COVID-19 Weekly Top Shelf Policy Recommendations Coalition on Homelessness | April 1, 2020

by streetsheet

HOUSE HOMELESS PERSONS IN VACANT HOTEL ROOMS NOW.

The Current Situation: The  City is only placing homeless people being discharged or diverted from SFGH beds who test positive or who are symptomatic into hotel rooms. The city announced today they are prioritizing hotel rooms for vulnerable people on streets, in shelters and in SRO’s but they have not moved any of them into a hotel room.  

What We Want: We are calling on the City to shelter all homeless people and those in congregate settings  into vacant units as a preventative measure, … READ MORE

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Cities Are Moving Unhoused People into Hotel Rooms, San Francisco Isn’t

by Jennifer Friedenbach

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, San Francisco Mayor London Breed has refused to use executive powers to house San Francisco’s 9,000 homeless residents living in the City’s streets and shelters. Under the Mayor’s emergency powers in the Charter and Administrative Code, Breed has the authority to commandeer a portion of the 33,000 vacant hotel rooms to house homeless residents, but has yet to utilize those powers in spite of the dire situation at hand. 

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COVID-19: Homelessness & Faith Communities in San Francisco

by Kelley Cutler, Human Rights Organizer

Unfortunately we will not be publishing a print version of our April 1st edition because of the risk to our vendors and readers. In the midst of this pandemic, our Street Sheet vendors need your support more than ever. Please consider making a donation to our EMERGENCY VENDOR SUPPORT FUND to help vendors cover essential costs while they are unable to sell the newspaper.

Today we spent time figuring out how to organize collecting and distributing tents across the City for folks who have no place to ‘shelter in place’ during the pandemic.

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Coronavirus Hits San Francisco: How Poor and Homeless People are Surviving

by Quiver Watts

Project Homeless Connect planned to host their regular homelessness services fair that centralizes services for unhoused people to access on March 4th. But two days before the date, the group sent out an email alerting participants and providers that the fair was cancelled, on the recommendation of the Department of Public Health (DPH). Health officials were gearing up for Coronavirus to hit the city, and bringing together thousands of providers and volunteers and unhoused people could pose a risk to the health of all in attendance.

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Former Foster Youth and Homelessness

by streetsheet

As information regarding the coronavirus and its potential threat of becoming a pandemic permeate every media outlet arising in pandemonium, prolonged homelessness as a social problem continues to fall through the cracks. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2018, a total of 552,830 people experienced homelessness. This is an estimate calculated by using the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department’s annual Point-in-Time (PIT) count which is collected through Continuum of Care (COC) communities who self-report the homeless population.

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