Number of homeless families in San Francisco doubles

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — While San Francisco is seeing a reduction in tents and overall street homelessness, city data and reports from community organizations show that the number of homeless families in the city has surged.

These families are less likely to live in tents, and more likely to live in vehicles, city officials said.

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing reported that homeless family waiting lists doubled this fall compared to last fall. In March, 380 families were on the waitlist for emergency shelter and 140 families were on the waitlist for rapid rehousing subsidies.

“San Francisco has added support to end family homelessness, including hundreds of shelter and housing slots, but we are now seeing a sudden increase in families struggling with
homelessness,” Mayor London Breed said.

While the city’s tent count reached its lowest level in five years based on the April
tent count, the vehicular count remains elevated. “The main drivers of this recent growth in family homelessness include job loss for families living in San Francisco, and families in the city who arrive without access to housing,” city officials wrote.

On Wednesday Breed announced a plan, Safer Families, which will provide new emergency shelter and rapid rehousing slots for families on long waitlists. It will add 115 new emergency hotel shelter slots and 215 new rapid rehousing slots for homeless families.

Breed said, “We have unsheltered families, most of them living in vehicles across our city, and we need to move them into more stable shelter and housing so they can get on a path to safer, healthier situations. This is about creating the opportunities to stabilize families, support our young people, and create stronger communities.”

The plan is part of the mayor’s new two-year budget and funded through Prop C. It will be submitted to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for approval.

54 percent of San Francisco’s homeless residents refused shelters: city data

Hope Kamer, director of public policy at Compass Family Services, said the plan is a “positive step toward realizing the San Francisco where children and families never need to sleep in Muni stations, and their experiences of homelessness are brief and non-recurring. Every child deserves to grow up in a stable, safe home.”

Under the Safer Families plan, the mayor said her budget will use Prop C funding in three ways:

• Adding 115 emergency shelter hotel rooms for families. These vouchers will serve
  over 600 families with emergency shelter over the next 1.5 years. (Cost: $11.6 million)

• Adding 165 slots of rapid rehousing (RRH) and shallow rent subsidies for families.
  These new slots plus turnover in RRH slots would support over 400 families over 2 years.
  Rapid rehousing provides rental subsidies for up to 5 years that taper. (Cost: $28.9 million)

• Adding 50 slots of rapid rehousing for Transition Age Youth (TAY) headed families.
  These are families where the head of household is someone defined as TAY, meaning
  between the ages of 18 and 24. These new slots will serve 50 families over a five-year
  window. (Cost: $9.9 million)

“The challenge of families experiencing homelessness is a moral, economic, and social reality
facing our community. Mayor Breed is making such a bold investment in her budget to address the housing and shelter needs of vulnerable children and their parents,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.

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