What I got from all this

When I began my research, my initial thought was to write about homeless people. There are some many homeless people around, this couldn’t be hard right?

Why I pick this topic was because back in my hometown, there was a place called Tent City next to the Ontario Airport in southern California. The place was a campground for people who are homeless. I had the pleasure to visit the area and to my surprise, found a community. A group of people took it upon themselves to distribute donations from churches and other non-profit organization. They had food, blankets, and even first aide supplies for the entire campground.

So I thought to myself, surely there is something like this in San Francisco right?

I did a little research, and the closest I’ve found was homeless people sleeping in various parts of Golden Gate Park. The city had no such campsite dedicated to homeless people.

I decided then to focus on people who works with the homeless. There are dozens of non-profit organizations and homeless shelters in the city, I should have no problem getting access to them and get the detail on how each organization are connected in helping people in need.

Once I started to visit these shelters, I began to realize that things are not as easy as I imagine.

Most of the people in administration weren’t too thrill that I was looking into their organization. Many of them seem flat out intimidating. I tried to set up interviews and sent many emails, but most did not respond. Pretty much they were not making any time for me.

When I finally sat down with one person from an organization dedicated to homeless children called Home away From Homelessness, she was nice enough to give me details about how the organization is run. But as soon as the children arrived, I was not allowed to be there to see what the children do there.

Many of the administrators told me that they had to keep the people and children out due to privacy reasons. I can respect that. However, this really got me thinking. If someone like me, who actually went in and try to see how the homeless people relate to the programs around the city, and get nothing; how much does average people know about the homeless and homeless shelters around the city?

I was fortunate to still get some of my questions answered through working with Coalition of Homelessness. But maybe it won’t be such a bad idea to ask this question, just what are these programs that supposedly help homelessness doing?

Street Sheet team up with a new promo

Rudy Torres walked up and down the stairs and couldn’t stop checking outside the door. He was in charge of distribution and the delivery van with the latest issue of Street Sheet was late.

The venders were already waiting inside the Coalition on Homelessness for the new issue. Some of them began to doze off.

Every time Torres would step into the office, the venders would assumed that the paper arrived and would get out of their seat to help unload the van. But Torres would just walk back out, and the venders knew the paper was still not here.

Finally, Torres shouted from downstairs.

“The paper is here!”

Everyone from the office began going downstairs. They formed a line from the door all the way up through the stairs. They looked like they were a disaster relief organization, but instead of carrying sand bags upstairs, they were carrying bundle of newspaper.

The Street Sheet is a well-known newspaper of San Francisco that brings news on homelessness to the people. What’s more important is that homeless people known as a way for them to make money sell the publication. Those who are homeless and want to sell Street Sheet are briefly trained to become a vender before going out.

But today, there is something extra for the venders. Harmonic Humanity, a non-profit organization founded by Al Lovewinds that is using music to help the homeless, are giving every vendor two music compilation CDs made by the organization for them to sell. Harmonic Humanity has teamed up with the street newspaper in Seattle to allow the homeless to sell CDs on the street so they can make more than a $1 per newspaper. The CDs would cost the vendors $2 to purchase, but they would get to sell it for $10.

“We are trying to create a win situation,” said Joseph Jacques, the co-founder of Harmonic Humanity. “This helps both organizations.”

The CDs are made by variety of artists who donate the song to help start this project. The organization put together a fundraiser and raised enough money to print 1,000 copies. Merging with the newspaper in Seattle has been satisfying enough for the organization to try San Francisco.

Both Lovewinds and Jacques felt since many cities has newspapers that concentrate on homelessness and also help the homeless in the city, it’ll be a good move to team up with much publications as they can so they can address the issue of homelessness across the country.

Jacques said that they hope they can put a few well-known artists in the next compilation album. They are hoping to have Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz to contribute.

There are roughly 200 different vendors over the course of three month that would pick up Street Sheet from the coalition to sell. They come sporadically to pick up the bi-weekly newspaper. They are allowed to pick up 25 to 75 issues each time to sell.

Bob Offer-Westort is currently the coordinating editor for the Street Sheet. He has different writers volunteer to write each issue and he’ll put the issue together himself.

