- Seattle may try San Francisco’s ‘radical hospitality’ for homeless, By Daniel Beekman, June 11, 2016, Seattle Times: “Denise and Michael were relaxing on a sunny Friday afternoon. She sat on their bed in pajamas, folding laundry, while he roughhoused with their friend’s pit bull. Soul standards were blaring from a boombox. There was something homey about the scene, even though the couple were homeless. Denise and Michael were inside San Francisco’s Navigation Center, an experimental shelter where guests come and go as they please and where pets, partners and possessions are welcome…”
- Houston’s solution to the homeless crisis: Housing — and lots of it, By Daniel Beekman, June 13, 2016, Seattle Times: “Anthony Humphrey slept on the pavement outside a downtown Houston drop-in center. Except when a Gulf Coast rainstorm slammed the city — then he took cover under a storefront awning or below Interstate 45. He had no driver’s license, no Social Security card, almost no hope. That was in 2014. This month, Humphrey will celebrate a year in his apartment…”
Tag: San Francisco
Emergency Responders and the Homeless
San Francisco firefighters become unintended safety net for the homeless, By Sarah Maslin Nir, August 26, 2015, New York Times: “When the emergency bell sounds at Fire Station 1 here, firefighters pull on boots and backpacks, swing into Engine 1 and hurtle out the door in almost a single motion, a blast of red lights and caterwauling sirens. More often than not, there is no fire. Instead, the calls that ring in this and nearby fire stations tend to go like this: Male, apparently homeless, sprawled unconscious on a train platform. Male, prone on a street corner pushing a needle into his arm. In a measure of just how much homelessness has become an all-encompassing problem here, this city has the busiest fire engine in America — yet just over 1.5 percent of its runs last year involved fires…”
Minimum Wage – San Francisco, CA
Minimum-wage hikes meet mixed reaction in San Francisco, By Peter Hecht, May 30, 2015, Sacramento Bee: “In this diverse and densely packed city, known for high living costs and soaring rents, 77 percent of voters last year approved a series of pay hikes that will boost San Francisco’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018. Yet there are tensions these days on Valencia Street in San Francisco’s multicultural Mission District over the minimum wage hike and what it means for businesses and the ability of residents to keep up with rising costs. As other cities, including Sacramento, ponder increases to the local minimum wage, the stories told along Valencia illustrate the complexities of the issue…”