A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by Marisa Kendall/ CalMatters
In major cities and more rural areas, arrests and citations rose in the months following last summer’s Supreme Court decision. In some places, officials insist the events are unrelated.
Homeless residents of some of California’s biggest cities increasingly are facing criminal penalties for the actions they take to survive on the street, according to a first-of-its-kind CalMatters analysis of data throughout the state.
UPDATE: On July 23, both sides agreed to settle the lawsuit out of court, pending approval by the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor’s office.
What’s at Stake: Coalition on Homelessness is a challenge to the City and County of San Francisco’s efforts to criminalize homelessness through an array of unconstitutional practices, including confiscating and destroying the personal property of unhoused people without adequate notice or due process,
by Kenyota
Content warning: This piece contains a reference to suicide.
I was homeless on the streets of San Francisco, and in several cities throughout the Bay Area, for over a decade. During those years I experienced what it felt like to be a non-person. I received the harsh stares, societal shunning and feelings of inadequacy that are common among those considered lost in the world of the unhoused.
by Charlie Fisch and Azucena Hernandez
On Tuesday, June 17, the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) Board of Directors met to approve on a 6–1 vote a refuge permit program that would exempt oversize vehicles from a proposed two-hour parking limit for up to 12 months. Approval of the program is only the first step in Mayor Daniel Lurie’s two-phased RV ban. Members of the End Poverty Tows Coalition and their allies told the panel that this plan will lead to displacement and increased street homelessness while residents struggle to find shelter.
by Cathleen Williams with Peggy Kennedy
Venice, Los Angeles: A neighborhood for poor people, for renters who used to thrive in cheap apartments on the rundown back streets, a neighborhood famous for its countercultural vibe and freedom, where the wide beach and boardwalk teemed with performers, drag queens, artists, and outcasts. In the 1950s, Venice was a center of the Beat Generation in southern California—a local counterpart to San Francisco’s North Beach.
On a bright Sunday afternoon on May 18, a group of transgender activists gathered at the corner of Turk and Taylor streets in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The group, Compton’s x Coalition, invited local media, including Street Sheet, to the rally outside the 111 Taylor St. Apartments, which stands on the site of a historic riot over a half-century before.
The rally culminated in two members of a direct action group called Traction SF climbing a fire escape to the roof and dropping two vertical banners that displayed a single message: “Liberate Compton’s.”
The building at 111 Taylor St.
by Cal Lerchi
Do my shoes soak in Trans Magic
At the intersection of Turk + Taylor?
Spirits of queens, queers, outcasts
Throwing shit at pigs who try to police our joy
Try to extinguish our flames that burn together
More radiant than the sun
Does trans magic last?
When the building that used to nourish glorious queers
Is now owned by a massive for-profit corporation
And it is not a coincidence
That GEO Group also imprisons our kin
Along the U.S.-Mexico border
To steamroll over trans history—
Our transcestors
With this disgusting corporation—GEO Group …
Will we support this?
By Nicole Rowland and Lukas Illa
Banner hung at Lake Merritt in Oakland on April 22, 2025. Courtesy of Western Regional Advocacy Project.
The following speech was delivered at a teach-in sponsored by the Western Regional Advocacy Project and other organizations at Lake Merritt in Oakland, California on April 22, 2025. The teach-in was part of a nationwide effort to educate people about the impact of sweeps had on unsheltered people since last year’s Supreme Court ruling on Grants Pass v.
“Their tactics, what they’re trying to do, they’re just using force. I think they can turn it down a notch, not be so forceful.
They come up and tell us we’re detained right off the bat.
Then they dig into our pockets and put everything on the ground. Then if they find drugs or anything, they take us to jail. We’ll get out in a couple days.
by Marisa Kendall and Katie Anastas, CalMatters
It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed how cities in California and beyond can respond to homeless encampments, allowing them to clear camps and arrest people for sleeping outside — even when there’s nowhere else to sleep.
The July ruling in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson upended six years of protections for unhoused people.
