In the Bay Area, accessing housing is a challenge many Americans face. While rents are rapidly rising, wages have stagnated; someone who works one, two, or even three minimum wage jobs in the Bay Area just can’t afford to live here anymore. Now imagine being an undocumented immigrant attempting to access limited, expensive housing and provide for your family. Often times, it can be a debilitating and stressful experience. The current implications of immigration policies in America displace and traumatize immigrants and refugees as well as foster hysteria and xenophobia amongst non-immigrants.
How to Be a Housing Ally (Or, Why I’m Not a YIMBY)
There’s a new battle around housing gaining attention in the media: the YIMBYs vs. the so-called NIMBYs. The YIMBYs, or the “Yes in My Backyard” folks, declare themselves to be “pro-housing” — that is, pro-development of any and every type of housing. And the NIMBYs are, apparently, everyone else — including affordable housing activists, tenant rights advocates, and everyday people struggling with gentrification and displacement in their neighborhoods.
The term “NIMBY,” or “Not in My Backyard,” is commonly heard these days,
Social Service Providers, Advocacy Groups Recommend Improvements to Homeless Services
Homelessness continues to be a pervasive social contemporary problem within the San Francisco Bay Area. Advocacy organizations and service providers of homeless people seek to implement policies that minimize barriers that homeless families, youth, and adults are facing. In fact, focus groups consisting of members of the homeless population and/or front line service providers in 12 different homeless service providers and advocacy organization took place.. The survey outcomes revealed interesting findings of barriers within the homeless system.
Mayor Cuts New Housing Subsidies Putting Hundreds at Risk
Mayor Lee recently cut funding for two new Board-funded housing subsidies, affecting 175 households across the city. The funding would have provided critical rental assistance for seniors, families, and people with disabilities.
These funds were backed by the Board of Supervisors and totaled $2.5 million—125 subsidies worth $1.5 million for seniors and the disabled, and another 50 subsidies worth $1 million for families with children.
“We have to invest the resources to keep people in San Francisco,” says Brian Basinger,
Evicted Off the Streets: Box City
In the pouring rain, City officials started clearing a homeless encampment at 7am on January 10. Named Box City for its wooden boxes that sheltered a community made up of 30 to 40 homeless people, including a tight-knit group of Tagalog speaking Filipinos, the encampment had been around since September of last year and was located along the freeway on 7th street and Irwin.
Some boxes that were cleared by the Department of Public Works had been identified as abandoned by the residents of the encampment;
