Keeping San Franciscans Housed and Healthy

by Contributing Author

presented by the Homeless Emergency Service providers Association

The Homeless Emergency Service Providers Association (HESPA) is a coalition of more than 30 community-based organizations serving thousands of homeless and at-risk individuals and families in San Francisco. HESPA members include City-funded service providers, privately funded nonprofits and faith-based providers. HESPA members include leaders on the frontlines of San Francisco’s homelessness response, behavioral health and workforce development systems. 

HESPA’s fiscal year 2025-2026 budget proposal calls on our City partners to prioritize community safety and wellbeing for all residents,

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Love on the Run

by Contributing Author

story and photos by Giles Clasen

Political oppression has pushed Maria, Juan and their daughters from Venezuela to Colombia to the United States, where their future remains uncertain.

Maria and Juan’s life together began in a shrimp processing facility in Venezuela, where they worked long hours to support themselves.

“We peeled and sorted shrimp until the early hours of the morning,” Maria said. “It wasn’t much;

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What the Trump Administration Means for Americans Experiencing Homelessness

by Contributing Author

by Franziska Wild

A move away from housing first solutions to homelessness. Further criminalization of sleeping outdoors. Cuts to housing programs. These are some of the changes advocates and people experiencing homelessness worry could be on the horizon as President Donald Trump moves back into the White House, backed by a Republican-controlled Congress.

During Donald Trump’s first presidential term, he appointed officials who rejected evidence-based housing first approaches to homelessness and cut programs aimed at all low-income Americans.

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Housing First Attacked, Outside and Inside San Francisco

by Contributing Author

by Jordan Davis

Today, Housing First is facing so many threats, but I remember it having broad-based support when I came of age in the 2000s during the administration of George W. Bush. I grew up in a working class Democratic family who hated “Dubya,” and I frequently protested the Iraq war, Bush’s anti-environmental policies, and his overall political platform. I also do not like the recent nostalgia for the Bushes and Cheneys from Democrats in the face of Trump.

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Bullies Seek Pleasure in Causing Pain to Others

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

Once, violence toward me was a normal fact of life. In my youth, I was seen as smaller, thus an easy target. At 60, I don’t stand out any longer as a person toward whom to be violent, but this attitude of total disrespect of a major, fundamental boundary still affects me. Yet, I need to say two things about normalizing violence. My neighborhood in Martinez normalized violence toward others in general,

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