News
Jeff Kositsky, at left, talks to Rescue Captain Michael Mason at Golden Gate Ave. and Leavenworth St., where homeless outreach staff placed 24 people in hotels June 17. Brian Howey / San Francisco Public Press

Behind the Tent Flap: Voices From the Streets of the Tenderloin

06.18.2020
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City workers have moved more than 140 homeless Tenderloin residents into hotel rooms and city-sanctioned tent encampments over the last eight days in response to a legal settlement between San Francisco and the University of California Hastings College of the Law. The agreement requires the city to remove the majority of homeless tents from the neighborhood by late July, with the goal of eventually reducing the tents, which numbered 415 on June 5, according to a city count, to zero. That tent count doesn’t include the more than 20 tents at a city-sanctioned encampment at 180 Jones Street. The plan specifies no timeline for reaching a tent count of zero. As of Thursday afternoon, the homeless outreach team, fire department, public works and police had placed between 149 and 174 people in hotels, said Jeff Kositsky, manager of the Healthy Streets Operations Center, the multi-agency homelessness task force spearheading the operation.

Health
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Toxins Measured in Bodies Raise Stakes for Hunters Point Shipyard Cleanup

05.19.2020
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Researchers are hoping to learn whether and how the health of people who live and work near the old Hunters Point Shipyard, which was used as a toxic and radioactive waste dump, may have been affected by toxic materials. Journalist Chris Roberts reported for the Public Press that nearly all participants in a recent community health biomonitoring survey had elevated levels of toxic heavy metals that are “contaminants of concern” at the shipyard.

News
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Sunshine Board May Return to Keeping an Eye on City Hall

05.19.2020
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One of the key panels maintaining local government accountability will ­­­­­soon get back to work after being sidelined for months if the head of the Board of Supervisors gets his way. The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force has not met since Mayor London Breed suspended most public meetings in mid-March, but board President Norman Yee aims to change that.

Elections
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Youth Mobilize, Again, for S.F. Voting Rights

05.18.2020
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Youth aged 16 and 17 could gain the right to vote in municipal elections if existing voters approve a charter amendment in November. City supervisors have introduced that amendment, and if it continues to see widespread support from the board, the measure will go to the ballot.

News
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Reporting on Homelessness During Coronavirus Pandemic

05.12.2020
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How to best support the thousands of people who are homeless in San Francisco, and prevent the spread of the new coronavirus among them, during this pandemic has been a point of contention for months. San Francisco Public Press reporter Brian Howey has been covering everything from a scuttled initiative to test everyone in the shelter system to how the city would use RVs it had secured for people without housing to self-isolate.

From the Newsroom

Neighborhood Meets Challenge: How S.F.’s Sunset Organized for Pandemic Aid

04.08.2020
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The Public Press hosted a conversation April 3 with Sunset Neighborhood Help Group founders Frank Plughoff, Bianca Nandzik and Stefan Nandzik about how they are coordinating a dynamic volunteer network to connect with elderly and at-risk neighbors who need help buying groceries and running errands during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meka Boyle, who first reported on the Sunset neighborhood’s call for mutual aid,  also participated in the panel, which was moderated by our publisher, Lila LaHood. Watch a full recording of the conversation.