San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/category/homelessness/)
An escalation in encampment clearings could be leaving unhoused San Franciscans with fewer of their vital documents, making them less able to access services and, this month, vote, service providers and homeless advocates say.
In light of reports of these worsening problems, the city’s Homeless Oversight Commission has urged local government agencies to prevent the loss of essential items.
More than 1 million California adults — and 19.4 million Americans — live with both a serious mental illness and substance use disorder. In fact, roughly half of all people with severe mental illness are thought to also have a co-occurring substance use disorder. Traditionally, treatment programs target one of these populations or the other. Progress Foundation is one of the few across the country serving people who have both — so-called dual diagnosis patients.
Domestic violence survivors in the Golden State are getting some help in the form of recent regulatory reforms. That includes one policy that prohibits some landlords from rejecting housing applicants based on their credit histories, which often suffer in abusive situations.
But more big fixes are needed, a UCSF report notes, like additional domestic violence shelters and better coordination of shelter and social service intake systems. Many women find today’s homeless shelter settings unsafe, so they opt to sleep on the streets after they leave an abusive partner.
In San Francisco, it is not uncommon to cross paths with a person experiencing homelessness in the throes of a mental health crisis. The scene can be tragic, confusing and sometimes might feel dangerous.
Bystanders might wonder how to summon help from the city — and what will happen if they do.
We created a flow chart to answer those questions. We show how cases traverse a tangle of pathways, through handoffs between dispatchers and myriad public workers. The person in crisis might spend days or weeks tumbling through the criminal justice system or health care facilities. Often, they return to where they started: the streets.
Thousands of people last year fell into San Francisco’s complex, reactive, strained system for treating severe mental health and drug-related crises.
To explain how that system works and its effects on the people who enter it, we begin with the story of one man, Jay. As with many others — including those who are unhoused or are detained without their consent following a call from an alarmed observer — Jay had received temporary care, entailing multiple involuntary psychiatric holds, that failed to address his long-term problems. That left him back on the streets to fend for himself or, with the help of passersby, try again to get the aid he needed.
Los proveedores de servicios han visto un aumento reciente en el número de familias migrantes sin hogar que buscan refugio en San Francisco, y dicen que el sistema de albergues de la ciudad está saturado, y a menudo falla, para recibirlos. Los defensores locales de las personas sin hogar están pidiendo ala alcaldía que satisfaga esta urgente necesidad.
Faced with an influx of unhoused migrant families into San Francisco, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will offer between 100 and 150 households temporary stays in hotels in the next year. That will likely fall short of addressing the full need.
Migrant families have joined service providers and faith-based advocates in a push for a policy response to the mounting crisis, including increasing access to temporary housing and providing greater transparency about where families are on the waitlist for shelter. City officials discussed potential solutions at a Monday hearing of the Board of Supervisors.
Desde el comienzo de la pandemia del COVID-19, los mayas de San Francisco han estado muriendo por sobredosis de drogas a tasas elevadas. Los expertos dicen que se necesitan servicios de salud más capacitados, y los proveedores deben ser culturalmente competentes y capaces de comunicarse de manera efectiva con estos residentes, que no pueden hablar con fluidez inglés o español.
Service providers have seen a recent increase in the number of unhoused migrant families seeking shelter in San Francisco, and say that the city’s temporary housing system is straining, and often failing, to receive them. Local homeless advocates are calling on City Hall to meet the need.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco’s Mayans have been dying of drug overdoses at elevated rates. More robust health services are needed, experts say, and providers should be culturally competent and able to communicate effectively with these residents, who may not be fluent in English or Spanish.
Homeless veterans make up only a small fraction of America’s homeless population, and they have been a priority in efforts to house the homeless. Since 2019, Congress has committed billions of dollars in resources to end veteran homelessness, and the number of unhoused veterans, who make up 8% of the homeless nationwide, has been cut almost in half since then, though last year saw a 7.4% uptick in numbers.
But the proportion of homeless veterans living outdoors has increased. California, in particular, has more homeless veterans lingering on the street than any other state. More than 7,400 veterans live outside. Add in another 3,100 other veterans who live in shelters or temporary housing, and that’s 10,500, or almost one-third of all homeless veterans in the country.
A severe shortage of affordable housing and the tremendous cost of living in California are partly to blame. But it’s estimated that more than half of homeless veterans suffer from a mental illness, and 70% are affected by substance use disorder; often the two groups overlap. For those veterans, if outreach, supportive housing, and a veteran’s readiness for change don’t align, homelessness often remains the default.
