A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
Being a Human
Not necessarily saying all people but the status quo.
Not just have to, want to exist a person in a functional individual in society.
Not just being, but functioning in a humane way. It’s okay to say have
a nice day, it won’t hurt you.
That’s called being a human
There’s a magistrate in the fridge:
It’s time to get rid of these old ass tamales.
Freezer burn babies of beef and cheese and I step into quiet wasteland.
Not a desperate land for Mad Max. Just cold emptiness like Gravity.
Big, Snorlax man outside the market. Beard like Klaus. Fingernails that pulled flowers from Golden Gate Park.
N95 masks headed in and out as though tear gas wailed around like the Kashmir Valley.
I am not afraid of poverty
I learned at the age of three that oxygen wasn’t free
And the expense of life was madness
That would forever be submerged
In a ice cold bathtub
If I watched my brother die would I freeze?
Without feeling powerless
I try to escape my right to frost
By submitting to the inevitable
I hugged the ocean’s waves
But I lost my mind at night
Survival is for the unfortunate
For sordid dreams to collapse by a broken family
I collected my whims in jars
And the moon captured my fears of governance
To be disregarded in history
Man without a home
A misery
The season of giving has come to everyone
In the Kingdom of Heaven,
As keepers of the
Garden around us there is a glow, here is peace harmony
And love,
We give praise for deliverance and the abundance from
Above,
Wide open is Heaven’s mandate titanic hope is at hand
Promising salvation to women and men,
Filling cups promised and granted,
Briefly in 2020, it wasn’t always “all COVID, all the time.”
That was for about two and a half months into the new year.
The first year into a new decade almost seems like eons ago, but early 2020, at one point, is where homelessness in San Francisco and the U.S. might have turned a corner — starting as early as December 2019.
Then, the Martin v. Boise case in Idaho was upheld when the U.S.
Where Will Residents Go?
Earlier this month plans to shut down Shelter in Place (SIP) hotels, which are currently housing 2,400 otherwise homeless residents, leaked out of the COVID-19 Command Center (CCC). The hotel guests set to lose their shelter have been categorized as ‘vulnerable’ by the City, meaning that they are over 60 years old or have an underlying health condition. Unhoused people and advocates across San Francisco have sprung into action to prevent the plan from moving forward,
In October of 2015, I went from living at the Navigation Center to living in a building master leased by the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. As much as housing gave me the illusion of freedom, I actually felt that some freedom was taken away, as from here on out, I had to sign over my check to the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, and have them cut me a check for my income minus rent (what is called the “modified payment program”
The COVID-19 virus and subsequent Shelter In Place (SIP) order have had stark, profound impacts on the daily lives of almost all San Franciscans, and, let’s face it — 2020 is unlikely to make anyone’s “Best Year of the Decade” list. For folks like me, our cubicles and offices have been replaced by our tiny kitchens and messy bedrooms, and the workweek has become a steady stream of endless — and sometimes pointless — Zoom meetings.
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (The more things change, the more they stay the same”)
” – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
The usual deluge of the election season, the series of slick, glossy election pamphlets and mailers, became an avalanche this year shoveled in by a ghoulish group of corporate executives, real estate developers and other moneyed interests pinned their hopes on the power of print.
Since it was implemented in 1992, San Francisco’s Shelter Grievance Policy has protected shelter residents from unjust eviction by utilizing a clear notification process, requiring administrative hearings with neutral arbitrators, and extending to all residents the right to representation by a Shelter Client Advocate. Almost 30 years later however, the Shelter Grievance Policy is under assault by city administrators. In these unprecedented times it is crucially important that the homeless community, shelter providers and tenant organizers demand that the City keep in place the established Shelter Grievance Policy and expand its protections from unjust evictions to ALL temporary shelters in San Francisco.
