A Publication of the Coalition on Homelessness
I scan the City’s COVID-19 Alternative Housing dashboard this morning as I have most mornings since April. “Total Current in SIP Hotels: 2,340” and “Total Current in SIP Congregate: 485” read a few of the metrics, typical of the acronym-filled jargon that fills most City reports. (Translation: “SIP” stands for “shelter in place” and “congregate” is a group setting like a shelter.) My fellow Hotels Not Hospitals organizers and I have struggled to find out what’s really going on in the hotels,
Black, Latinx and unhoused people in California are hit harder with citations for non-traffic infractions compared with their white peers, a legal advocacy group announced in its new report.
And San Francisco hits Black and Latinx people as hard as anywhere.
Those are some of the takeaways in “Cited for Being in Plain Sight: How California Polices Being Black, Brown and Unhoused in Public.” The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area released the report’s findings in a September 30 press conference.
“The Court of Appeal Decision stands. Proposition C is valid.
WE WONNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!”
That was the announcement I received via Facebook Messenger on Wednesday, September 8 about Prop. C taking effect.
After almost two years, the measure known as “Our City, Our Home” can now live up to the promise of its name, affirming that I’m part of a city committed to housing homeless people and keeping them housed.
“Homes not barricades!! Homes not barricades!!”
These are the words chanted by protesters marching through the streets of the Tenderloin. Some were carrying police barricades, while others held signs that read ‘DEFUND SFPD,” “Rent is Theft” and “Black Homes Matter”. Others were equipped with medical supplies and sustenance, and in the back you could hear the Brass Liberation orchestra playing their instruments brightly to the beat of the chants.
Community organizations such as House the Bay,
San Francisco, like many cities, is in a challenging place economically with over 200,000 workers on unemployment, a $1.5 billion deficit due to loss revenue, and exponentially higher needs for city services such as rental assistance, health care, child care and other city essential activities. San Francisco has a very unique budget process, where the legislative branch receives the budget from the much more powerful executive branch and has the opportunity to cut things out of the Mayor’s budget in order to fund other things they deem as higher priorities.
