This Fall, San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness (COH) is proudly celebrating its fifteenth anniversary. Now, as it was then, our mission is to build the capacity of homeless and low-income people to advocate and design programs and policies that will ensure humane exits from homelessness and poverty.

In 1987, the Coalition set out to establish a structure for a non-government-funded group that would focus on maintaining a forum where homeless people and social providers could come together and advocate on issues of social and economic justice. This has been accomplished by implementing an effective strategy that both addresses homeless people’s immediate needs and provides the necessary support in maintaining their ongoing participation in creating permanent solutions to homelessness.

The genesis of modern homelessness in the United States began in the late Seventies. What occurred was a systemic decline and shift in federal funding for housing subsidies away from low-income communities. Additionally, welfare reform and other policies and legislation have decimated benefits, social services, housing, and educational opportunities aimed at low-income communities. The result has been the largest population of homeless Americans since the Great Depression. Ill-prepared local governments responded with “band-aid” solutions: opening up shelters for homeless people for the first time in fifty years, and providing minimal, insufficient emergency services to mitigate extreme poverty and hunger.

Further cuts and restrictions on services and payments, implemented at federal, state and local level in the ‘90s have only aggravated a situation that was already critical. Welfare-to-work policies have forced people off of welfare rolls and into minimum wage jobs. The continued decrease of wages in the last 25 years has pushed more and more working-class families further to the brink, even when employed full-time, under the poverty line. In San Francisco, a single mother working full time at minimum wage isn’t making enough money to pay the rent for one studio apartment, let alone afford “luxuries” such as food, clothes and medication.

The “dot.com” Boom of the late ‘90s did not benefit all communities in San Francisco. Many poor and low-income people were displaced and pushed into homelessness by soaring real estate prices and manipulative landlords eager to cash in. In the aftermath of the “dot-com” implosion, these same communities are at the frontlines to suffer from deeper cuts on social services as government tax revenue shrinks in the current recession.

Along with generalized poverty among lowincome communities, the last decade has seen a rising trend among politicians and government institutions to criminalize the poor by establishing stiff penalties for actions that are consequences of their poverty. The general recipe for dealing with poverty could well be summarized as “cut the money” and “blame the victim.”

New initiatives are already placed on the ballot for next November’s election that follow that same pattern.

For 15 years the COH has not compromised in its advocacy and organizing efforts ensuring that agencies and institutions who must serve low-income and homeless communities are not going to implement their policies without a hearing the strong voice of those who are to be directly affected by them.

To celebrate our 15th year, we are holding ArtAuction02 — our 15th Anniversary Art Show and Auction on Thursday, September 19, 2002 at the SomArts Gallery on 934 Brannan Street. ArtAuction02 will be a highly visible public event attended by the Coalition’s socially conscious supporters, art collectors and the media. Due to the heightened interest of the Coalition’s 15th year, we are anticipating a fantastic response to ArtAuction02 which will include over 200 works of art generously donated from established, emerging and homeless Bay Area artists. The images on pages 6 and 7 here are but a couple of examples of the fine, affordable artworks being offered for auction.

The Coalition on Homelessness is proud to have achieved the following groundbreaking accomplishments in the last 15 years:

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

• Collaborated in creating a unique housing and employment project, the Community Housing Partnership, which provides 214 units of permanent housing for the city’s poorest residents, and employs homeless people in the construction, maintenance, and support services (1990).
• Advocated for and helped design The MacMillan Center, an innovative 24 hour dropin center for substance users which was successful in reducing the number of street deaths in San Francisco (1992).
• Advocated for and designed A Woman’s Place, a transitional housing program now assisting mentally disabled women, through the convening of the Homeless Women’s Task Force (1994).
• Designed the concept and garnered funding for Oshun, a community-based, 24-hour drop-in treatment center for families with children living in the Tenderloin (1997-99).
• Advocated and garnered funds for new mental health initiatives for homeless people. This means hundreds more homeless people will have access to mental health treatment for perhaps the first time (2001).

POLICY DESIGN & ADVOCACY

• Developed the Uniform Grievance Procedure for the City’s shelter system, allowing shelter clients to appeal proposed disciplinary acts and, through impartial appeals process, ensure they are not unfairly denied service (1993).
• Collaborated in the development of San Francisco’s substance abuse Treatment on Demand policy, which resulted in millions of dollars in new treatment funds and the development of an institutionalized grass roots community planning process for funding priorities and contract awards (1997-present).
• Crafted and successfully advocated for the adoption of “First Source” legislation in the City and County of San Francisco, which sets preferential hiring guidelines for poor people for new public sector jobs (1998).
• Authored and successfully advocated for adoption of a “No Turnaway” resolution for families seeking emergency shelter in San Francisco, which guarantees that homeless families will have shelter provided for them by the City (1998-present).
• Negotiated with the City to remove $250,000 allocated to prosecute homeless people simply for being homeless from the City Attorney’s budget (2000).
• Ensured that homeless people residing in the City’s two largest shelters had a strong voice in the city shelter system redesign plan (2000).
• Wrote legislation creating a local subsidy to offset damage set by changes to public housing that would mean immigrants would no longer qualify for public housing and thus lose their subsidies (2000-present).
• Designed and garnered support and funding for the implementation of a uniform grievance procedure in all substance abuse treatment programs (2001).
• Participated in guiding the program design and community-based advisory body for the new Mission Neighborhood Resource Center (2001-present).

PUBLIC EDUCATION

• Launched our 5th city-wide bus shelter ad campaign-encouraging the public to become educated, informed, and involved in community efforts addressing homelessness (2001).
• Published over 4 million issues of STREET SHEET, with over 3 million distributed by our vendors on the streets of San Francisco as an alternative to panhandling (1989-present).

The Coalition on Homelessness recognizes that the work to create proactive solutions to the root causes of homelessness is both long-term and ongoing, and with each accomplishment, we strengthen our capacity and ability to create change locally and nationally.

Homeless and low-income people have a stronger collective voice and have become an integral part of public policy debates around propositions that directly affect their lives, through Coalition initiated forums, campaigns and projects.

What some others have to say about us:

…it is crucial that San Francisco have a group that is designed to give voice to concerns directly from homeless folks themselves.
Tanya Neiman, VLSP / The Bar Association of San Francisco

The Coalition has played an instrumental role in designing and developing an extraordinary range of services and housing that has literally saved the lives of many citizens of San Francisco.
Michael Blecker, Director
Swords to Plowshares

The Coalition creates avenues of dialog and communications so those, who might otherwise not have a voice, may be heard. We are also indebted to the Coalition for the outstanding documents [it] produces focusing on the issues that perpetuate cycles of poverty and homelessness.
Fr. John Hardin
The St. Anthony Foundation

We have come to count on [the Coalition] as a key source of accurate information and up to date developments and analysis on policy issues affecting people with mental illness in the city.
…the work of the Coalition is grounded in the community it serves and the voices of those who have experienced poverty and homelessness first hand are involved at every stage of their work.
Belinda Lyons, Director
Mental Health Association of San Francisco

The COH has provided visionary leadership in forging groundbreaking new approaches in the effort to eradicate poverty.(…) the COH has forged a strong and long-lasting alliance between homeless people and the staff of nonprofit agencies working to alleviate homelessness.
Terry Messman,
American Friends Service Committee

…the Coalition has undoubtedly influenced homeless policy in San Francisco — forcing political leaders to address tough issues that they would often prefer to sweep under the rug.
Oren M. Sellstrom,
Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights

The Coalition stands out as one of the most committed, competent and effective grassroots advocacy groups I have ever worked with.

Riva

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