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Resource Guide: How You Can Access Shelter in San Francisco

Accessing a shelter bed in San Francisco can be difficult. Check out our resource guide that shows pathways to shelter based on age, gender, family status and more.
SF ‘Failing’ on Housing as Overdose Solution, Health Expert Says

Sarah Evans has spent decades advancing drug overdose prevention initiatives around the world. As a division director for Open Society Foundations — a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros — Evans promotes one surefire way to help abate San Francisco’s homelessness and fatal overdose crisis: housing. “The way that people get off the street is by getting into housing, where people can get support and stay there even while they are continuing to struggle with substance use disorders of all kinds and mental health issues,” said Evans, who leads the organization’s drug policy programs globally. “It literally is the only way.” San Francisco isn’t doing enough to meet this housing need, according to health experts.
SF Uses Events, Construction Projects to Clear Streets Ahead of Pacific Rim Economic Summit, Other Gatherings

San Francisco is pursuing strategies to reduce visible homelessness and drug use in several locations ahead of a fall filled with high-profile events, including the 30th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting, which will put San Francisco in a global spotlight.
Yesica Prado Wins INN Insight Award for Visual Journalism

The Institute for Nonprofit News has honored San Francisco Public Press multimedia journalist Yesica Prado with a 2023 Insight Award for Visual Journalism for “‘Everything Is Gone, and You Become More Lost’: 12 Hours of Chaos as Berkeley Clears Encampment,” published last December.
San Francisco’s Fatal Overdose Crisis Was Decades in the Making

As San Francisco continues to search for solutions, our team at “Civic” is exploring the origins of the city's opioid overdose crisis, what has been done to help and what might be making things worse. After six months of research involving hundreds of studies, reports and archival news clippings, and three dozen interviews with people with lived experience and professional expertise in homelessness, addiction, medicine, criminal justice, housing, social work, street outreach, business, education, harm reduction, policymaking and advocacy, we’re launching the series, “San Francisco and the Overdose Crisis.” Over six episodes, the series will explore what influenced rampant opioid addiction and its connection to homelessness, the 150-year history of policing and prosecuting drugs in San Francisco, the long battle to open a safe consumption site in the city, and grassroots efforts to stem the tide of drug-related fatalities.
San Francisco Public Press Selected to Host California Local News Fellow

We’re delighted to announce that we are adding a full-time reporter to our staff through the California Local News Fellowship program, a multi-year, state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting in California, with a focus on underserved communities. Zhe Wu, a 2023 graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, will join the San Francisco Public Press in early September. We look forward to introducing her to you!
Supervisor Defends Dropping Support for Addiction-Treatment Centers

Supervisor Matt Dorsey received backlash this month for asking the mayor to redirect the entire $18.9 million in city funding budgeted for a new drop-in addiction treatment center toward jails instead. Dorsey told the San Francisco Public Press that he reversed his previous support for the centers — called wellness hubs — once the city’s plans narrowed to one site from six, and removed safe consumption sites, which would have allowed people to consume drugs under supervision so they could receive immediate help in case of overdose. Dorsey said he now wants the funds to go toward jail health services, including forcing treatment for people in jail who are struggling with substance abuse disorder.
Madison Alvarado Discusses SF Reparations Plan on KALW Radio’s ‘Crosscurrents’

KALW News Editor Sunni Khaled interviewed Public Press reporter Madison Alvarado about her reporting on San Francisco’s reparations plan for KALW’s “Crosscurrents.” Listen to their conversation and read Alvarado’s story about the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee’s final recommendations, which it submitted to the Board of Supervisors last month.

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