A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by Shakema Straker
The following is an excerpt from “We Belong Here,” a newly released report from the Coalition on Homelessness. The full report can be found on cohsf.org.
San Francisco’s parks belong to everyone. That is not just an aspiration, it is the explicit mission of the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (SFRPD): “to provide enriching recreational activities, maintain beautiful parks and open spaces,
by Malik Washington
Disclosure: I have had prior professional contact with William Palmer through his former radio program, Cafe Revolution on KPOO 89.5 FM, and I attended Sheriff’s Department oversight hearings referenced in this article. I also spent time incarcerated inside San Francisco County Jail facilities, including San Bruno. That history informs this reporting but does not alter the documented public record on which this investigation is based.
by Poor Magazine
Chocollo
I’ve been living on the streets for 15 years, suffering from unemployment and having no family. This is how I have met many people in the same or similar situations. I hope that one day I can resolve my situation and have peace in my life. I miss my family and my children very much, but I haven’t seen them since I’ve been on the verge of becoming homeless.
by Malik Washington
How San Francisco reduced visible homelessness while more people are driven into a jail system in crisis
San Francisco wants credit for reducing visible homelessness.
Its own records suggest the city may also need blame for helping fill a jail system now described by a Civil Grand Jury as overcrowded, understaffed, deteriorating, and near a “breaking point.” That is the contradiction at the heart of the city’s current public-safety narrative.
by Willie Futrelle
Local and national housing advocates protested outside the Le Meridien Hotel in DC, US against the Cicero Institute’s Homelessness Policy Conference and the think tanks’ influence over homelessness policy on June 5.
In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court upheld a city’s ability to arrest people for sleeping outside without available shelter space for the unhoused, allowing for more punitive legislative measures across the nation,
photos by Zach Bollinger
On the same day that Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office announced “record-low number of tent encampments and large vehicles on San Francisco streets,” advocates for homeless people gathered on the steps of City Hall to demand more services and an end to criminalization.
Three organizations, including the Coalition on Homelessness (COH), which publishes Street Sheet, hosted the rally on June 9 to protest what they call a futile and cruel response to homelessness.
by Paul Boden/Western Regional Advocacy Project
Let’s be real about what’s happening. The U.S. Government is endeavoring to solidify its long time quest of a fascist dictatorship rule. It’s moving incredibly fast because the structures needed to pull this off have been getting implemented piecemeal and with purpose since the Reagan Revolution in 1980. So now they are ready to rock and roll.
Dictatorships always rely on a militarized police force to rain hell on a scapegoated minority that are “blamed” as the cause of whatever the authorities decide is going to put fear into their base and use that fear to stoke division and prejudice amongst people.
by the Western Regional Advocacy Project
Everyone is familiar with a sweep, be it by definition, bearing witness to somebody being displaced or even coming across a familiar place and noticing people who used to live there are suddenly gone. Sweeps happen every day in our communities. Yet despite new policies, rhetoric and media portrayals of sweeps and city government’s asinine excuses for doing them (i.e. health or drug issues),
by Lukas Illa
San Francisco community based-organizations enter another city budget cycle with great uncertainty of whether their core programs will exist in four months time. With Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Austerity First budget (my words, not his), San Francisco is once again electing to siphon funding for working-class communities of color to pad law enforcement agencies’ already bloated budgets.
The People’s Budget Coalition has tracked a combination of $62 million expected cuts to the Department of Public Health (DPH),
By Katie Doran and Annemarie Cuccia
Last summer, a DC resident was looking for apartments to rent with his newly received housing voucher. The man, who Street Sense is not identifying to protect his family’s privacy and the outreach organization that he worked with, was born in El Salvador. His parents brought him to the US more than 20 years ago,
