Our Wheels, Our Homes

by Quiver Watts

By Mirjam Washuus

As of April 2019, over 1,800 San Franciscans  were living in their vehicles. This is an increase of almost 600 people (49 %) since 2017 and simultaneously an undercount according to the point-in-time count itself. That is nearly 2,000 people sleeping, eating, fighting illnesses, helping neighbors, raising children, going to work and school from inside a tin box with very limited, if any, access to water and electricity. So, they are dependent on its community (both City and neighbors) to provide support as in any other community.

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THE TRANSITION FROM NAVIGATION CENTER TO PERMANENT HOUSING

by Quiver Watts

By Shyhene Brown

June 1, 2019

I can remember the first time I went to the navigation center. It was a long process getting documents ready to working with my case manager and going through the whole process. Yes, it was hard at the time, but now I’ve got keys to my own place.

It’s a big change from the navigation center. Like the navigation center, I can come and go when I want — the only thing is I have to check in after three days.

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It’s a big deal: Newsom’s housing budget, explained

by Quiver Watts

By Matt Levin, CALmatters

No wonder Gov. Gavin Newsom dropped those hints earlier this week about an upcoming “Marshall Plan” for affordable housing.

Sure, he’d made ambitious campaign promises to combat California’s housing crisis: leading the effort to build 3.5 million units over the next seven years (an unprecedented rate), jacking up state subsidies for housing reserved for lower-income Californians, and easing regulations so it would be easier to build all types of new housing.

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SEIZURE OF HOMELESS ARTIST’S PRINTS AN EXHIBIT OF INJUSTICE BY CITY

by TJ Johnston

Ronnie Goodman, a 58-year-old homeless artist, was arrested near the Redstone Building on 16th and Mission streets when he jumped on a Department of Public Works truck to retrieve 50 linocut pieces he created — and the rugs and boards he shelters himself with — that City workers seized.

Initially, he was charged with felony vandalism and illegal lodging for the September 15 incident, but those charges were later dropped for a lack of evidence.

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COSTA RENTING NOT SO HIGH UNDER PROP. 10

by TJ Johnston

An alliance of tenant organizations is demanding a “full repeal of the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, nothing less.”

That could happen if enough Californians approve Proposition 10, the Affordable Housing Act. It would empower the city of San Francisco to pass its own rent-stabilization ordinances. It could also give residents a fighting chance to stay in their homes.

The San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition issued its findings in a report, “The Cost of Costa-Hawkins,” published in July.

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Housing First: It Just Makes Sense

by Zack Lenox

Cities across the United States have tested the housing first model and found that it works very well, presenting a compelling case that housing first should be expanded where it is already used on a small scale and implemented where it is not public policy.

Despite the immediate costs and political resistance with building housing for chronically homeless people, the shift to putting homeless people in permanent, personalized shelter is justified on a range of grounds.

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Safer Inside: A Community Demonstration

by Jack Rice

It would be easy to miss, with Prop C in full swing, with political candidates talking about their “solutions to the biggest challenges facing the city today”, with successive mayors intensifying the criminalizing sweeps of our friends and family on the streets… But San Francisco is making radical steps – leading the country, in fact – with the first ever demonstration model of a safe injection site in the United States.

“Safer Inside: A Community Demonstration” took place in the last week of August,

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Ending Homelessness for San Franciscans A Bold Direction is Needed

by Jennifer Friedenbach

San Francisco is at a precipice – deep into a housing crisis that exists within great wealth and economic fuel.  Residents more than ever are motivated to see homelessness addressed as property values and rents skyrocket.  Housing-insecure renters see themselves in the faces of those on the streets and respond at times with compassion and other times fear-based hostility.  Homeowners have spent small fortunes to acquire property.  Yet homelessness is more visible than ever with the proliferation of tents throughout the city,

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A Note About The Navigation Centers From a Former Client

by Shyhyene Brown

As we see there is a total of four Navigation Centers here in San Francisco. There is one in the Mission, another on Market, the third at the Dogpatch, and the last one on Army Street.

So I asked a few people about their opinions about the new Navigation Centers and this is what they say. (Mind you, some of these individuals asked to keep their names anonymous during this interview,

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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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