The budget for the paper is relatively inexpensive. The only thing that is a cost is the printing, which cost $1,600. Most of the money comes from people who want to see the paper up in running. The other contributions are from small foundations.

When asked whether Street Sheet is going in the direction of trying to combine other sources like Harmonic Humanity to hopefully expand the paper, Offer-Westort said that organization like these just happens to fall from the sky.

“We are still going to focus strictly on bringing the news on homelessness out in San Francisco,” Offer-Westort said. “When organization like this give us a hand, it’s great. The only expansion that should be made would be getting more
articles in the newspaper.”

Miguel Carrera

In a large room outfitted like a classroom, a group of women in their mid-30s sat around a rectangular table chitchatting in Spanish as they organized papers. Another 40 or so Spanish speakers were scattered around the room, looking like they were gathered for a parent-teacher conference.

If so, Miguel Carrera would have to be the teacher.

The group was there not just for their children. They were there to work on improving their family lives.

Carrera meets with the group, Families and Immigrants, midday Tuesdays at the office of Coalition on Homelessness to discuss plans on improving living conditions for homeless families. Currently, the group is focusing on the environment in single-room occupancy hotels across San Francisco.

Although barely 5 foot 4 inches tall and slightly hunched, Carrera nonetheless speaks with charisma. He organized this group how many years ago based in part on his own years of homelessness and his desire to help others. Now, he’s pushing a San Francisco ordinance that would increase subsidies for low-income housing in the city.

In the meeting, Carrera addressed the group that the bill has passed the first stage. The city council had voted for it and later today, they will vote on it again. If they pass the bill again, it’ll go to Mayor Newsome for the last approval stage.

“There are so few politicians and so many of us,” Carrera said in Spanish to the group.
The group sat quietly and listened to Carrera.

“This is too quiet,” Carrera said. “We won!”

Carrera himself was no stranger to poor quality of living. Born and raised in Mexico, a country with a huge problem with poverty, Carrera grew up in a family that count they’re blessing with what they had. But it was that environment that gave Carrera the desire to fight for poverty. However, it was also that fighting spirit that had him banned from Mexico.

Carrera would not go into details, but one of his demonstrations for change had angered some political figures in Mexico. In 1989, he fled his homeland to San Francisco.

“When I was still in Mexico, people would talked about the Golden Gate Bridge,” Carrera said. “I would read about it in books and see the picture of the bridge. That to me was America. That’s why I chose San Francisco as the place to go.”

Carrera first arrived into the Mission District because it was a place of familiarity due to the large Hispanic population. Within a few days, he met a man who was generous enough to help him get on his feet. That man offered Carrera a place to stay and also got him a job.

Even though Carrera had a college education in Mexico, it did not help him in America. Like many immigrants, his first job was in the restaurant washing dishes.

Then things turned south for Carrera. When he found another place with new housemates, he got involved in drugs. For years, he was hooked on cocaine and various other substances. His drug use eventually turned him to the streets.

For over a year, Carrera was homeless. He turned to drug usage and dealing as his way of living. It wasn’t until he met another homeless man name Jesus Perez in a shelter that turned things around for him.

“I owe everything to Perez,” Carerra said. “If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if I would’ve got clean.”

Perez told Carerra that he knew a place that helped homeless people with various problems and issues. That place, as it turned out, was the Coalition on Homelessness. Through the coalition, Carerra checked into rehab.

Like every recovering drug addict, road to soberness is not an easy task. It took Carrera three different clinic to heal him. He checked into two different clinics, and ran away from both. Carrera told the coalition that both places were uncomfortable for him, and too far away from home. The coalition checked Carrera into the third and final clinic, Height Ashbury Clinic.

Once Carrera was clean, he got back in doing what he loves to do, fight for human rights. He then became full-time staff working with Coalition on Homelessness. Then Carerra began working on forming different organizations within the coalition to fight for housing rights. Three times he formed groups, and three times the groups couldn’t maintain their purpose.

The group Families and Immigrant was the forth group that Carrera formed and led. This group was able to stay on track due to avid members attending every Tuesday.

“What really made the difference are the women in the group,” Carrera said. “It was their time and effort that keep this place afloat.”

