A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
Cities across the United States have tested the housing first model and found that it works very well, presenting a compelling case that housing first should be expanded where it is already used on a small scale and implemented where it is not public policy.
Despite the immediate costs and political resistance with building housing for chronically homeless people, the shift to putting homeless people in permanent, personalized shelter is justified on a range of grounds.
It would be easy to miss, with Prop C in full swing, with political candidates talking about their “solutions to the biggest challenges facing the city today”, with successive mayors intensifying the criminalizing sweeps of our friends and family on the streets… But San Francisco is making radical steps – leading the country, in fact – with the first ever demonstration model of a safe injection site in the United States.
“Safer Inside: A Community Demonstration” took place in the last week of August,
It’s Friday afternoon at the drop-in center known as Mother Brown’s on the corner of Jennings Street and Van Dyke Avenue. Despite the iron-gated door fronting the entrance, people drop in freely to check their mail, take a shower, do laundry, or chill out in the reception area. For a nominal fee, Mother Brown’s rents out lockers.
Gwendolyn Westbrook, the director of the United Council of Human Services — the official name of Mother Brown’s — as well as staff describe the place as a community center.
Just like the ones before, the latest class of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will have to tangle with the city’s homelessness crisis. And the four newest supervisors could play a key role.
The board welcomed them to City Hall on January 9. Three of the them—Sandra Lee Fewer, Hillary Ronen and Ahsha Safai—were elected last November to replace termed-out supervisors. The fourth, Jeff Sheehy, was appointed to fill a vacant seat after its previous occupant was elected to the State Senate.
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 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,
In 1995, a monthly newspaper, Street Spirit, was launched in Oakland to serve the needs of homeless people in the East Bay. Sold on the street by homeless vendors who were allowed to keep all money earned, the paper was funded by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which paid for office space, printing costs, and the salaries of an editor and vendor coordinator.
The newspaper received strong public support and widespread media praise for its hard‑hitting articles and professional design.
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;
