Category: Homelessness
Posted inHealth, Homelessness, Overdose Crisis, Public Safety, Social Services

With Overdose Deaths Surging, Critics Chide City, State for Curbing Safe Consumption Centers

Avatar photo by Sylvie Sturm

San Francisco’s chief medical examiner delivered grim statistics last week about a recent increase in deaths related to drug use. In the first three months of the year, 200 people died of accidental overdose. That’s up significantly from the first quarter last year, with 142 deaths.

These tragedies were disproportionately suffered by marginalized groups. The biggest increase in deaths occurred among those who lacked housing. People listed as having “no fixed address” accounted for 61 overdose deaths in the first quarter, up from 26 during the same period in 2022. Black residents accounted for 33% of fatal overdoses in the first quarter this year, despite representing only 5% of the city’s population.

Addiction experts say the recent increase in overdose deaths could be linked to the closure of the Tenderloin Linkage Center, a temporary facility that operated in United Nations Plaza from January to December 2022 to help drug users and people without housing access supportive services.

Posted inBay Area, Homelessness

‘Everything Is Gone, and You Become More Lost’: 12 Hours of Chaos as Berkeley Clears Encampment

by Yesica Prado

In early October, Berkeley police and city officials roused 53 unhoused residents — claiming they were harboring rodents — and seized and destroyed 29 tents and three self-made structures. People begged to retrieve personal items and work tools before the property was tossed into a phalanx of garbage trucks. Four vehicles in which people had been living were towed to impound lots. They would be crushed 15 days later, per the city’s request. 

While some operable cars and RVs were allowed to remain in the neighborhood, and people without vehicles who chose to stay were offered two-person tents, the overall effect of the sweep was that dozens of unhoused people had their belongings taken and their daily existence turned upside down.

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 inBay Area, Community, Coronavirus, Homelessness, Public Safety

Grassroots Nonprofits and Homeless Communities Create Their Own Fire Prevention Solutions

by Yesica Prado and Jenny Kwon

Encampment fires are a fact of life due to the exposed conditions homeless residents live in, but the 77th Avenue Rangers’ camp demonstrates that there’s hope for controlling these incidents without official intervention.

One key to their success has been fire preparedness, including measures like installing smoke alarms and keeping fire extinguishers on hand.

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 in“Civic” Podcast, Government & Politics, Homelessness, Housing

Hear Why Hundreds of Homeless San Franciscans Wait Months as Rooms for Them Sit Empty

by Laura Wenus

A recent investigation from the San Francisco Public Press and ProPublica indicates Hanson is not alone in her frustration. But the problem is not that there is nowhere for people to go. Rather, hundreds of units of permanent supportive housing — rooms in hotels or full apartments intended to get people experiencing homelessness a roof over their heads and connected with services — are sitting empty. Meanwhile, more than 1,600 people have been approved to move into them, and more than 400 people on the streets have been waiting to be housed for more than a year.  

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