Keeping San Franciscans Housed and Healthy

by Contributing Author

presented by the Homeless Emergency Service providers Association

The Homeless Emergency Service Providers Association (HESPA) is a coalition of more than 30 community-based organizations serving thousands of homeless and at-risk individuals and families in San Francisco. HESPA members include City-funded service providers, privately funded nonprofits and faith-based providers. HESPA members include leaders on the frontlines of San Francisco’s homelessness response, behavioral health and workforce development systems. 

HESPA’s fiscal year 2025-2026 budget proposal calls on our City partners to prioritize community safety and wellbeing for all residents,

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Humanitarianism and Commitment to Families in the Community from San Francisco/ Humanitarismo y Compromiso con las Familias de la Comunidad de San Francisco

by Contributing Author

by Andrea Bulnes Huane, Maritza Salinas, Helen Merlo, Maria Zavala and Veronica Aguilar

Contine desplazándose hacid abajo para ver en Español

Our hearts felt sad and very sorry to hear so many cases of homeless families with various problems of depression, anxiety and even mental imbalance. This situation is terrible, so many children with worry in their souls and hearts so fragile and innocent that instead of thinking about playing or socializing at school,

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Unhoused Families’ Impending Exit to Streets Averted

by TJ Johnston

Time was running out for a pair of families who were faced with being kicked out of the St. Joseph’s Family Shelter in San Francisco when their request for an extended stay was denied. 

Those unhoused families—one, a Honduran couple with two children, and the other, a Peruvian single mother with one—were informed last week by the Mission District shelter that they must leave by 5 p.m. on March 10, or the shelter will call the police on them.

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“Volunteer Jail”: How California’s Go-to Solution for Homelessness Became a Housing Purgatory

by Contributing Author
A collage of cut-out images of a dome-shaped shelter building, a homeless person holding a blue tent, a portrait of a person looking at the camera, rows of red shelter tents and text of complaints about the conditions at shelters, which read: "I have black mold all over my walls. I have been exposed to it" and "program staff misusing services and resources intended for guests"

by Lauren Hepler, CalMatters

The records catalog the chaos inside California homeless shelters.

In Salinas, internal emails say the staff at one brand-new shelter grabbed the best donations for themselves and helped friends and family jump the line for housing. In Los Angeles, court records show a leading nonprofit hired a man who was convicted of attempted murder to work security at a shelter, where he committed three sex crimes in one day.

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Resources for People Living in California Shelters

by Contributing Author

By Byrhonda Lyons, CalMatters

In California, there isn’t a central, statewide agency that oversees homeless shelters. Shelters that receive public funding are monitored by local officials, who often handle complaints from residents. In some cases, state officials can also step in if residents report problems. 

A new CalMatters investigation has documented chaos and scandal inside California’s homeless shelters and found that fewer than 1 in 4 people cycle through shelters find permanent housing.

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FYI for San Francisco Shelters

by Contributing Author

Shelter Monitoring Committee – The committee tracks the conditions of City-funded shelters. Staff take and investigate complaints.

Drop-in times at 440 Turk St.: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays 10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. – 3 p.m. 

Committee meetings typically take place on the third Wednesdays of each month at SF City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl., Room 408.

To report concerns about a shelter:

Phone: (628) 652-8080.

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Why Don’t People Experiencing Street Homelessness Accept Shelter?

by Contributing Author

by Stop the Sweeps

We know one main thing: shelter is not being offered to most people being swept from street encampments in the US. There are hardly ever enough shelter spaces available.

According to a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in the case Martin v. Boise — a decision currently at risk of being struck down in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson — cities cannot legally sweep people if they are not able to offer every individual shelter.

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Meth, Death and Abuse: Inside the Private Security Forces Patrolling the Homeless

by Contributing Author

By Lauren Hepler/CalMatters

Wendy Powitzky thought she’d finally found a way off the street in Orange County.

The former hairdresser had spent years sleeping in her car and parks around Anaheim, near the suburban salons where she used to work. One day a social worker told Powitzky about an old piano shop recently converted into a shelter.

She just had to clear security to reach her new twin bed.

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Keeping Score: My Review of the Coordinated Entry Test 

by Contributing Author

by CJ Ross

“Where am I taking you? Where are you gonna stay tonight?” It was 2016. I Googled “shelters in San Francisco” on my friend’s phone from the passenger seat with about two hours left until we reached the city. 

I never thought I’d return to the city where I was born and raised. As I searched, I expected to find lists of places to sleep in a pinch,

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“Aggressive” Sweeps Loom in SF After Grants Pass

by Contributing Author
A tent is in the center of the frame. In front of it is what looks like a white dollhouse, laying flat on the ground. The image is in Black and White

On a rainy day in 2021, I witnessed San Francisco workers throw away a woman’s leukemia medication during an encampment sweep. They also forced her to move without offering her a shelter bed, in violation of City policies and an ordinance requiring the City to offer shelter before it can clear encampments.

When the Coalition on Homelessness filed a lawsuit against the City in 2022 over this practice, we provided documentation that San Francisco had cited and arrested more than 3,000 unhoused people without first offering shelter and illegally trashed their belongings,

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