As the week winds down, we have another wave of pieces from the SF Homeless Project, covering a variety of subjects. Here are some highlights:

  • KRON 4 has a piece about family homelessness, citing a figure from Compass Family Services that they served 5,897 parents and children last year. Also, it can take anywhere from three to six months for families to be placed in long-term shelters, which are the first step toward getting permanent housing.
  • 48 Hills has an op-ed from the Coalition on Homelessness's Jennifer Friedenbach, which drives home the impending dearth of supportive housing for the homeless. The pipeline for this housing is about to run dry after a half decade in which the city constructed 2,790 units for the homeless, and pre-fab construction may be one answer.
  • Also from the Coalition on Homelessness we have a guest post on BrokeAss Stuart from human rights organizer Kelley Cutler highlighting the human rights abuses committed by the city in forcing homeless people to constantly move their camps.
  • SF State's Golden Gate Xpress shines a light on the university's "abysmally low" level of support for its own homeless and food-insecure students.
  • SF Public Press has a report on the impact of the closure of the flagship Goodwill store at Mission and South Van Ness. The store is closing to make way for a housing development on the site, but along with its As-Is warehouse where goods can be purchased by the pound, the store is a lifeline for many of the city's poorest people.
  • ABC 7 highlights the fact that a quarter of the current homeless population are homeless due to job loss.
  • And here's Ed Lee's thoughts on the SF Homeless Project: He says, "Homelessness is as complex as all the articles really reveal it to be."
  • SF Mag highlights one of the city's non-profits that directly helps and advocates for homeless individuals, 15-year-old North Beach Citizens, and its passionate director, Kristie Fairchild.
  • CBS 5 has a piece about one homeless family of six who all sleep in their car, a Ford Taurus, in Union City.
  • Former homeless czar Bevan Dufty calls out Supervisor Mark Ferrell's "cynical" proposed ballot measure about clearing tent encampments in an SF Weekly piece, calling it "dog-whistle politics."
  • Newsweek, which indeed still exists, asks the question "Should tech have to pay for San Francisco's homeless problem?"
  • KQED has a piece about the Undercover project, which started ahead of the Super Bowl, and which provides blankets that double as ponchos to SF's homeless.
  • The Examiner has an interesting piece centered on the psych ward at SF General, reporting that there's been an uptick in the last year in "the number of [homeless] psychiatric patients who cannot be discharged to a safe environment due to the dwindling number of beds in available facilities," thereby lengthening the average length of stay.
  • Related to that, The Chronicle has a piece focusing on how to address the issue of mental illness in the homeless community, saying "San Francisco needs dozens, maybe even hundreds of inpatient psychiatric beds to treat the most severely mentally ill." And 100 more psychiatric beds would cost about $80 million a year, according to the Department of Public Health.