Author Archives: Nuala Bishari

Nuala Bishari is an award-winning journalist and editor based in San Francisco. She spent three years as news editor and reporter for SF Weekly, was a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, and helped found a local neighborhood blog called Hoodline.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Homelessness, Housing, Left Out, News, Social Services

San Francisco Rations Housing by Scoring Homeless People’s Trauma. By Design, Most Fail to Qualify.

by Nuala Bishari

Co-published with ProPublica.

Tabitha Davis had just lost twins in childbirth and was facing homelessness. The 23-year-old had slept on friends’ floors for the first seven months of her pregnancy, before being accepted to a temporary housing program for pregnant women. But with the loss of the twins, the housing program she’d applied to live in after giving birth — intended for families — was no longer an option.

A few weeks later, Davis was informed that the score she’d been given based on her answers to San Francisco’s “coordinated entry” questionnaire wasn’t high enough to qualify for permanent supportive housing. It was a devastating blow after an already traumatizing few months.

Posted inGovernment & Politics, Homelessness, Social Justice

SF Launches First Navigation Center to Serve Homeless Transgender People

by Nuala Bishari

On March 9, the city’s first navigation center to specifically serve transgender and gender-nonconforming people opens in SoMa.

It will fill a gap in homeless services that has excluded a highly vulnerable population. Transgender people are 17 times more likely to experience homelessness than the average person, and 70% of those who have stayed in shelters report having experienced harassment, according to a study conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Posted inCity Hall, Homelessness, Housing, Left Out

In San Francisco, Hundreds of Homes for the Homeless Sit Vacant

by Nuala Bishari

As of early February, the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing reported 1,633 homeless people approved for housing and awaiting their turn to move in. Yet records provided by the department show 888 vacancies in its permanent supportive housing stock as of Feb. 22. Filling those empty rooms would not just cut the waiting list by more than half. It would be enough to house roughly one in every eight homeless people in the city. The homelessness department said it cannot talk about individual cases, but officials acknowledged that at least 400 people have been waiting more than a year, far beyond the department’s professed goal of placing applicants into housing 30 to 45 days after they’re approved.

Posted inCommunity, Law & Justice, Neighborhoods

ACLU Spars With City Attorney’s Office Over Tenderloin Injunctions

by Nuala Bishari

The nation’s largest public interest law firm is battling the San Francisco city attorney’s office over its plan to block 28 alleged drug dealers from setting foot in a 50-block area of the Tenderloin. Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California filed a response to the City Attorney’s appeal of a May 2021 ruling that blocked the proposed injunctions. It’s the latest legal step in what’s becoming a drawn-out fight over drug dealing and the rights of people to move freely through San Francisco, and it could have far-reaching implications. 

Posted inGovernment & Politics, Homelessness, Law & Justice, Social Services

Report Calls SF’s Homeless Sweeps Practices Illegal

by Nuala Bishari

On Thursday, a damning report dropped, offering new data on San Francisco’s practice of sweeping encampments. Authored by the Coalition on Homelessness, the report alleges the Healthy Streets Operation Center regularly fails to offer an adequate number of shelter beds to people on the streets during its cleanup operations and is illegally discarding people’s belongings. The practices create serious legal risk for San Francisco.

Posted inCoronavirus, Health, Homelessness, Housing

As COVID Cases Surge Among SF’s Homeless, Shelter Options Narrow

by Nuala Bishari

As cases of COVID-19 surge in San Francisco, advocates question whether the city can prevent another outbreak in the homeless community. Between June 30 and July 31, confirmed cases among homeless people quadrupled from 18 to 78. But as the delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the city, there is a growing shortage of safe places for homeless people to go.

Posted inCommunity, Government & Politics, Homelessness, Neighborhoods

Housing Elusive for Residents of Haight’s Sanctioned Campsite

by Nuala Bishari

The site in an old McDonald’s parking lot at the edge of Golden Gate Park opened in May 2020 with 40 spots, becoming the city’s second sanctioned tent camp.

On June 16 it shuts down. The question now is where to move site residents, many of whom have called the Haight neighborhood home for decades and don’t want to leave.

Posted inCity Hall, Government & Politics, Homelessness

Multiple Challenges Confront New Leaders at SF Homelessness Department

by Nuala Bishari

The selection of Shireen McSpadden to lead the city’s homelessness department is being greeted optimistically by officials who have dealt extensively with San Francisco’s chronic inability to find shelter for all its residents.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Joe Wilson, a prominent advocate for homeless people, said they were encouraged by the choice of McSpadden, who is set to take over May 1 — becoming the fourth person to hold the role in 14 months.

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing was founded in 2016 by former Mayor Ed Lee, who consolidated programs that had been scattered throughout different departments and brought them all under one roof with the promise of ending homelessness for 8,000 San Franciscans in four years.

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