A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
What We’re Looking For as Prop C Funds Roll Out
BellaRoze Nelson
San Francisco is OUR home. No matter where we came from or how we ended up here, we are here. We are human, we too reminisce about the good old days, and wonder when the line between right and wrong got so hazy. The streets of San Francisco tell a brutal story of wealth, poverty and the pursuit of profit over the housing needs of human beings.
The Compassionate Alternative Response Team (CART) was envisioned by a broad coalition of homeless people, activists, service providers and community members as a safe and dignified way to respond to complaints from the public about street-based folks. The idea was to replace the current—often traumatic—police response with a compassionate response rooted in meeting the needs of those on the street.
After years of advocacy, CART was finally funded and set to be implemented,
by Javier Bremond
The Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco has documented numerous violations of the preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in their lawsuit against the City of San Francisco for violating the constitutional rights of unhoused San Franciscans.
In September 2022, the Coalition filed a lawsuit stating that the City has been unjustly sweeping homeless individuals by displacing them with no alternatives to adequate shelter,
by Areli Hernandez
Until recently more than 4,000 homeless people had been living at a large encampment on Wood Street in West Oakland. That number has been reduced to around 50 by repeated sweeps led by CalTrans, which have displaced many former community members. A neighborhood nonprofit called Essential Food and Medicine, or EFAM, helps encampment residents by distributing healthy foods and medicines. The group’s main aim is to reduce homelessness in the Bay Area.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s CARE Courts are now law after he signed the legislation on September 14.
Senate Bill 1338, a Newsom proposal, will create a specialized mental health court where judges can compel people with mental health disabilities and substance use conditions into treatment. The bill allows a broad list of “specified individuals” to refer somebody for conservatorship, and sets a similarly broad set of conditions qualifying them for CARE Court.
Invest in housing and mental health services, not criminalization
The CARE Court Governor Newsom is backing is dangerous! Senate Bill 1338 would establish “C.A.R.E. Courts’’ in California. C.A.R.E Court has a $65 million starting cost and claims to combat houselessness and support people with mental health disabilities, but provides no funding for permanent supportive housing or mental health services.
CARE Court can require participants to take medication against their will. If they refuse medication for any reason,
San Francisco just released its first point in time (PIT) count of homeless and unsheltered people in the City since before the COVID-19 pandemic. A group of city workers and volunteers scoured the city on February 23, 2022, tallying those most vulnerable members of our community who live without adequate shelter in this prosperous City by the Bay. The findings of the PIT count make for sobering reading.
We are all aware that in 2020 there was an immediate and concerted effort to get unhoused people inside—or at least into ‘safe sleeping’ programs that connected them with services and provided them with a stable place to pitch their tents.
A ‘Return to Normal’ in Abnormal Times
Wastewater testing is showing that San Francisco is currently experiencing perhaps the biggest COVID-19 surge yet, at the same time as the monkeypox virus is sweeping the country. With mask mandates gone and eviction protections being rolled back, the City seems set on a return to normal in the most abnormal of times.
Against this backdrop, the City is shutting down shelter-in-place (SIP) hotels,
Human rights monitors should observe homeless encampment clearances to ensure that residents who are being connected to services keep their belongings and City workers follow their own policies, according to a new report.
On June 16, the Latino Task Force released a study based on more than 100 surveys with unhoused San Franciscans in the city’s Mission District. Almost two-thirds of those who responded said they are often displaced in encampment sweeps,
Coalition on Homelessness Statement on Officer-involved Double Fatality on May 19, 2022
Rising rents and a lack of stable, affordable housing have pushed many people into homelessness in San Francisco, like they have in cities up and down the West Coast. Living without stable housing is difficult and traumatizing, and it has long-term health consequences for those forced to endure it. With no door to lock and no safe place to rest, unhoused people live without the fundamental stability and safety a home provides.
