A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
by Madeleine Matz
In late March, Armando Martinez and other RV residents who had been living outside of Bernal Heights Park were forced to move when a long-dormant parking ban went into effect. The group splintered, with Martinez, Darwin Pena and a Yucatecan couple together relocating first to the Mission, then to the Bayview and finally to the Excelsior District.
The moves have taken a toll.
This year’s ArtAuction24 (AA24), Transforming Art into Action, is celebrating 35 years of our amazing Street Sheet. This illustrious paper started in a classically organic, only at the Coalition way. Phil Collins had just released a fan favorite, “Another Day in Paradise,” and invited us to table at Shoreline Amphitheatre. The year was 1989. We created a newsletter to give out and made thousands of copies. Concertgoers were not particularly interested in reading literature during a show so we came home with a lot of those newsletters and couldn’t think what to do with them.
by Jeff Musser
There is a unique way that sunlight hits the pavement under a freeway overpass. Or maybe it just appears unique to my eyes. Walking under a multi-lane freeway is a bit like walking through a tunnel. The atmosphere is dark, so your eyes have to adjust to the momentary change in light. But unlike a tunnel, a freeway overpass has gaps. I first saw Angela when I was walking underneath one of those gaps.
by Volker Macke
According to a new British study, people experiencing homelessness have, by the age of 43, an average state of health equivalent to that of an 85-year-old with a home. Common health complaints include heart disease, respiratory issues, organ damage and infections caused by poorly healing wounds. Heat waves can also be as fatal for people sleeping rough as they are for elderly people.
For years,
by Jordan Davis
As you might already know, I write mostly about permanent supportive housing and how San Francisco’s government stands in the way of delivering effective services on time, under budget, and in a manner that works for everybody. I don’t like to talk much about my past, but since it’s Pride month, I’d like to share how being a neurodivergent, non-binary trans femme who began transitioning nine years ago has impacted me,
by Billy Thomas
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is adapted from multiple pieces of correspondence by Billy Thomas, an inmate at the John Wynne Unit of Texas State Prison in Huntsville to A.B.O. Comix in Oakland, California throughout 2022 and 2023. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.
I am a 51-year-old person, a two-spirited transgender. I am a survivor of mental and sexual abuse from my time in the care of Texas Child Protective Services,
Mayor London Breed released a statement on March 1 reporting on a reduction in the number of tents in San Francisco due to sweeps. While the Mayor’s office credits the Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC), which conducts encampment removals, conflicting data indicates that revenue from the November 2018 Proposition C—”Our City, Our Home”—is in fact responsible. On the same day, the Mayor submitted an amicus brief in support of overturning the Grants Pass case,
Hello San Francisco! Hello Sacramento!
The Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC)_ is now publishing news and views from the capital city in San Francisco’s Street Sheet. SHOC has published Homeward Street Journal, our local homeless paper, for over 20 years, providing thousands of issues for distribution on our city’s street corners and in its encampments, supporting unhoused vendors and uplifting the movement for housing for all.
Now we are moving in a new direction.
by Jack Bragen
The media has taught Americans to associate “mentally ill” with “homeless,” and vice-versa. Politicians and authorities have brainwashed Americans to believe homelessness is caused by untreated mental disorders or a drug addiction. This is a sadly mistaken way of thinking, and it is promoted so that society can continue subjugating and otherwise mistreating those who are different.
But it is a half-truth. Some people are homeless and have a mental condition or drug addiction,
by Vinay Pai
This excerpt from “The Eviction Machine” was originally published by our allies in Street Spirit. It tells the story of the life of the man known as 300, a life-long Berkeley resident who died in 2019 after being evicted from his home.
I met 300 sleeping on a bench outside Au Coquelet Café on University Avenue one late night in the summer of 2013.
