A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
I’m from Manchigo Bay, Jamaica. I am the youngest boy and five sisters and two brothers, but I’m the only one in San Francisco. I don’t know where they’re at now. In 1985 in my late twenties, I came to Los Angeles to see the world and to get more money. I was in Los Angeles and Long Beach for a couple months, but then came to San Francisco.
I’m 55 years old and I have one son.
In 2013, Maximus Real Estate Partners began to plan for a housing development at 1979 Mission St. to replace the current businesses located there including a Walgreens, a Burger King, the Hwa Lei Market and spaces for the community to sit, rest, meet up with one another and sleep. Although the project was halted for a few years due to a legal battle between the real estate company and landowners, Maximus seems to be gearing up for a final showdown to move forward with the project many are referring to as the “Monster in the Mission.”
The nickname was coined by the Plaza 16 Coalition,
My name is Ben, and I’ve been a San Francisco Taxi Driver with Veterans Cab since 2004. I love driving a cab in San Francisco. You feel the rhythm and pulse of the city, and as a taxi driver, you interact with the City from the level of the street. You deal with just about everything, from people living precariously in the tenderloin who need a ride, to ferrying fancy folks from places like the Opera and the Getty mansion.
Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration has taken inhumane actions to discontinue the DACA program. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initially was memorandum issued in June 2012, under the Obama Administration, by Department of Homeland Security which states “DACA provides certain illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of sixteen a period of deferred action and eligibility to request employment authorization.”
The discontinuance of this program impacts hundreds of thousands children and parents right here in the US.
Tenants of 285 Turk Street gathered on the steps of San Francisco City Hall on Tuesday. They were protesting rent increases levied against them by their new landlord, real estate mogul Neveo Mosser. They were joined by housing activists and Supervisor Jane Kim. The tenants—including single moms, seniors on fixed incomes, and undocumented immigrants—are facing immediate rent increases of five to 25 percent, which will go into effect on October 1st.
Mosser originally bought the building in 2016 and promptly informed the tenants that rents would go up by ten percent.
My name is Zak Franet, and I am incredibly excited to be writing for the Street Sheet’s Youth Edition. As a homeless advocate with lived experience, I could not stress the importance more of providing personal testimonials around the issue of homelessness, and as such, applaud the Coalition on Homelessness’s efforts to bring our stories into the light.
I am 23 years old and heavily involved in advocacy and youth empowerment in the City.
Frustrated by the constraints of my mind,
the fact that I walk in the room and gotta command space, cuz according to colonization, space
aint rightfully mines
the fact that patriarchy got me messed up, telling girls in saudi arabia that they can’t go to
school, tellin my home grrrls in the barrio that their worth ain’t nothing unless their stomach is
baby full
promoting marriage and child rearing amongst young low income women of color,
THESE PEOPLE
Asleep in a drop in center in the middle of the night
I heard these words, left suspended in the air.
“What’s wrong with ‘these people’?”
These people, said by someone whose job it is to serve and help.
If you don’t like, “these people,” why are you even here?
Too often those managing the homeless see themselves as baby sitters
And treat the clients as such.
My name is Anastazia. I use she and they pronouns. Homelessness affects many people. A community it affects strongly and most personally, for me, is the Trans and Gender Nonconforming communities. As someone who identifies as Trans and Gender Nonconforming and someone who was formerly homeless, it was difficult to navigate a system of binary shelters in the city. I would fear to sleep in men’s shelters as I did not feel safe, because I did not identify as male.
Every two minutes a child enters the foster care system due to a traumatic event such as abuse, neglect, abandonment, or sudden parental death in the household. They are ripped from their home and thrown into a new one with strangers who are now supposed to be their new family. Sometimes, this is the end of the story, but most of the time, the child continues to be moved from one place to another.
Let’s meet Emily,
