Mayor Breed Holds Back $3 Million From CART

by Kenneth Madrigal

In the 2021 San Francisco budget process, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously supported the implementation of the Compassionate Alternative Response Team (CART), but Mayor London Breed refused to execute this ordinance, which would activate the peer-led CART teams, because she launched her own version of street outreach called Street Wellness Teams. Yet,  $3 million in funding was secured to begin the implementation of CART,  which currently sits untouched in unallocated reserve for a year.

… READ MORE

Share this:

Housing is Safety

by TJ Johnston

Four walls. A roof. Doors that can be locked with a key. These are things that provide you with security, safety and stability when you’re housed. It’s easy to take these feelings for granted. I sure did until I lost my housing, and I had to struggle to keep my security, safety and stability in my newly unhoused state.  

Now, imagine if you’re trying to avoid some asshole who’s harassing or bullying you,

… READ MORE

Share this:

Time to Get CART Rolling

by Sara Shortt

Despite a pledge to redirect funds from the San Francisco Police Department and much rhetoric about police accountability and reform in the wake of the George Floyd protests, Mayor London Breed has been making  a lot of statements recently about the need for increased policing.  This was a key part of her “Tenderloin Plan”, which promised to address a range of street conditions including drug use, tents on the sidewalk, mental health needs, trash and drug dealing.

… READ MORE

Share this:

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

Share this:

Let’s Build a City that Values Lives Over Handbags

by Katharine S. Walter

Early in the evening on Friday, Dec. 3, a small group gathered in South of Market, on the corner of Fifth and Folsom streets, to honor Ajmal Amani’s life. The group stood in front of the site where the San Francisco Police Department murdered Amani only days before—inside Amani’s home, a residential hotel.

The danzantes from Oakland’s POOR Magazine led a prayer for Amani. They turned to face the four directions,

… READ MORE

Share this:

The Tenderloin Needs Help, Not Harm

by Quiver Watts

An abridged Statement from Coalition on Homelessness in Response to Mayor Breed’s State of Emergency December

Mayor London Breed is exploiting the concerns of a vulnerable community in order to promote a “law and order” agenda meant to benefit political and financial interests. This unjustified, and in some cases, illegal maneuver is cause for alarm. On Tuesday, December 14, after a misleading flood of media hysteria around crime in San Francisco and just days after meeting with a group of residents brought together by the business group Tenderloin Community Benefits District,

… READ MORE

Share this:

Legal Defense Clinics to Launch

by Western Regional Advocacy Project

After fifteen years of planning, strategizing, connecting, and building, Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) is proud to announce a huge step in our work: the official launch of the Legal Defense Clinic (LDC) Project! With the support of the National Homelessness Law Center, WRAP’s local member groups are developing a national network of legal defense clinics that promote access to justice by bringing dedicated legal services to the neighborhoods where unhoused people live. These are the neighborhoods where WRAP’s local member groups have built deep relationships with unhoused community members,

… READ MORE

Share this:

COH to Release HSOC Report

by Coalition on Homelessness

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,

… READ MORE

Share this:

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,

… READ MORE

Share this:

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. 

… READ MORE

Share this: