San Francisco CA. Time was running out for a pair of families who were faced with being kicked out of the St. Joseph’s Family Shelter in San Francisco when their request for an extended stay was denied.
Those unhoused families—one, a Honduran couple with two children, and the other, a Peruvian single mother with one—were informed last week by the Mission District shelter that they must leave by 5 p.m. on March 10, or the shelter will call the police on them.
Thanks to the efforts of Faith in Action Bay Area, they were able to get their denial overturned.
On that day, the religious activist group brought attention to the families’ plight at a press conference outside the Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School, where the children attend. They were among several groups—including homeless families, United Educators of San Francisco, and allies of the unhoused community—calling for the City to rescind the evictions.
The looming eviction came to a shock to the families, who are among the 900 people in the family shelter system. Less than two weeks earlier, they met with Mayor Daniel Lurie, who promised them that the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) would hold off on evictions as long as the families who meet with case managers show signs of progress.
Still, the department proceeded with the eviction under threat of arrest. This comes on the heels of a City policy change that limits shelter stays to 90 days plus 30-day extensions upon the family’s request.
“They say that there’s no more time,” Vilma A., the Honduran mother facing eviction, said at the press conference. “They say that our time is over.”
Faith in Action cried foul, saying that the families’ due process rights are being violated.
Under City law, shelter residents are allowed the right to a hearing challenging evictions with the assistance of a shelter client advocate. Typically, the Eviction Defense Collaborative represents clients in those hearings.
But on a department FAQ sheet, HSH is telling families who receive eviction notices to email HSH directly.
Advocates are demanding more transparency in the granting of shelter extensions, as well as increasing the number of housing subsidies.
(Reprinted with permission from the Street Sheet, a publication of the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness)
TJ Johnston is the editor-in-chief of Street Sheet, which is published by the Coalition on Homelessness, a San Francisco based homeless advocacy organization. He has contributed to several Bay Area publications.
