Who will end homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area?
The homelessness and displacement crisis are one of the most critical issues facing San Francisco in 2015. While homelessness nationwide has been slowly declining since at least 2005, the number of homeless San Franciscans has actually gone up during the same time period, now numbering a staggering 6,686.
Persons in families with children represented roughly 9% of the total population counted in the Point-in-Time Count, while roughly 91% were single individuals without families (including unaccompanied children and transitional-age-youth). In total, 6% of those counted on January 29, 2015 were under the age of 18, 20% were between the ages of 18 and 24 and 74% were over the age of 25.*
Many organizations work hard to make the world a better place through bridging knowledge, money, people and social entrepreneurs.
Please support San Francisco organizations whose mission is to end homelessness for families and individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area:
DDrawBridge — An Arts Program for Homeless and Other Underserved Children — The mission of DrawBridge is to provide expressive art programs for homeless and other underserved children in an environment that fosters creativity, joy, self-confidence and hope. DrawBridge is a Bay Area nonprofit that offers a safe, supportive environment in which children ages 4–16 can use creative arts to work through the complex emotions associated with homelessness and family dysfunction. It currently provides weekly art programs at 22 different sites in six Bay Area counties, serving approximately 900 children annually. The organization recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.
Dedicated youth counts have affected the number of unsheltered persons enumerated in 2013 and 2015, as these counts target unaccompanied children and youth living in unsheltered locations.*
LLava Mae — Mobile Showers For The Homeless — This is Lava Mae’s charge: provide sanitation, assist in deterring potential public health problems, and perhaps most critically, provide a much needed service to help a population struggling to retain a sense of dignity and self worth. In essence, Lava Mae seeks to solve a small piece of what the United Nations and World Health Organization define as, and Lava Mae believes is, a basic human right: access to water and sanitation. Everyone has the right to be clean. With hygiene comes dignity and with dignity, opportunity.
The way in which an individual seeks services as well as their ability to access support from friends or family is affected by where they lived prior to experiencing homelessness. Seventy-one percent (71%) of respondents reported they were living in San Francisco at the time they most recently became homeless, an increase from 61% in 2013. Of those, nearly half (49%) had lived in San Francisco for 10 years or more. Eleven percent (11%) had lived in San Francisco for less than one year.*
HHamilton Family Center mission is to end homelessness for families and individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hamilton Family Center breaks the cycle of homelessness by helping families move quickly back into stable homes to restore the foundation for healthy family lives. Hamilton prevents evictions, provide temporary housing, help families to become permanently re-housed, and support healthy development of children and youth experiencing homelessness.
Trend data showed that the distribution of single individuals compared to people in families has remained relatively consistent over time.*
SSENECA Family of Agencies — believes that children and youth do not themselves fail, but are failed by the system, a system unable to address their complex and specialized needs. Seneca has dedicated itself to providing a comprehensive range of community-based and family-focused services for children and families.
Of those who were living in California (not including San Francisco), the most commonly reported reason for moving to San Francisco included looking for work (29%), accessing homeless services or benefits (25%), or family and/or friends lived in San Francisco (16%). An additional 7% reported moving to San Francisco to access Veterans Affairs (VA) services.*
CCompass Family Services — helps homeless families and families at imminent risk of homelessness to achieve housing stability, family well-being, and self-sufficiency. Six programs provide services to more than 5,000 parents and children each year, 50% of whom are under age 18. Of 80+ staff members, 57% are people of color, 73% are women, and more than 20% have been homeless and bring firsthand knowledge to their work with clients.
PS: GOODdler helps to meet the basic needs of underserved populations around the world by connecting them to international communities through an online e-commerce marketplace, where supporters, organizations or individuals, can purchase the items requested by charitable organizations.
*Source: 2015 San Francisco Point-In-Time Homeless Count & Survey
