Locked Out: Supportive Housing Denies Tenants Access to Community Areas

by Contributing Author

In 2008, the Salvation Army opened a community center at 242 Turk St. in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. It’s a Ray & Joan Kroc Community Center, whose stated mission is to provide supportive health services and housing for formerly homeless adults, foster youth and veterans living with behavioral health conditions, and nurture a safe space for the community’s youth. Next to the center is Railton Place, an apartment complex owned by the Salvation Army and managed by the John Stewart Company,

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‘5150s’ Expected to Worsen Under New California Laws

by Contributing Author

by Cathleen Williams, Homeward Street Journal

Maggie, an activist and advocate for the unhoused community, is a single mom who grew up in Venice, California. (Maggie is a pseudonym, to protect her privacy.) Today, few can afford to actually rent in Venice—Maggie lives in an oversized van: “Barely legal,” she says. 

When her daughter became delusional, hallucinating, paranoid, reaching a crisis point in her struggle with mental health disability,

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Everybody Hurts: It’s All Part of Being Human 

by Contributing Author

by Jack Bragen

Many emotions that we attribute to human beings appear to be universal among all animal life, even insects and maybe even plant life. 

I have dealt with insect life invading my dwelling. I have adopted a policy of killing the bugs, because I feel strongly that I can’t coexist with “vermin.” When a bug realizes I’m after it, it will become fearful, and it will try anything at its disposal to evade death.

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U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson Guts Civil Rights Protections of Unhoused People Nationwide; Lawsuit Against the City of San Francisco Will Proceed

by Contributing Author

joint statement from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in the San Francisco Bay Area and American Civil Liberties Union-Northern California

San Francisco, Calif. – Today, in a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case that had barred cities from citing and arresting people simply for being homeless. This ruling is a stark departure from established legal precedent regarding the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

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SCOTUS Tears Up Unhoused People’s Constitutional Rights

by Contributing Author

statement by the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP)

Washington D.C. – The Supreme Court issued a decision today in the landmark case Grants Pass v. Johnson. This case centers on whether governments can fine and arrest unhoused people who have no other choice but to sleep outside. As expected, our Dred Scott-loving Supreme Court diluted people’s 8th Amendment protections against Cruel and Unusual punishment OR …The court upheld this ruling deciding it is indeed cruel and unusual punishment to cite and arrest people for lodging when no shelter is available  

Lower courts had ruled that Grants Pass practices were in fact found to be unconstitutional as they were arresting and citing unhoused people for camping,

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