San Francisco’s “High Disgust Sensitivity” To Homelessness

by TJ Johnston

Raise your hands if you’re in favor of housing homeless people and programs that make it possible.

Now, raise your hands if you support laws imposing bans on sleeping outside or panhandling.

Chances are, in this scenario, you’d see the same set of hands raised favoring both approaches to homelessness. According to a pair of political scientists, that’s not unusual.

Scott Clifford of the University of Houston and Spencer Piston of Boston University studied this phenomenon of dueling impulses by commissioning a public opinion poll.

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Littering Fine Could Increase to $1000 in Dolores Park

by Maia Hibbett

On any sunny Saturday, hundreds of people fill the Mission’s Dolores Park with their friends, pets, music—and their trash. Current anti-littering laws do little to combat this latter phenomenon, as on most days, police officers in Dolores Park can be seen standing at the top of the hill, surveying the park for violent or egregious misconduct but doing nothing about the wrappers, cigarettes, bags, and other refuse being left by the park’s attendees. While the officers watch along the perimeters,

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New York Activists Fight to Halt Quality of Life Citations to Protect Undocumented Immigrants

by Quiver Watts

New York City has seen a lot of action around the intersection of immigrant status and quality of life crimes. San Francisco should look at following their lead.

Mayor Bill DeBlasio, like our Mayor Lee, has made strong statements shield and stand with immigrants. Like San Francisco, New York is a sanctuary city . However, as many have noted, the real way to create a sanctuary is to halt to crackdowns on minor offenses—like lodging in public spaces—that make immigrants the subject of unnecessary arrests and can lead to deportations.

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No Housing for Immigrants in the Sanctuary City

by Gianni Jones

In the Bay Area, accessing housing is a challenge many Americans face. While rents are rapidly rising, wages have stagnated; someone who works one, two, or even three minimum wage jobs in the Bay Area just can’t afford to live here anymore. Now imagine being an undocumented immigrant attempting to access limited, expensive housing and provide for your family. Often times, it can be a debilitating and stressful experience. The current implications of immigration policies in America displace and traumatize immigrants and refugees as well as foster hysteria and xenophobia amongst non-immigrants.

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New California State Legislation Honors the Dignity of Transgender Prisoners

by Coral Feigin and Sasha Buchert

Despite the fact that transgender and gender non-conforming people have recently become more visible in the media and popular culture, the realities for street-based, poor, black and brown and disabled trans women remain the same. Trans people continue to face discrimination from traditional housing, employment and healthcare forcing many trans people into alternative street economies like sex work, drug sales and whatever other work people can find. As a result of being pushed out of these traditional systems,

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Homeless People With Quality of Life Violations Face Arduous Court Process

by Phillip O'Donnell

After chasing off a rat by smacking a stick against my favorite bush and yelling, “Get out of here!” multiple times, I snuggled up in my sleeping bag, pulled my beanie over my eyes, and drifted off to a blissful sleep. Well, blissful until two large figures roused me from my slumber with car headlights shining in my direction, casting their ominous shadows on me. One of them said something, but I couldn’t make it out.

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Reclaiming Martin Luther King Day: Citywide Homeless People’s Popular Assembly

by Bilal Ali

“I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

On January 17, the Coalition On Homelessness, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 48th anniversary of the Poor People’s Campaign and Resurrection City, the Coalition On Homelessness, in conjunction with the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), along with the Anti-Police Terror Project’s 120 hours of actions to Reclaim MLK Day and other community partners,

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Social Service Providers, Advocacy Groups Recommend Improvements to Homeless Services

by Gianni Jones

Homelessness continues to be a pervasive social contemporary problem within the San Francisco Bay Area. Advocacy organizations and service providers of homeless people seek to implement policies that minimize barriers that homeless families, youth, and adults are facing. In fact, focus groups consisting of members of the homeless population and/or front line service providers in 12 different homeless service providers and advocacy organization took place.. The survey outcomes revealed interesting findings of barriers within the homeless system.

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Mayor Cuts New Housing Subsidies Putting Hundreds at Risk

by Crystal Yu


Mayor Lee recently cut funding for two new Board-funded housing subsidies, affecting 175 households across the city. The funding would have provided critical rental assistance for seniors, families, and people with disabilities.

These funds were backed by the Board of Supervisors and totaled $2.5 million—125 subsidies worth $1.5 million for seniors and the disabled, and another 50 subsidies worth $1 million for families with children.

“We have to invest the resources to keep people in San Francisco,” says Brian Basinger,

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Six Ways Homeless People are Criminalized Everyday

by Quiver Watts

Despite the lack of affordable housing and increasing gentrification and displacement, U.S. cities have continued to attack homeless people through criminalization. More concerned about keeping homeless people from the public gaze rather than providing housing to women, children,  adults, people with disabilities, and elderly people,  there has been an increase in anti-homeless laws across the nation.

While the criminalization of homeless and poor people is nothing new, it is the steady increase that is most concerning.

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