A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
On October 2, Judge Ronald E. Bush of the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho dismissed the controversial Bell v. Boise suit after an epic, six-year journey from the lower courts to the Ninth Circuit and back. The dismissal means that, for the moment, the City of Boise remains free to enforce a ban on camping in public places.
Anti-camping laws are ubiquitous in the United States, and are especially so in the West,
by Lilian Rine
I have two jobs: One is I sell Street Sheet at Rainbow. My second job is baby-sitting two dogs at nighttime until 6 a.m.
When I get depressed, I think about my deceased husband. That’s when I get sad. Then I go to work. That helps me forget all my troubles.
When I work, I have fun. That’s true for both jobs.
I will never forget him.
by the Western Regional Advocacy Project
On August 6, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a statement of interest expressing opposition to the criminalization of homelessness in a Boise, Idaho anti-camping case (see “Bell v. Boise,” this page). More recently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released its guidelines for “Continuums of Care”—consortiums vying for a share of the $1.9 billion in homelessness assistance funding. HUD will now require applicants to explain how their communities are combatting the criminalization of homelessness,
by Judith Klintbol & Stine Dieckmann
On the last day of September, the Western Regional Advocacy Project—a network of West Coast homeless people’s organizations, including the Coalition on Homelessness—organized an action against Business Improved Districts (also known as BIDs), which are geographically defined business areas that tax all buildings in the zone, including government entities and non-profits, but then only allow property owners, most of them large corporations, to decide what to do with the money.
by TJ Johnston
The ballot proposition to regulate short-term housing rentals will turn neighbors against each other, fuel frivolous lawsuits and publicize your private information.
Or, at least those are the images of Orwellian surveillance and compromised privacy conjured from the No on Prop F campaign’s slick TV commercials. To keep the San Francisco measure from passing on November 3, hosting platform Airbnb is digging deep into its $8.5 million war chest and filling the airwaves—and voters’ minds—with dystopian visions.
This shouldn’t even be news. But in San Francisco, anything touching homeless people, no matter how banal—do they have cell phones? what if we gave them dogs? what do uninformed tech con men or finance writers think should happen?—automatically becomes news. So news it became: 311 added a new category in its SF311 app: The first category for complaints in the app is now “Homeless Concerns.” The possible types of concern are: “Well-Being Check (Non-Emergency),” “Aggressive Behavior (Non-Emergency),” “Encampment,” “Clean Up –
In the midst of a severe housing crisis that is tossing people out of their homes, driving up the numbers of people experiencing homelessness, and depleting the diversity of this great city, our baseball team is developing City-owned land near the ballpark for mostly high-end housing, office buildings, and keeping some open space.
Proposition D, “Mission Rock,” is asking voters to decide the fate of the development because they are proposing to increase the height limit on 10 acres from one story to a range of between 40 to 240 feet along the waterfront.
In the midst of affluence, San Francisco is facing severe disparities among its residents, with large numbers of people working hard but unable to afford decent housing. A rapidly growing number of families are suffering while trapped in ever disappearing substandard housing. Many of them find themselves barely surviving and living in inhumane conditions in residential hotels or Single Room Occupancy hotels (SROs), which are a last resort in a quickly gentrifying city.
by Elizabeth Brown, PhD
One of the most significant movements in modern policing is what is often referred to as “Broken Windows” policing. The term “broken windows” comes from a short article published by two criminologists in 1982 in the magazine Atlantic Monthly titled “Broken Windows Policing.” From these rather modest origins, an entirely new framework for policing emerged premised on police as order maintainers, often called “order maintenance policing.” The emergence of order maintenance policing was neither novel nor unprecedented,
by TJ Johnston
A Timeline of Surplus Property Efforts
2002
San Francisco passes Surplus Property Ordinance.
2012
Swords to Ploughshares opens 150 Otis as Veteran housing.
2015
Chinatown Community Development Center opens Broadway Sansome Apartments.
2015
Prop K placed on ballot; may push City to realize the goals of 2002’s original ordinance.
Imagine 4,000 housing units becoming open to homeless families using land owned—but not being used—by the City.
That’s something that could be realized if San Francisco voters approve Proposition K,
