The Water For All Initiative, a campaign led by the Human Rights Workgroup of the Coalition on Homelessness, is reacting to San Francisco’s continued failure to provide potable water and other basic human necessities, such as access to showers and bathrooms, for unhoused residents in the Tenderloin. The initiative demands more permanent drinkable water sources throughout the Tenderloin that are accessible to its unhoused and precariously housed residents. 

As part of the initiative,

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At the beginning of November 2020, the fate of residents of shelter-in-place, or SIP, hotels was suddenly thrown into question. Rumors began to circulate that the hotels would begin to shut down in phases, starting just days before  Christmas and ending this June. There was no formal announcement to residents, or even to staff, but San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Housing (HSH) circulated a document internally that scheduled out the hotel closures. Despite having been told that moving into a hotel room would guarantee a path to permanent housing,

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Last summer, I wrote a piece for Street Sheet about the #30RightNow campaign, our fight to make sure that all supportive housing tenants are paying no more than 30% of their income towards rent. We are proud to announce that since then, Supervisor Matt Haney introduced legislation that would close the gap for about 3,000 supportive housing tenants. It passed unanimously, and Mayor London Breed signed the legislation as well.

But in our backwards “strong mayor” system,

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Parts of this essay have been removed due to space limitations, but you can read the whole story with more critical details on her blog at www.ramona-mayon.com/blog-this 

You know how a person in grief becomes unhinged and focuses so passionately on what killed their loved one, that they change some segment of the law or society. Well, that’s happening to me. On December 23, 2020, at 2:30 p.m.,

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On January 19, the Compassionate Alternative Response Team (CART) working group presented its community plan for San Francisco to end the law enforcement response to homelessness and to roll out a new community-run response team.

“What kind of city would be possible if unhoused neighbors were treated as worthy of life and dignity rather than as a nuisance or a threat?” This is the fundamental question driving the CART working group’s mission to replace the police as first responders to situations involving unhoused members of the community.

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Charles Davis: In memoriam 

by Rev. Victor H. Floyd

For many years, Street Sheet has educated me and led me to an understanding and deeper love for my unhoused neighbors. In my context as a pastor, Street Sheet is a sacred text, an on-the-scene report from the front lines where Need and Greed do constant battle. The way our beloved San Francisco is set up,

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My Valentine Love
by Lawrence Hollins

Love is: sharing and caring,
giving and forgiving
Love is: loving and being loved
walking hand in hand
talking heart to heart
Love is: seeing through each
others eyes laughing
together, weeping together
praying together and
moreso staying together,
Love is: your Best Friend, your
King or Queen, your dream
your everything,
Love is: God, and God likes 
loving, now that’s
what I call love!!!

With a Smile
by Mira Martin-Parker

I work in a room the size of a broom closet and I am happy. … READ MORE

“The first time I saw a homeless person I felt very sad. I think everyone should have a home because of these reasons…hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, robbers, and COVID-19. These things can kill you. Homeless people are treated poorly in the streets by others. I think everyone should have a home because everyone deserves one.” – Sameen Prasad

Children are observant and have a heart for others that supersedes bureaucratic politics and the cruelties of capitalism.

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The ongoing violence of encampment sweeps in San Francisco

By Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness

Linda is a young, petite, Black woman who had just lost her boyfriend to an overdose. This tragic, preventable death is a particularly hard one for loved ones to carry, the “what ifs” and the “if onlys” running wild. For Linda the “what if” and “if only” was housing — she believed her boyfriend would not have died if the housing promised to him had been delivered.

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yeah sweet baby
I hear my brothers’ heartbeats
and see yo tears of blood
dying fo our eyes
on dem cold fuckin’
concrete streets

systems made to kill
not heal
people gettin’ rich
off po’ mans back

so have a drink 
sweet darlin’
it’s on me
oh yeah baby
humans not made
to die like animals
on filthy streets

while people walk by
hatin’ the po homeless man
eatin’ outta garbage cans

police arrestin’
the poor
fallin’ down
from hunger and neglect

yeah baby
i hear
my brothers’ heartbeats
and see yo tears of blood

your piercin’ screams
echoin’ in da night
beggin’ one person
to give a damn
if yo sees
the morning light

so darling
have a drink on me
yeah sweet baby
this one’s on me
man’s not made
to die on cold filthy streets
and tomorrow 
it  could be me
it could be me

yeah sweet baby
I hear my brothers’ heartbeats
and see yo tears of blood
dyin fo our eyes
on these cold fuckin’
concrete streets … READ MORE