A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
A coalition of current and former San Francisco officials and civic organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in advance of a hearing on whether cities could penalize existing while homeless even when no shelter is available. Members of the coalition and their counsel, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, announced the filing in a press conference on Zoom.
Separately,
Proposition F, the measure that requires welfare recipients to be referred to drug screening if suspected of drug use, was approved by 58% of San Francisco voters in the March 5 primary election.
Prop. F passed with less than half of the City’s registered voters casting a ballot, and did so despite opposition from various political and advocacy organizations, medical providers, media outlets and labor unions.
Two days after the election,
The Coalition on Homelessness’s lawsuit may be put on hold after the City of San Francisco filed a motion to pause the ongoing case. The City Attorney’s office announced its request to the federal district court for a stay days after the U.S. Supreme Court said on January 12 it will review an Oregon case, which has close parallels to the homeless advocacy organization’s ongoing lawsuit.
The Supreme Court will decide whether it should be illegal to arrest and cite unhoused people for unauthorized lodging without offering immediate available shelter.
San Francisco’s response to unsheltered homelessness has long been on the radar of local and national media, and it’s pinging more frequently, partly because of a lawsuit that the Coalition on Homelessness has filed against the City.
Last year, a federal judge ruled that the City can not arrest or issue citations to people in homeless encampments without a real and specific offer of shelter while the case is in litigation.
Mayor London Breed announced that the City plans to resume enforcing laws governing homelessness in San Francisco in the latest development in a lawsuit against San Francisco for how it conducts operations on street homeless encampments,
In a Medium post on September 25, Mayor Breed said that a district court order from last December has prevented the City from enforcing several of its homelessness ordinances—while allowing street cleaning and clearing blocked sidewalks—but lawyers for the Coalition on Homelessness and seven unhoused plaintiffs dispute that assertion.
A lawsuit over San Francisco’s sweeps of homeless encampments continued as two separate hearings were held last week.
Those hearings may end up being a prelude to more action in court if the lawsuit comes to trial. Along with seven unhoused plaintiffs, the homeless advocacy organization Coalition on Homelessness—which also publishes Street Sheet—accused City workers of violating unhoused residents’ rights and destroying their property while clearing camps off the streets.
On August 23,
The Coalition on Homelessness offered to settle its lawsuit against San Francisco for its illegal practices of sweeping unhoused people off sidewalks. The City rejected the offer.
In a Thursday letter to City Attorney David Chiu, Mayor London Breed and others, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the American Civil Liberties Union Northern California said that both sides could work together toward a shared goal of tackling the dual problems of street homelessness and a lack of affordable housing.
The campaign to resurrect Street Spirit went into full swing with a benefit attracting over 100 people to the Tamarack restaurant in Oakland on July 15.
The event raised over $8,200, Street Spirit editor-in-chief Alastair Boone announced on Instagram. She told a panel audience that her goal is to raise $250,000, which would pay for printing, paying staff and covering other expenses for one year after the relaunch.
The Berkeley-based newspaper covering homelessness in the East Bay announced in May that its publisher,
After a three-year suspension prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the shelter reservation waitlist for single adults has been reactivated as of July 5, but with changes, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) announced earlier this month.
People wanting to refer themselves to a 90-day shelter reservation may call the Homeless Outreach Team at (628) 652-8000 to speak to a live 311 agent, HSH communications director Emily Cohen told the Homelessness Oversight Commision on July 6.
In 2019, when I was homeless, I lost my ID. I retraced my steps to the stores where I knew I had taken it out when I fished for store cards and cash in my pouch. No luck—it wasn’t at any of them.
That meant I had to undergo the rigmarole of replacing my ID. At least I still had my Social Security card, knew where I kept my birth certificate and had access to the paperwork waiving the fee to unhoused California residents—which is not always true for many people experiencing homelessness.
