San Francisco workers have confiscated unhoused peoples’ property, including wheelchairs, tents and other essentials more often in recent years. Advocates said that “aggressive” crackdowns and policies that involve police citing and arresting people experiencing homelessness may be the cause.
Elections
How Unhoused San Franciscans Can Vote in This Election
If you’re unhoused, you might wonder if you are eligible to cast a ballot this November. The answer is yes — even without a fixed address. We’ve tried to answer the big questions you might have about voting while experiencing homelessness in this how-to guide, to make sure your voice is heard this Election Day.
Elections
Proposition B — Bonds to Enhance Health Care Facilities and Public Spaces
See our November 2024 SF Voter Guide for a nonpartisan analysis of measures on the San Francisco ballot, for the election occurring Nov. 5, 2024. The following measure is on that ballot. Proposition B would let San Francisco borrow up to $390 million to carry out infrastructure and other projects, like upgrading health care facilities, creating homeless shelter, repaving roads and renovating Harvey Milk Plaza, the Castro neighborhood spot honoring the city’s first openly gay supervisor, who along with Mayor George Moscone was assassinated in 1978. Listen to a summary of what this ballot measure would do.
Homelessness
Homeless Outreach Declines With Street Team’s Shifting Priorities, Staffing Woes
Street outreach by San Francisco’s premier team for helping people living on the streets has fallen for years and could continue dropping.
Years-long staffing woes and shifting work priorities have driven the decline, leaving the team less time for their core mission: building trust with unhoused people and helping them access social services and housing. Homelessness advocates approved of the team’s new efforts to bring people indoors, but worried that officials’ political motives might be influencing these changes.
Health
After the Crisis: Unique Program Helps Older Adults Grappling With Both Addiction and Mental Illness
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.
Government & Politics
Recent Policy Reforms May Help California Domestic Violence Survivors Stay Housed
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.
Health
You Report an Unhoused Person in a Mental Health Crisis. This Is What Happens Next
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.
California
The Often Vicious Cycle Through SF’s Strained Mental Health Care and Detention System
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.
Immigration
Proveedores de ervicios opinan que SF subestima la necesidad que hay a pesar de que cada vez más familias migrantes buscan acceder albergues
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.
Government & Politics
SF to Offer Some Homeless Migrant Families Temporary Hotel Stays, as the Rest Languish
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.
Health
Las Muertes por Sobredosis entre los Mayas en San Francisco Muestran la Necesidad Urgente de un Tratamiento Culturalmente Sensible
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.