A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by Ian James
Band members chatted as they tuned their instruments, local artists sold hand printed posters and zines, and people continued to flow into Medicine for Nightmares, the bookstore hosting Denhi Donis’ birthday fundraiser.
Donis, better known as the Flower Lady, is fighting her second Ellis Act eviction in two years. She came to San Francisco 25 years ago from Chicago, fleeing domestic violence. She quickly became a fixture in the Mission community,
By: Johanna Elattar
The morning sun is shining through the windows of my mother’s small Brooklyn apartment. It feels like it’ll be a scorching August day, and I’ve been up for hours. I live in upstate New York, but I love coming back to Brooklyn to visit my mother, and to spend a few days in the city. The landline she refuses to get rid of rings and I quickly answer it. I recognize the voice on the other end right away: It’s Bettina,
By Detroit Richards
San Francisco, once famous for the Summer of Love, beautiful views from the hills, and stunning architecture, is now known for having a large amount of human excrement on the streets, unchecked open drug use, and fearsome rates of overdose deaths and criminal activity. Fingers are unfairly pointed at the homeless population, who are scapegoated as the cause of all of society’s problems, and as a result the animosity towards those who are unhoused in the city continues to escalate.
by Ben Judd
As pandemic relief efforts come to a close in this city, the future of solutions to homelessness is uncertain. Frustratingly, it has taken emergency responses to life-or-death illness to effectively address the problem.
The recent Point-in-Time (PIT) survey findings show that unhoused people have been relying on safe-sleeping locations that opened during the pandemic. As these sites close, people will be forced to once again search for a safe place to rest.
Evaluating New Drug Policy Legislation
Substance use can be a coping mechanism, a way to self-medicate to soothe mental health symptoms, a means to dull pain, or to drown out recurring traumatic events. According to the 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count, a small minority—about 12%—of unhoused people reported that substance use disorder led to their homelessness. For many more, substance use disorders developed when they became homeless, bringing health and socio-economic consequences.
There has been a strange debate brewing of late,
In June, Teresa Sandoval woke up in her spot underneath the highway near 13th and Mission streets to the sounds of a San Francisco Public Works crew conducting another encampment sweep.
Sandoval had already gone through this drill: Public Works, often accompanied by San Francisco Police Department officers, arrived unannounced and ordered her to pack up her belongings and leave. As she moved in her wheelchair gathering her stuff, Public Works staff removed her tent,
Dan Paul, an urban survivalist and magical street performer, has departed for his next grand adventure. He passed away on August 12, 2022. Dan was born November 11, 1970 in Seattle, Wash. into a loving family. He spent his early years at his home in Enumclaw, finishing out his youth in Huntsville, Ala. While a young adult, Dan felt crowded and claustrophobic trying to adjust to the demands of a conforming life and decided to take to the streets,
My team and I cook approximately 1,500 meals a day to help homeless people in the Tenderloin. I’ve done this long enough to put all the sights to words. The food containers we serve can be found for blocks, and even miles away from the kitchen, with just the veggies left untouched. The work is mostly thankless, and unfortunately doesn’t seem to improve the actual living conditions here. What the meal does offer is calories needed to simply make it to the next.
Homelessness, as the federal government defines it, is a situation in which an individual or family lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence. It describes those living in cars, emergency shelters, transitional housing, or places not meant for habitation. There is no single cause of homelessness. Many people become homeless after losing a job or income, or because of increased expenses, divorce, mental health crises, domestic violence, eviction, or addiction. It is estimated that in 2021,
San Francisco is a city of storytellers. It has been for a long time and it still is today. Storytelling keeps the city alive and helps to save it from its narcissistic self, and from the tears in the social fabric that officials—from Mayor London Breed to the new district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, successor to Chesa Boudin—promise to fix but have not yet done. Author Peter Walker and others insist that cycling can save the world.
