The Coalition on Homelessness appears in an article written by Rose Aguilar entitled “Old, Female and Homeless”. The article centers around the many elderly females living outdoors in San Francisco, sitting in chairs all night in drop-in centers and other shameful occurances.
http://www.thenation.com/article/172397/old-female-and-homeless
Hobos to Street People
Artists’ Response to Homelessness
from the New Deal to the Present
Panel Discussion: October 12 from 2 – 4 pm
Show runs September 15 to November 9, 2012
Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue
Richmond, CA 94804
Gallery walk through tour led by hobos to Street People curator Art Hazelwood.
Panel discussion: Homeless People’s Bill of Rights
Welcome: City of Richmond Mayor, Gayle McLaughlin.
Panelists: Paul Boden, Western Regional Advocacy Project, Boona Cheema, Building Opportunities of Self-Sufficiency, Jennifer Freidenbach, Coalition on Homelessness, Yvonne Nair, Saffron Street
This timely exhibit features the works of 30 artists working over the last 75 years to document the tragedy of homelessness and the government’s role in the crisis. through painting, printmaking, photograhopy, and mixed media, Depression-era and contemporary artists offer glimpses of life on the street and show many similarities between the eras. Artists include Rockwell Kent, Dorothea Lange, Fritz Eichenberg, Kiki Smith, Sandow Birk, the San Francisco Print Collective.
We have been working hard, moving fast and winning victories.
In 2011 we…
Led a powerful campaign that resulted in the city matching $1.5 million from a private donor to house homeless families, and got the SFHA to expedite moving families into empty units. Families are getting housing as we speak!
After several shooting by police of people in psychiatric crisis, we passed legislation at the Police Commission that establishes a Crisis Intervention Team. A pool of officers will recieve advanced training, change dispatch protocol and hopefully end the use of increased force during a psychiatric health crisis.
Halted the use of tasers by SFPD which are know to increase fatalities and injuries.
Staved off major budget cuts to health and human services, including stopping the closure of shelters and emergency resource centers for homeless people
Built a cadre of fierce, well-informed champions of housing justice and human rights activist, who themselves are or have been negatively impacted by economic disparities, racism, affordable housing shortages and poverty.
Sound good?
Give what you can – your donation goes a long long long way here. We put your money to work – working for social and economic justice!
Oh – and give this month and you can deduct it on your taxes!
Oh Oh- and no money to give? Give your old stuff to Community Thrift in our names or hold your own garage sale.
Big Thanks To All The Donors Who Have Made All This Possible.
Looking forward to 2012 being even better!
On two different occasions, the Mayor’s homeless Czar Dariush Kayhan doesn’t bother to show up for meeting with homeless families. He then decides he will not meet with them at all. His reason for forcing families to come from all over the city on foot pushing strollers filled with crying sleep deprived homeless children? He does not have the answers to our questions – he needs lower paid city employees to answer them. Really.
The picture below is of the group that gathered the second time.
I guess poor people of color don’t matter enough for him to get the answers.
Maybe we should have pretended we were the Chamber of Commerce.
As a result of our powerful homeless family led campaign, the city finally responded to the housing crisis poor families in SF are facing. This progress report was sent from the city today. Not included in this report, is the private funding from Marc and Lynne Benioff of $1.3 million which will go partly to Hamilton Family Center for housing subsidies for families. They have already started enrolling families and the first family will move in on January 21st.
As requested here’s an update from the Homeless Assistance Fund. We have
currently committed to $483K to Hamilton for subsidies and $136K to Compass
Connecting Point for two housing specialists to work with families on the
CCP wait list for shelter diversion.
The funding from the Salesforce went directly to the providers and I do
not have a break down on how the funds were allocated.
SFHA
31 families attended group intakes with SFHA on 12/13 and 12/16
6 families from the Group 3 shelter list were already in process
1 family was offered a unit on 12/12 and is move in yesterday
1 family is being offered a unit today and may move in on Friday
5 families will receive unit offers by the end of this week, and may begin
moving in as early as next week
Hamilton First Avenues
28 families have been enrolled in the Hamilton subsidy program
3 have received move-in offers; one moves in this week, the other 2 have
leases that begin 1/1/12
Treasure Island
5 families have been identified for TI – they will have a group orientation
with John Stewart tomorrow at 11am after which they will received their
keys. IF ALL GOES AS PLANNED, Hamilton anticipates they will all want to
move in ASAP – but we may not want to say definitively it will be by
Christmas although it looks pretty good now. Hamilton will work to
facilitate this process and try to ensure families have at least a minimum
amount of furniture at time of move in, and work with them to get more next
week.
courtesy of
Joyce Crum
Program Director, Housing and Homeless Division
Human Services Agency
The Coalition is pulling together a large group of homeless parents to formulate a campaign to address the skyrocketing number of families who are now waiting for shelter in San Francisco. Homeless families will be holding a protest on:
Date: November 29, 2011
Time: 12:30pm
Where: Steps of City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton Goodlett Place
Connecting Point reported that just last week, 23 more families signed up to be on the wait list for shelter – the list is at its highest point ever. Families are now waiting more then six months just for a place for their children to lie their heads. San Francisco Unified School District reported that they now have 2,400 homeless children enrolled in public schools. That number is up from 1,600 just four years ago.
Families are trying hard to get a meeting with the Mayor. They are working with homeless providers to come up with some basic solutions to the crisis – such as getting the SFHA to open up vacant units to homeless families, expand the local subsidy program, and increase homeless prevention efforts.
To join our work, come to weekly meetings on Tuesdays at 12:00 here at 468 Turk Street.
Wall Street Banks crashed our economy, destroyed our communities and wrecked our budgets.
Now they are back to record profits & bonuses while we are forced to pay for the mess they created.
Thursday, Sept 29 at 3pm
555 California, San Francisco
(3:30pm to 5:30pm meet at Montgomery BART Station – Montgomery and Market)
Tell us you are standing up! Click to sign up and get more details
Why are over 1000 people marching? We hear it every day. There’s no more money.
No money to keep our senior centers open, pay our teachers, keep college affordable or help struggling homeowners. There’s no money to pay for vital services or to invest in creating jobs.
We all know that it’s not really a “revenue” problem. It’s an inequality problem.
Join us, as community groups, students, workers, faith leaders and others come together for a Week of Action to send a loud, clear message to the CEO’s and the politicians who carry their water:
Enough is enough! There is a choice. There is a better solution.
It’s time for big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share.
It’s time for tax fairness.
During the week of September 26th-29th we will hold a series of actions and mobilizations to:
· expose how deeply unpopular the cuts to education, health care, public safety, etc… are for most Californians;
· remind us all who the true villains behind the economic collapse are – Wall Street banksters;
· insert the real solutions needed into the debate, and
· set the stage for the 2012 budget fight and election season so that politicians and candidates have to choose which side are they on: Wall Street or Our Street?
For more info on the week of action visit www.makebankspaycalifornia.com or visit our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MakeWallStreetBanksPayCalifornia
On Monday, September 26 at 9:00 a.m., Coalition on Homelessness director Jennifer Friedenbach will be a guest on Michael Krasny’s radio program Forum. The show will cover homelessness in relation to the recession and will run for one hour. Other guests will appear from around the Bay Area.