originally published on thepaltrysum.com

In the middle of the storm it is hard to see the wood for the trees, the wind from the rain or the good from the bad. I lived in that storm for most of my adult life, and it is only in the last week that I have been inside looking out at the storm from a position of relative safety that I have been able to take stock.

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From Shelter to Her Own Place: One Woman’s Journey

My name is Dominique Griffin and I am an intern here at the Coalition on Homelessness. I wanted to take the time out of my day to share my story with you, about my challenges with being homeless and being housed. 

About two years ago I was living in the outer Bay Area in Suisun City, near Fairfield, with my 14-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. I started having trouble paying my rent, which was almost $1,800 a month!

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COH to Release HSOC Report

On Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 11 a.m., the Coalition on Homelessness will host a webinar to unveil a scathing report regarding the city’s encampment response carried out by Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC). The report draws on recently acquired access to publicly released data and the results of in-person monitoring of the city’s encampment removal operations, which reveal dramatic failures. Perpetual displacement, lack of meaningful efforts to offer adequate and appropriate services,

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CART- A Compassionate Alternative Response to Homelessness

As the pandemic continues and the shelter-in-place (SIP) hotels made available to unhoused community members begin to shut down, the most marginalized are suddenly being forced back onto the streets. As this occurs, one can only imagine the influx of calls to 911 dispatchers requesting the presence of police for nonviolent unhoused folks. 

That is why it is so critical for San Francisco to implement the Compassionate Alternative Response Team, or CART,

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Re-Fund the Community: San Francisco Budget Victories, 2020

An older woman stands with a face mask and a sign that reads "ring the bell to support funding for homeless families"

San Francisco, like many cities, is in a challenging place economically with over 200,000 workers on unemployment, a $1.5 billion deficit due to loss revenue, and exponentially higher needs for city services such as rental assistance, health care, child care and other city essential activities.    San Francisco has a very unique budget process, where the legislative branch receives the budget from the much more powerful executive branch and has the opportunity to cut things out of the Mayor’s budget in order to fund other things they deem as higher priorities. 

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Paying Too Much for Rent? #30RightNow!

Starting in August, all tenants in Direct Access to Housing (DAH) program will pay only 30% of their income towards rent. Previously, while most supportive housing units — and all units that have come online since 2016 — were at 30%, 678 tenants in the DAH program were paying literally half their income towards rent, a legacy of backwards and cruel policies from the City and County of San Francisco.

The funding that was released came from a $1 million allocation that came as a result of me hunger striking for rent relief in 2019,

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Homeless Tenderloin Residents May Face Massive Police Enforcement in Hastings Settlement

City May Abandon Housing for Thousands of Unhoused Residents While Removing Tents

San Francisco, CA — As thousands protest to end police violence during a pandemic, disproportionately black homeless residents may face massive police enforcement in a settlement reached between the City of San Francisco and UC Hastings College of Law. The settlement compels the City to “employ enforcement measures” for those who do not accept shelter placements or safe sleeping sites — yet provides less than 10% of homeless residents with such offers. 

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