"First do what's necessary; Then do what's possible; And soon you will be doing the impossible." - Francis of Assisi

On any given day in San Francisco, approximately 700 unhoused residents are on the wait list to stay in a 90-day shelter. Every name on that wait list represents a person who must figure out how to survive yet another night without access to a toilet, a locking door, or a secure place where they know they can sleep for 8 hours without fear of abuse, theft, criminalization, or displacement. Thousands more unhoused residents have given up on the mid-term shelter wait list or choose to take their chances on the street when faced with the lack of privacy, pet-restrictions, and curfews found in most shelter experiences.

When thousands of residents live in a state of daily crisis on our streets, we need to do more. And we need to do it now. That's why we are challenging ourselves and City Hall to:

  1. Increase access to secure sleep without fear of abuse, criminalization, or displacement
  2. Increase 24/7 access to toilets
  3. Increase on-site access to healing, harm reduction, and transitional support services
  4. Create more supportive long-term housing

Housing-first would be ideal, but we must focus on interim solutions

 

  1. An improvement and/or stabilization of physical and mental health for participants
  2. A decrease in the criminalization of unhoused residents 
  3. An improvement in San Francisco's safety and livability for both unhoused and housed neighbors
  4. A decrease in public costs for criminal justice services
  5. A decrease in public costs for emergency health services
  6. A decrease in public costs for sidewalk cleaning of debris, feces, and urine