One of the biggest challenges the more than 7,000 homeless people in San Francisco face every day is finding somewhere to use the restroom. It’s something that homeless people are often demonized for, without giving much thought to the resources available to them: People want to use bathrooms, but are forced to go on the streets because there are so few restrooms available to them.

  “Access to a bathroom to hygiene facilities is something with we often associate with developing countries,” Jennifer Friedenbach,

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It has been one year since Luis Góngora Pat was shot to death by San Francisco police at the Mission District encampment where he stayed.

It will at least another year before his surviving family could seek answers—if not justice—at a federal court.

But on April 7, 2017, the first anniversary of this tragedy, about 100 people marched throughout the city, from the site of the 2016 shooting to City Hall.

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What is sanctuary?

In the 21st century, people are fleeing in search of safety, looking for it high and low, enduring countless trials and many don’t make it at all.

Society is no stranger to waves of people, fleeing war, plague and natural disaster.

Today many governments in the West are scrambling to cope with the current crisis in Syria.

The ongoing armed conflict in the Middle East has left tens of thousands seeking asylum.

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Past the bustling streets downtown and the hip young neighborhoods surrounding Divisadero, there lies a quiet, oft-overlooked section of San Francisco. The city’s westernmost borders are home to two of its largest districts: Richmond and Sunset. Sandwiching Golden Gate Park, the Richmond District is located directly north of the park, while the Sunset District lies just south.

Both neighborhoods were originally an expanse of rolling sand dunes and wild wasteland. First developed in the late 1800s,

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Homeless encampments continue to be displaced by the San Francisco Police Department, the Department of Public Works, private security and others. Encampment residents are told to move along, but have nowhere else to go, with an adult shelter waiting list consistently over 1,000 people long.

One woman living in an encampment has something to say about it. Shyenene “Shy” Brown, whose encampment on San Bruno Avenue was swept in early March,

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Derek Williams is a writer and vendor for the Street Sheet. Recently he’s been working on an article about homelessness in the Castro. Many of the homeless community have moved into the Castro and he sought out to find out how this was affecting both the homeless and the residents of the Castro. He was surprised in finding that most residents of the Castro really don’t mind. He described to me how residents seem to care more about how homelessness is affecting the homeless rather than how they are affecting the neighborhood.

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