It’s winter in San Francisco again. It gets colder and wetter than usual. This is the time of year in which many more people grow very concerned about our unhoused neighbors being out in the weather. 

I understand the concern. Pneumonia, trench foot or other illnesses caused by exposure to the weather are serious. The increased risk to health warrants a more serious policy response. 

But on another level, I wonder about how arbitrary it can be for us to draw a line between suffering homelessness in temperate weather and suffering it in cold and wet weather — as if the crisis of having thousands of people living on the streets and sidewalks in a city seven miles-wide was not serious enough to merit all the response we can afford year-round.

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Redding, California — On November 19, 2019, Mayor Julie Winter of Redding, CA sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom asking him to sign a  State of Emergency classification that would allow the city to create a megashelter for homeless people that would essentially operate as a concentration camp. In an interview with Jefferson Public Radio that same week, Winter said, “it’s not a facility you could just leave because you wanted to.” Although all other City Council members signed the letter,

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by Jazmine Davis

On November 24, I joined about 30 other people in occupying Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland to demand adequate housing for homeless people and the end of encampment evictions.

The occupation started out very successful; people were interested in what we were doing, wanted to learn how they could contribute, and were overall supportive of the action. We were out there with tents, food and literature for most of the day until the sun started to go down.

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On the tails of his administration’s trip to California, Trump blasted the state for the homelessness crisis, calling for the creation of involuntary camps where unhoused people could be locked out of site. His threats may become reality under the leadership of Robert Marbut, the private consultant Trump has picked to head the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, pending confirmation by the same council.

Robert Marbut is known for the use of the term “velvet hammer”,

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Western Regional Advocacy Project

On November 19, Mayor Breed announced the “Love Our City Holiday Eco Blitz.” The Eco Blitz is a 24 hour a day, two month initiative to clean up the city for the holiday weekend between Black Friday and the end of the holiday shopping season.   However, an unfortunate side effect of these efforts we have seen repeatedly has been the sweeping of poor and unhoused people out of downtown San Francisco in the name of street cleanliness or “going green.” Breed announced her holiday theme alongside the cities’ most notorious conductors of sweeps: the Department of Public Works and the police department.

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by Shyhyene Brown

So imagine growing up in an abusive family, imagine struggling to fit in at school and at home, being bullied at school. Imagine being raped by the person you trusted to protect you. Just imagine running away from home to get away from the hurt and pain that you endured at home. And just imagine using drugs and alcohol at a young age to suppress the feelings of your past life.

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by Olivia Glowacki

A grandmother in our Housing Justice Work Group reported to us the death of her grandchild, who prematurely died in the womb, according to her doctor, most likely due to the mother’s stress of being homeless and on the streets. This news emerged in the midst of a three-year battle with the City of San Francisco to make pregnant people eligible for family homeless services. Prior to our recent win,

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