A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
I’m a Gypsy, at least in the modern-day Western sense of the term. I live with no home because I move around too much to put effort into owning one. I’ve been in San Franshitshow for three months, and I have a full-blown memoir of stupid shit the cops have done since I’ve been here. I’m convinced that nothing would’ve happened if I had a house and a job.
During my time on the Haight,
San Francisco…I always thought about running to the little city by the bay for the longest time growing up, and as I got older the voice in my head started to get louder. Now at the ripe age of 22, I have a place in the city to call home for the next two years, thanks to Larkin Street Youth Services.
Getting here did not come without struggle. My background is as part of the LGBT community,
My name is Anubi. I was born and raised in San Francisco. I am a formerly homeless transitional-age youth.
My story began in the late fall of 1993. I was the product of a last-ditch effort to save a failing marriage, and I felt it pretty early on. My brother took the ensuing divorce even harder because he was ten years older than me. Both of my parents are natives of the city,
Raymond was 22 years old when we buried him. He is alive in our memories and always will be. We called him Salamander. He was a good kid, full of imaginations and always good for a laugh. Like most of us on the streets, he had his dreams, dreams that will now never be realized. Sal was a good friend and would have been a good father had we not buried him six months before his daughter was born.
Dear Mom,
It’s been about a year since your last visit and even longer since I’ve written you a letter. The last time I wrote you I was in jail. I know that I haven’t become all that you had hoped and dreamed for me, but I’ve still got a long time to accomplish things in my life. I’m practically still a kid.
I want you to know what I do to take responsibility for the way my life has become.
For the past four months, the Street Sheet team has been working hard on the Street Sheet’s first ever Youth Issue, an issue created for and by the homeless youth of San Francisco. We’ve worked closely with youth ambassadors from Larkin Street Youth Services’ Youth Advisory Board, Zak Franet and Anubi Daugherty, who have helped fill these pages with their own writing as well as outreach to other young people. Lovingly filled with powerful poetry,
Yesterday, San Francisco broke an all-time high in temperature records and hit 106 degrees. It was hot, really hot—and it still is. The heat wave continues on this weekend, with Saturday slated to reach up to 93 degrees and Sunday, 83 degrees. While housed folks may complain about the rising temperatures—especially since most homes in San Francisco have no air conditioning, it’s crucial to remember and support the folks on the streets living in tent encampments,
The San Francisco Human Services Agency’s (HSA) program and other community food resources play a major role in the homeless population’s quest for food justice. HSA has very specific criteria for those seeking food benefit assistance and the homeless are not exempt from county-specific requirements. The homeless population faces issues of food insecurity and economic pressures that prevent them from accessing healthy, nutritious and culturally appropriate foods — in the social justice realm,
Picture this.
You are eight. Your father brings you to a strange apartment in a neighborhood far away from where you live. It’s dark and smells like pee. He holds your hand as the door opens and a man in a white, stained tee-shirt says something to your father that may or may not be in English. It’s a question and your father knows the right answer. The door opens to let him in.
Visual art has served many purposes throughout history and across cultures, from personal expression, storytelling and creative imaginings. Art isn’t just drawings and paintings, though—it is spoken word, prose, poetry, music, dance, performance, sculpture and more. However, visual art, perhaps more so than any other medium of art, has been able to successfully utilize nonverbal communication to transcend socioeconomic and accessibility barriers for self expression and discourse. In the 20th century, artists increasingly began to use visual art as a medium for political purposes,
