A plan to disrupt the “cycles of poverty and homelessness” needs big ideas and big money, like Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s plan to cut as much as $350 billion from Pentagon spending.
Supervisor Fewer writes to her constituents regarding the homeless encampments in the Richmond.
Richmond and Sunset supervisors have asked Golden Gate Park’s General Manager Phil Ginsburg to review facilities in the park that could be used for homeless camps during COVID-19.
Homeless encampments are appearing in the Richmond, where the city has provided three portable restrooms with wash stations.
The public has rushed to help with donations from $5 to $10,000 and the GoFundMeLink (gf.me/u/xsngc2) has been shared hundreds of times with avid support. Over 200 donors have contributed. So successful in its first 24 hours, the goal of the GoFundMe has been increased by $25,000 to house even more people until the city takes this on.
You see tent encampments growing all over the Bay Area, and there are more and more people living in their cars or RVs. Homelessness persists in California because we have not built enough housing to keep pace with job growth. That has resulted in a shortage that drives up the cost of existing housing.
The complications of dealing with the homeless population were explored at a community meeting on Nov. 1, hosted by District 1 Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, where she gathered city officials to address the public.
Five candidates for the mayor’s office lined up in the Hall of Flowers at Golden Gate Park in late April to talk about marginalized people, their priority policies for affordable housing, making streets safer and helping the homeless.
I don’t have to tell you that homelessness is one of the largest, most pervasive and, unfortunately, most intractable problems facing San Francisco.
As the discussion progressed, it quickly became apparent that the room was divided into two camps: one which wants to cut off services to the homeless and one which wants to increase city services for them.
If you surveyed San Franciscans and asked them to name the most pressing issues that
we face as a city, homelessness would be on everyone’s list.
