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by Challa Tabeson
Some 80 San Francisco homeless families marched on City Hall last Tuesday,
where all three freshmen supervisors-Sandoval, Newman, and Maxwell-were
holding hearings. The protesters, loud and unstoppable, called for the
abolition of Mayor Brown's "Merry-Go-Round" policy which forces homeless
families with children out of city shelters. They also called for the implementation of a citywide "No Turn Away" policy at shelters that serve homeless families.
Homeless parents and their children demanded a home to call their own. "We
want permanent housing! We need permanent affordable housing!" Right now!
Currently, no less than one hundred homeless families walk the dark and
dangerous streets of San Francisco on any given night. Looking at the
1999/2000 census, over 50 percent of homeless children are under the age of
five, as documented by the SF homeless advocacy group Connecting
Point(Gateway). The total number of homeless children is just over 4,041.
Homeless children and their families are among the fastest growing segments
of the city's homeless population. These children are often forced to live
inunsafe and unhealthy conditions because of lack of shelter space. They
are more likely to have poor health compared to other children. They are
four times more likely to have delayed development-homeless families are
often subject to hunger and malnutrition. Homeless children and youth also
face multiple barriers to educational achievement.
The facts seem terribly troubling, considering that 14,675 people are
currently on the Section 8 waiting list for public housing units, with
another 9,700 waiting for rental vouchers or certificates. An average San
Francisco family on welfare receives $611 per month; a full-time minimum
wage earner would have to work 53 hours per week to pay for the average one
bedroom apartment, leaving $0 for other expenses.
The Department of Human Services has been quietly working with the Mayor's
Office on Homelessness to limit the use of hotel vouchers, making them
valid only at the Family Resource Center (FRC), which is situated out in
the Bayview Hunters Point District of San Francisco. This would stifle
citywide access for homeless families using hotel vouchers. "But it wasn't
fair to pit the Homeless Coalition against Bayview's Connecting Point...all
we wanted was to find out what Sojourner Truth was doing with
children from the Child Protective Services," responded Bianca, of SF Shelter Outreach Projects. Under this model program, the hotel vouchers would be available only to those families in need of housing who are engaged in family preservation services at the FRC.
Director of Department of Homeless and Housing, Maggie Donahue, towed the
party line during the hearing sessions, by blatantly interrupting
testimonies on abuses homeless families had suffered at the hands of some
homeless protective programs. The mayor's strong-armed lieutenant, spoke at
length about a five-part scheme to confront the San Francisco housing
struggle which included phasing out the Hotel Vouchers Program at
Connecting Point(CP) started early last year.
"We feel that the Connecting Point program was never designed to be what it
became via the hotel vouchers--a provider of temporary shelter for families
throughout the Bay Area," according to a February 20 memo from Donahue to
the Coalition on Homelessness. She went on to make light of what effect
this would have on homeless families, "CP will now be able to more
productively utilize staff time and resources to act as a broker for
emergency services, prevention services, and other information and referral
services for families who are in crises."
Not a few hopes were dashed upon the phasing out of the Hotel Voucher
Program at Connecting Point in March. The opening of the family shelter at
260 Golden Gate, which can boast only 6 new beds for the hoard of waiting
homeless families is hardly an answer. Or should we be speaking of the
three new medical hotel rooms at Hamilton Family Emergency Center, which
provide a "net gain of 103 beds to the system after the CP closed the doors
to its hotel rooms?" as stated by DHS
"They (CP) don't even go by what they say..." rebuked TJ, who, with wife,
who is six-months pregnant, recently found refuge at St. Joseph House, a
center for homeless families with special needs, "They turned us away when
me and my wife couldn't make it any other way."
According to Sondra Stewart of Family Rights and Dignity, "City Hall is
playing a shell game-robbing Peter to pay Paul..." No less than a 100
families wait for emergency shelter every night here in the city of San
Francisco, "...this is just one more proof of how the City de-prioritizes
families." The massive number of homeless mothers and children certainly
had a unified voice at City Hall, as they spoke out against the forced
merry-go-round they have been on, and called on the Finance Committee of
the Board of Supervisors to fully implement the "No Turn-Away Policy" for
families with children at risk.
The vision was that an additional family shelter would increase existing
shelter beds for homeless families, not that it would replace the Waller
Street location or the Hotel Voucher Program. Instead of the proposed 35
family total capacity, only 15 emergency beds placements were made
available to the City for homeless families with children. Where do the
rest go from here?
In a united effort to ensure that supervisors take appropriate steps to
address the ever-growing housing crisis among homeless families in San
Francisco, homeless advocacy organizations-including the Civil Rights
Committee, Family Rights & Dignity, Hogares Sin Barreras, Shelter Outreach,
Street Sheet, POOR Magazine and Substance Abuse & Mental Health coalitions-have taken the matter to City Hall. These organizations joined forces with homelessfamilies present at the Tuesday hearings, demanding that the City enact their outlined "twelve commandments."
Along with several homeless advocacy coalitions in San Francisco, the
homeless families presented numerous stipulations that the Board of
Supervisors should reimplement the 1998 No Turn Away resolution designed to ensure that no child will ever be abandoned to the mean streets. | 
