Just minutes after Mayor London Breed read the shelter-in-place order on Monday, homelessness advocate and bookstore owner Christin Evans said she and her fellow advocates wondered how the order was going to work for the city’s 10,000 homeless residents.
While the 10-page order acknowledges most of the city’s homeless don’t have anywhere to shelter in place, one paragraph nonetheless “urges” them to seek shelter and government agencies to take steps to provide shelter. “The question from the advocacy community was ‘What does that mean?’” Evans told The Frisc.
Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting didn’t bring clarity, either. Evans and associates did the math and quickly realized that shelter-in-place space was going to be limited, and the new one-per-tent suggestion would create a squeeze for space on the street, too.
So Evans, who helped 2018’s Proposition C gain crucial support with a tweet to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and her colleagues hatched a plan over Slack to amass tents and other supplies among several service providers.
The Homeless Youth Alliance, at 607A Haight Street, stepped up to be the collection and distribution center. On Wednesday afternoon, it opened its doors for three hours and collected 15 items.
Now, with some social-media momentum, they’re trying again at 2 pm today at the same location. Here’s what donations they’re accepting and which organizations will benefit:
— The Coalition on Homelessness and others are in need of tents and sleeping bags.
— The Homeless Prenatal Program will take diapers, wipes, and infant formula for its clients.
— Episcopal Community Services, which operates two navigation centers, two shelters, and supportive housing, is looking for hand sanitizer.
(Please limit donations to these items. The organizations don’t need to deal with your old coffee machine or sofa.)
The “one per tent” directive is part of the health department’s order. It’s unclear how it will be enforced, if at all. Only recently, after media attention, did city officials comply with a months-old court order and stop confiscating tents and other possessions of people on the streets. Officials announced they would focus more on social distancing.
The city is currently scrambling to find rooms for unsheltered people. The director of the human services agency said Thursday that 3,500 hotel rooms, now empty because of the pandemic, might be leased for people who have tested positive for COVID-19 but can’t self-quarantine because of their living conditions. But many of those rooms would go to people who already have roofs over their heads, like supportive housing with shared kitchens. That would leave fewer spaces for people currently on the street.
Software developer Chris Arvin and his partner, who live in the Haight, donated new sleeping bags at the drop-off spot Wednesday. Arvin told The Frisc he’s disappointed in the city’s response to the homeless crisis. “When the city tells people to ‘shelter in place,’ but there’s no shelter and the city has been confiscating tents, where are people supposed to go?” Arvin asked.
He heard about the effort through Evans’s Twitter feed. “It seemed like such an easy thing for us to do to provide some help to those who are most at risk in this crisis,” Arvin said. “There’s this feeling of powerlessness right now, and doing something, anything, helps deal with that.”
If you miss today’s drop-off, there will be more, says Evans. Organizations are generating wish lists. Once those are known, Evans would like to connect donors at home, who can purchase those items online from her fellow Haight Street merchants.
If you have tents and sleeping bags you no longer need or wish to donate can do so today, Friday, at HYA’s outlet at 607A Haight Street from 2 to 5 pm. For questions and details about future supply drives for any of the organizations mentioned above, contact Christin Evans on Twitter (@christinevans) and on Facebook.
Kristi Coale (@unazurda) is a San Francisco-based freelance reporter and radio producer for outlets including the National Radio Project’s Making Contact and KALW’s Crosscurrents.
