A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by Kenyota
Content warning: This piece contains a reference to suicide.
I was homeless on the streets of San Francisco, and in several cities throughout the Bay Area, for over a decade. During those years I experienced what it felt like to be a non-person. I received the harsh stares, societal shunning and feelings of inadequacy that are common among those considered lost in the world of the unhoused.
Despite important wins, People’s Budget Coalition stands in strong opposition to finalized budget that sacrifices key services and values in order to criminalize poverty
Early on Thursday, June 26, at 2 a.m., the Board of Supervisors Budget and Appropriation committee voted to approve a budget that balances an $800 million deficit on the backs of San Francisco’s poorest and most vulnerable residents while expanding funding for jail expansion, high-end police equipment purchases and Mayor’s Office staffing.
by Charlie Fisch and Azucena Hernandez
On Tuesday, June 17, the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) Board of Directors met to approve on a 6–1 vote a refuge permit program that would exempt oversize vehicles from a proposed two-hour parking limit for up to 12 months. Approval of the program is only the first step in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s two-phased RV ban. Members of the End Poverty Tows Coalition and their allies told the panel that this plan will lead to displacement and increased street homelessness while residents struggle to find shelter.
story and photos by Sarah Menefee
Below are some quotes from testimony given by families who live in their vehicles, and by their advocates, before the SFMTA [San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Authority], at a hearing on Mayor Lurie’s proposal to institute a 2-hour parking limit on oversized vehicles in San Francisco. Ninety percent of the homeless families in the city live in vehicles such as RVs, and would be in grave danger of having them ticketed and towed,
by Cathleen Williams with Peggy Kennedy
Venice, Los Angeles: A neighborhood for poor people, for renters who used to thrive in cheap apartments on the rundown back streets, a neighborhood famous for its countercultural vibe and freedom, where the wide beach and boardwalk teemed with performers, drag queens, artists, and outcasts. In the 1950s, Venice was a center of the Beat Generation in southern California—a local counterpart to San Francisco’s North Beach.