His co-worker, Matthias Mornino, then took over rest of the meeting in going over to what the group would focus on next when the bill does get pass. Mornino has works with the SRO Collaborative, an organization that focus on moving families out of Single Room Occupancy hotels. Since a lot of the members in Families and Immigrants live in SRO, this combine the two organization to fight for a common goal. Both Mornino and Carerra also reach out to various other organizations and collaborate with them on various events and demonstration.

“Our goals is to end families living in SRO,” Mornino said.

It was through one of these events that Carerra met his wife. He is a father of two children.

When asked about his all the time he spent working with the coalition, and whether he felt that he should move on toward something else, he only had one response.

“If I can’t work here, I would go crazy.”

Families and Immigration Organization

The door, small and gated, stood overshadowed by The Tenderloin Housing clinic. It may stand quietly on this street, but what’s brewing behind are four groups fighting for the rights for homeless in San Francisco.

Turk Street in the Tenderloin district is not a pretty street. The street that is only few blocks away from Union Square is broke down and noisy with people hanging around outside hotels and cars whizzing by. But it’s on this street that the entrance to the Coalition on Homelessness is located.

The Families and Immigrants, one of the sub groups in the coalition, advocates for better housing for homeless families and individual every Tuesday. The group works half as a support group and half as an organized voice for homelessness. The group center most on the Hispanic population due to most of the members are Spanish speakers. Many of the attendees are middle age mother looking for a better housing situation

On this Tuesday’s meeting, the group discussed the current situation on the subsidies bill they are trying to passed. The city council has passed it once, and later that day, they would vote again to see if it would reach the mayor’s desk.

The Coalition of Homelessness define themselves as a union for the homeless. There four different sub groups that focuses on a certain problem the homeless and low-income housing families are facing. Families and Immigration has about 135 members of Hispanic families fighting for rights of low income families. The group also work with other organizations that are working with various other organizations to make sure families of all ethnicities are getting better living situation.

Miguel Carrera has been with the Homeless Coalition for 16 years. He had attempted to organize a group like Families and Immigrants three times with no avail. However, he felt that this group has been the strongest that he has ever seen.

“What makes this group so successful are the women ,” Carrera said. “They devote a lot of time to the cause and really help build this group.”

Andy Kreamer, a volunteer from the East Bay, have been working with many non-profit organizations in East Bay. However, he was still quite surprise with how much the coalition gets done.

“It’s powerful,” Kreamer said. “We don’t have anything like this in the East Bay.”

The Families and Immigrants have been working on this subsidy bill for the last year. They tried to push it through city council once and was voted out. Now with a new draft, their chance of getting this passed looked better. If the actually get passed, then that means low-income families will have $500 from the city toward rent and allow them to have better housing.

The Families and Immigrants have been working with SRO Families United Collaborative, an organization that try to make sure all the SROs in San Francisco are in safe living condition.

SROs, in some way, is a hidden problem among the many problems the city has with the homeless. The reason for that is due to the fact that many people do not even know what SROs are. Many of the SRO hotels look like typical apartment buildings, which people unnoticeably. However, it’s the inside of the complex where the problem lies. The rooms inside are 10 by 10 square foot apartment. Most of the hotels the residence has to share one bathroom on one floor.

According to the SRO Families United Collaborative, there are on average 3.4 people live in one these small rooms. Most of the SRO families are immigrants. Approximately 450 SRO families live in various part of San Francisco. Around 62% of the families reside

People in SRO, by city definition, are not homeless. But the living situation can be so bad that they mind as well be homeless and live in shelters.

According to Coalition of Homelessness, a report by San Francisco’s City Contoller in 2002 found that families have to wait 3 to 5 months for space in a full-time shelter.” Section 8 housing through Hosing Authority can take up to 4 years.

For the Coalition of Homelessness, it has been a continuous battle for the rights of homeless. As each of the four groups try to keep track of the cities major problem, it seems like a righteous battle with no winning side. But perhaps its not about winning or losing.

Matthias Morinino moved from Italy three years ago and been working with non-profit organizations. Currently, he works with SRO Families United Collaborative and also merging with Families and Immigrant group.

“What I’m worried about mostly are the children,” Morinino said. “This kind of living condition can really affect the growth of a child’s life.