COVID’s Not Over!

by Quiver Watts

When COVID-19 first hit the streets of San Francisco in 2020, the response was dramatic. People with housing began to shelter in place, mutual aid networks sprung up, and tenants went on rent strike. While San Francisco publicly spotlighted its shelter-in-place hotel program, which offered private rooms to about 1,500 unhoused people, many unsheltered San Franciscans were left to fend for themselves as shelters closed down and services shuttered their doors. During the two and a half years that the program operated,

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Disability Apartheid

by Contributing Author

by Anonymous

Few people believe disability rights is a racial justice issue. On face value, it isn’t. But did you know, although less than 3% of the total population,  Black San Franciscans are twice as likely to be disabled than white San Franciscans?

How is this possible? How can somebody’s race make them more likely to be disabled or not?

While I don’t have all the answers to that question,

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The Real-world Impact of Social Security’s Crackdown on Benefits

by Jack Bragen

For three decades, I have relied on Social Security benefits to put a roof over my head, to put food in my belly, and to provide much needed medical care. I have valid, documented reasons that I am entitled to these benefits. However, for over a year, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Social Security Administration sent me harassing communications, threatening to cut me off should I fail to comply with their demands. 

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Early SF Homeless Numbers Down — Shelter-in-place Hotels, Prop. C Cited as Factors

by TJ Johnston

San Francisco got a sneak peek last month of the results from its 2022 homeless point-in-time count, which showed a drop in some kinds of homelessness. Advocates say directing public money into certain programs played a key role.

The count indicated a significant drop in the number of unsheltered homeless people and chronically homeless people, as well as a large bump in the number of people staying in shelters and transitional housing.

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NEWSFLASH:

by Quiver Watts

DPW Director Mohammed Nuru Removed from Post

by TJ Johnston

On January 26th the U.S. Department of Justice arrested Mohammed Nuru, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works, on charges of honest services wire fraud in an alleged bribery scheme involving a member of the City’s Airport Commission. He had also arrested five days earlier for disclosing the investigation and then lying about it to the FBI.

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Are Homeless People “Service Resistant”?

by Mike Lee

I just love the language used to describe homeless people: Drunk, crazy, helpless, ad nauseum. It’s also shrouded in industry-specific terms like “experiencing substance abuse issues.”

Alphabet soup of acronyms that only a handful of insiders know. My all-time favorite though is “service resistant.” Google the term. There is no definition for it except when applied to the homeless. Common sense leads one to conclude that there is a whole army who resist services.

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