Are We Going to Be Able to Vaccinate Everyone?

by Rupal Ramesh Shah

Trying to protect those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) people experiencing homelessness may have difficulty accessing basic medical services. Hence, the CDC has developed several guidelines to ensure homeless people are prioritized during vaccine implementation. One of them is to work with “continuum of care” programs, which promote community-wide efforts to end homelessness and directly address the needs of unhoused people.

In the city of San Francisco,

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How Housing Choice Vouchers Saved My Family

by Dempsey "Sunbear" Jackson

In 2011, I was homeless and addicted to methamphetamines. That year, I found out that my girlfriend of 10 years, Amy, was pregnant with our son, Marley. We went to Jelani House, a rehabilitation program, to try to prepare for our son’s arrival. But when we showed up, the shelter wouldn’t let me bring my service dog inside. Instead, I had to stay on the street and try to get clean alone while taking care of our dogs,

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When COVID-19 Hit the World

by Anonymous
A rooster stands atop a skull wearing a hat that reads "ICE", with handcuffs lying beside it. The image is framed by cacti and a scorpion.

When the first case of COVID-19 was reported, no one felt or knew how far it would spread or impact our lives. No one would have known that it would affect us so much health-wise, economically and even mentally. As I write this the impact of this pandemic has been felt across borders, affecting everyone regardless of age, sex, religion or even social status. What we used to see as a normal routine became a luxury with movement restricted by lockdowns and self-isolations.

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Trying to Make It in America

by anonymous
A rooster stands atop a skull wearing a hat that reads "ICE", with handcuffs lying beside it. The image is framed by cacti and a scorpion.

Content warning: The stories throughout this issue may be especially activating for some readers. Many of these pieces involve descriptions of traumatic experiences including sexual violence, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, queer/transphobic violence, in addition to the violence of states and false borders.

I am an immigrant from Malawi, and I have lived in San Francisco for the last ten years. I came to the United States for a wedding and afterwards I decided to stay and try to make it in America.

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Thing Took a Turn

by Jocey
A rooster stands atop a skull wearing a hat that reads "ICE", with handcuffs lying beside it. The image is framed by cacti and a scorpion.

Content warning: The stories throughout this issue may be especially activating for some readers. Many of these pieces involve descriptions of traumatic experiences including sexual violence, domestic violence, sexual exploitation, queer/transphobic violence, in addition to the violence of states and false borders.

The rate of homelessness in San Francisco is currently alarming and it’s quite unfortunate that I have been a victim of it. My name is Jocey, a 28-year-old divorcee,

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More SIPs to Close and Shelters Reopen as COVID-19 Variant Intensifies

by TJ Johnston

 As a state of emergency takes effect in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, the City has scheduled to close four more hotels sheltering unhoused people from the coronavirus pandemic in the next two months — even as the omicron variant surges in congregate shelters.

These shelter-in-place (SIP) hotels will shut down by the end of March. The SIPs – the Adante Hotel, Executive Hotel Vintage Court, Nob Hill Inn and Best Western Red Coach Inn – comprise almost 200 rooms among them and spread within a 50-square block area from the Tenderloin to Lower Nob Hill to Union Square. 

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Georgia Marie

by Jason Albertson

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual individuals, alive or dead, is coincidental.

Case counts were down; I told the folks delivering vaccinations that I could help. We set up Mobile Outreach Vaccine Events to find homeless people to vaccinate. We gave people twenty bucks worth of gift cards for vaccinating, and offered flu vaccines, booster shots, Johnson and Johnson one-shot-gets-you-done vaccines, and completion doses for Moderna and Pfizer.

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The Tenderloin Needs Help, Not Harm

by Quiver Watts

An abridged Statement from Coalition on Homelessness in Response to Mayor Breed’s State of Emergency December

Mayor London Breed is exploiting the concerns of a vulnerable community in order to promote a “law and order” agenda meant to benefit political and financial interests. This unjustified, and in some cases, illegal maneuver is cause for alarm. On Tuesday, December 14, after a misleading flood of media hysteria around crime in San Francisco and just days after meeting with a group of residents brought together by the business group Tenderloin Community Benefits District,

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Stories of Seeking Shelter, Before and After Prop C

by Tracey Mixon and Dominique Griffin

Leaving First Friendship

By Tracey Mixon

In August of 2018, I became homeless with my daughter, who was 8 years old at the time. After staying a few weeks somewhere unsafe for us, I found myself at the emergency family shelter at the First Friendship Institutional Baptist Church near Alamo Square. 

I was so unprepared for what I encountered at First Friendship: mats on the floor, no showers and no privacy.

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Prop C funds San Francisco’s first Community-Led Sanctioned Encampment

by Christin Evans and Mary Howe

In the midst of COVID-19, a community-led encampment in the Haight Ashbury offered an oasis for formerly homeless community members. Thanks to funding for emergency shelter made available by Proposition C, campers had a safe place to stay, daily meals and important services—and most importantly, a say in how the operation was run. 

When the pandemic struck in March 2020, Mayor London Breed issued a shelter-in-place order. But that order didn’t apply to those who had no shelter.

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