Housing

Agency gets state funding to build homeless shelter in Bayview

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Feb 17 2012 - 3:49pm

The San Francisco Human Services Agency has won a state grant to refurbish a building next to the United Council of Homeless Services, a community-based organization, that could offer overnight shelter to 100 people a night by early next year.

Legal advocates give San Francisco low marks for penalizing homeless people

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Dec 8 2011 - 5:34pm

A national homeless advocacy organization says San Francisco continues to make criminals out its homeless population. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty reported recently that the city and several other communities across the country penalize homeless people for behaviors related to their lack of housing. The Washington, D.C.-based group studied 234 U.S. jurisdictions, finding that San Francisco places prohibitions on 10 of 14 behaviors. Another local advocacy group recently graded San Francisco with a “D” for its policing efforts, but city representatives say alternative justice experiments are working.

Empty S.F. hotels occupied in World Homeless Day protest

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Oct 11 2011 - 5:59pm

As the Occupy Wall Street movement gains momentum nationwide, a band of housing activists occupied 10 vacant buildings in San Francisco on Monday. Following a late afternoon rally at the Civic Center, at least 30 members of Homes Not Jails entered the Cathedral Hill Hotel at 1101 Van Ness Ave. by cutting the gate open. Then they started occupying some of the 600 vacant units.

 

Tenant buyouts making a comeback

John Osborn, Mission Local — Oct 3 2011 - 12:02pm

As the real estate market picks up, buyouts — the practice of owners getting rid of tenants by offering them cash to move voluntarily — are making a comeback. Buyouts reached a high of 30 to 50 a month in the Mission before the crash in late 2008, a number that suggests as many as three times that citywide, according to the San Francisco Tenants Union.

Dissecting the news media's claim of anti-panhandling 'clamor'

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Sep 23 2011 - 9:35am

“Aggressive panhandling” made Page One of the San Francisco Chronicle again recently. But the report, like so many others before it in newspapers, magazines, TV and websites, left readers with more questions than answers about whether the trend indicated by the paper really existed. The Chronicle reported an increase in complaints from tourists and the local hospitality industry at the presence of panhandlers who won’t take no for an answer. While it quoted hoteliers and travelers opining on the city’s homelessness problem, some vital information was missing from the story: When they say aggressive panhandling, what activities precisely are they complaining about? How do they know the panhandling problem is growing — are there any statistics? If there is more desperate poverty on the street, what are the causes?

An appreciation: Eric Quezada, 1965-2011, a champion for social and economic justice

Christopher D. Cook, SF Public Press — Aug 26 2011 - 8:59pm

When Eric Quezada — for decades a community organizer and widely respected leader on housing and economic justice and immigrants’ rights — died Wednesday after a seven-year struggle with cancer, there was an immediate outpouring of grief, love and appreciation from progressive friends and allies across San Francisco and the nation. The lonlongtime executive director of Dolores Street Community Services was a leading candidate for District 9 supervisor in 2008 and an accomplished grassroots community organizer.

 

California: Ground Zero for America’­s foreclosure crisis

News Partner, New America Media — Aug 10 2011 - 4:39pm

Pace expected to quicken in 2012 as more homeowners fall into financial distress

Ethel Gist bought her dream house and planned to retire to Antioch. Instead, the 70-year-old lost the house during the height of the foreclosure crisis, and now rents a place with her daughter and two grandchildren.

US will recover from home loan disaster: Bank of America’s Barbara Desoer

Rick Jurgens, SF Public Press — Aug 5 2011 - 2:27pm

The market slump that vaporized $6 trillion of homeowners’ equity, and left one in four owing more on their mortgage than their house was worth, will continue through 2012. But this too shall pass, said Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America’s home loans unit, at the Commonwealth Club Thursday. “We have weathered, and we have overcome, cycles like this before,” she said. The calm atmosphere of the talk contrasted with the turmoil that has roiled housing markets in the Bay Area, and throughout California and the nation, since 2007.

War of words over Fair Shelter Initiative

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — Jul 20 2011 - 8:47am

From the moment a measure to amend San Francisco’s Care Not Cash law was placed on the November ballot last month, the proposition has come under fire from politicians. Now the proposal has become a hot issue in the lead-up to this fall's mayoral race. The measure, known as the Fair Shelter Initiative, alters the definition of housing for administering county welfare benefits. Specifically, it would remove beds at city-funded homeless shelters from the definition of "housing." 

New survey reveals age and number of new homeless rising in SF

T.J. Johnston, SF Public Press — May 25 2011 - 5:34pm

The biannual study of San Francisco's homeless population showed that while the amount of shelter dwellers actually dropped, the number of people aged 50 or greater nearly doubled and the percentage of people experiencing their first homeless episode grew by 8 percent.

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