Data from San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing show that accessing shelter is very difficult for unhoused people in San Francisco due to a lack of available beds and other barriers.
Climate Change
Promising to Prevent Floods at Treasure Island, Builders Downplay Risk of Sea Rise
Sea level rise is forcing cities around San Francisco Bay to weigh demand for new housing against the need to protect communities from flooding. Builders say they can solve this dilemma with cutting-edge civil engineering. But no one knows whether their ambitious efforts will be enough to keep newly built waterfront real estate safe in coming decades.
Meanwhile, developers are busy building — and telling the public that they can mitigate this one effect of climate change, despite mounting evidence that it could be a bigger problem than previously believed.
Government & Politics
California Indian Tribes Denied Resources for Decades as Federal Acknowledgement Lags
In the last 13 years, the U.S. Department of Interior has actively reviewed applications for acknowledgement of only 18 tribes, even as hundreds remain in line. The Public Press has identified more than 400 tribes seeking federal recognition and is working to confirm that 200 others with publicly listed applications are genuine.
Many have been waiting for decades. The Death Valley TimbiSha Shoshone Band is the only California tribe that has been recognized in the 44 years since the federal acknowledgement process was established.
Housing
San Francisco Rent Relief Tracker
More than one month after statewide eviction protections expired on June 30, less than 4% of rent relief funds requested by San Francisco households remain unprocessed, with 55% of funds paid out.
News
As Statewide Eviction Protections Expire, SF Measure Kicks In
Although a statewide eviction moratorium for tenants with pending rent relief applications expired Thursday, some tenants in San Francisco and Los Angeles saw a glimmer of hope as previously voided local protections kicked back in.
Cities and advocates hope the enactment of new protections will help to fill the gap for struggling tenants facing eviction for rent due after June 30.
Law & Justice
Expanding View of Domestic Violence Gives Survivors New Tool, but Unsympathetic Judges Remain an Obstacle
A California law enacted in 2021 allows domestic violence victims to claim coercive control — a broad range of behaviors including humiliation, surveillance, intimidation, gaslighting and isolation that strips an intimate partner of a sense of autonomy and personhood.
Experts in domestic violence say judicial skepticism of abuse victims, often with misogynistic overtones, has long been widespread in U.S. family court, creating dangerous hurdles to justice. The expanded conception of domestic violence on paper is of limited use if judges continue to cast a skeptical eye on testimony, usually from women, of manipulation within intimate relationships.
Homelessness
San Francisco Rations Housing by Scoring Homeless People’s Trauma. By Design, Most Fail to Qualify.
Co-published with ProPublica.
Tabitha Davis had just lost twins in childbirth and was facing homelessness. The 23-year-old had slept on friends’ floors for the first seven months of her pregnancy, before being accepted to a temporary housing program for pregnant women. But with the loss of the twins, the housing program she’d applied to live in after giving birth — intended for families — was no longer an option.
A few weeks later, Davis was informed that the score she’d been given based on her answers to San Francisco’s “coordinated entry” questionnaire wasn’t high enough to qualify for permanent supportive housing. It was a devastating blow after an already traumatizing few months.
Need to Understand Eviction Protections Before They Expire? We Made a Flow Chart
If you’re a tenant facing a COVID-19 hardship, it can be difficult to understand how you are — and are not — protected from eviction. Here’s what you need to know.
Immigration
Afghan Employees of Bay Area Nonprofit Hope Americans Will Help Those Living Under Taliban
San Rafael-based Roots of Peace remained in the Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power, working to clear minefields and convert them to productive agricultural land, while also helping Afghan employees who wanted to leave and get their families out of the country.
City Hall
School Board Members Recalled in Special Election, Assembly Race Heads to Runoff
An overwhelming percentage of San Francisco voters decided to expel three San Francisco Unified School District board commissioners in the city’s first recall vote in nearly 40 years. Preliminary results for the Feb. 15 special election show that more than 70% of voters cast ballots to oust school board President Gabriela López and members Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga.
City Hall
SF Tenants Set to Gain New Powers in Negotiations With Landlords
Tenants across San Francisco will gain new collective bargaining powers to affect conditions in their buildings, thanks to a move by lawmakers Tuesday.
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved protections for tenants to form associations, akin to labor unions, that can negotiate with landlords over a wide range of concerns, including issues like construction schedules and even helping tenants pay off debts taken on to cover rents, often called “shadow debt.”