Where’s the Care in the Proposed “CARE Courts?”

by Jade Arellano

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,

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Advocates Fight to Codify Shelter Grievance Policy

by Ben Baczkowski and Quiver Watts

On April 7, members of the Board of Supervisors  Government Audit and Oversight Committee considered whether to codify the Shelter Grievance Policy—a critical protection for homeless San Franciscans—in the City’s Administrative Code. Dozens of advocates turned out to make their voices heard in favor of the proposal, and the committee voted to send the proposal to the Board of Supervisors for a full vote. Given that six supervisors have joined Shamann Walton in sponsoring the legislation,

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Kidnapping the Tenderloin through Redistricting

by Geoffria Morris

Every 10 years, the U.S. Constitution requires all residents to be counted through the Census. The Census occurs every decade, and once it concludes, the redistricting process begins. Redistricting is the redrawing of boundaries to ensure that U.S. citizens in a given state or city have a relatively proportionate number of constituents to serve in legislative offices. The redrawing of district lines is done at every level of legislative government: city, county, state and federal.

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Laying Down and Waking Up a Slave in Texas

by Pariah A.K.A. Robert
A cop with an evil grin points a gun as bodies and tents go flying, and a figure in the foreground stares at their phone looking distressed.

It’s poetic…
In Texas, we’re trapped in pits with small widdows.
Inside these cells, we’re funding our own imprisonment;
the chains are encrypted inside the chips and soup sales.
We’re inside of an identity crisis believing our souls out of favors,
So we accept the chains;
believing a greater change will come save us…
Can you dig that?!?!
I guess that Willie Lynch Syndrome dies hard in some places.
Since I’m older now,
In these younger guys I see my own reflection. … READ MORE

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CART- A Compassionate Alternative Response to Homelessness

by Tyler Kyser

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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Return to Sender: House the Bay Rallies Against UC Hastings Settlement

by Jiffy Phan, organizer with House the Bay

“Homes not barricades!! Homes not barricades!!”

These are the words chanted by protesters marching through the streets of the Tenderloin. Some were carrying police barricades, while others held signs that read ‘DEFUND SFPD,” “Rent is Theft” and “Black Homes Matter”. Others were equipped with medical supplies and sustenance, and in the back you could hear the Brass Liberation orchestra playing their instruments brightly to the beat of the chants.

Community organizations such as House the Bay,

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Beware the Budget Cuts, Cameras and Civilians: On the Future of Policing in San Francisco

by Madeleine Matz

Near the seven-hour mark of the July 8 meeting of the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Appropriations Committee on the San Francisco Police Department budget for the next fiscal year, I realized I simply could not go on. After two long presentations, dozens of questions from supervisors and almost five hours of public comment, the end was not in sight. I was exhausted.

This was, for some organizers, the goal. Many of the over 400 callers used a script,

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Defunding the Police: On the road to abolishing oppressive policing

by Western Regional Advocacy Project

Black Lives Matter and other abolitionist groups are leading communities across the country to recognize that the criminal justice system is a powerhouse of violence and white supremacy. Policing was racist at birth, with its origins in scalping Indigenous people and kidnapping Black people escaping slavery. It has a long history of keeping non-white, non-property owning people “under foot” and disempowered. From Reconstruction to Jim Crow and up to the present, police budgets across the country have continued to grow,

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Homeless Tenderloin Residents May Face Massive Police Enforcement in Hastings Settlement

by Quiver Watts

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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Oppose Nancy Tung & Geoffrey Gordon-Creed

by Jennifer Friedenbach

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. Erik Salgado was killed and his girlfriend shot in Oakland this past weekend, while last week, San Francisco resident Sean Monterrosa was killed in Vallejo.  This month has been a powerful reminder of what happens without police accountability. 

Nancy Tung and Geoffrey Gordon-Creed were nominated by Mayor London Breed to fill two seats on the Police Commission.  These seats must be approved by the Board of Supervisors;

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