How to Help Now
Homelessness in the Bay Area represents an urgent humanitarian crisis. The situation is complex and far stretching, and now more than ever the homeless services community needs your help. Getting involved in the crisis can help reduce the pressures service providers feel on a day-to-day basis. There are a variety of ways to join the movement and help, and here you will be able to find some outlets to get you started. Whether it is from peer-to-peer education, volunteering with shelters and service providers, donating material resources, or giving financially, there is something for everyone.
Educate:
A good place to start is our Statistics & Educational Information page. Talk to people about what you know. One of our core missions at SFHSC is to make the homeless crisis an issue we talk about as a community. This starts at the grassroots level with the individual and only from there will it grow to the national level.
Homelessness almost never came up in the 2008 presidential debates, and yet 1% of the American populous experiences homelessness over the course of a year. Why are we not talking about homelessness like we talk about global warming and universal health care? With unemployment rates as high as they’ve been in decades, and the general state of the economy, this is a conversation that needs to be happening in every household across the country.
Elevate:
Homeless service providers are, as a general rule, understaffed and underfunded. They have to work with a little to achieve a lot. Here are two meaningful ways you can help:
1) Make In-kind Donations so that homeless service providers don’t have to use as much of their limited time and resources to obtain toiletries, hygienic products and other basic necessities.
2) Volunteer! Many homeless service providers rely on volunteers for the carrying out of their daily activities. For a list of volunteer opportunities in the Bay Area, check out our Volunteer page.
Advocate:
Bringing your conversations to the political level is the next step towards change. On a local level, we see an immediate need. For example, in November ’08 there was a measure on the San Francisco ballot proposing the set-aside of funds for the creation of affordable housing. It was voted down. Both the San Francisco and Alameda County plans to end homelessness call for the creation of housing. Permanent supportive housing, in particular, is key to ending the cycle of homelessness for many people. Alameda’s plan identifies a need for 15,000 additional units of housing for people who are homeless or living with HIV/AIDS or mental illness. The success of such plans to end homelessness is largely dependent upon consistent community awareness and support.
Read San Francisco’s Plan to Abolish Chronic Homelessness: http://www.ich.gov/slocal/plans/sanfrancisco.pdf
Also check out EveryOne Home’s Plan for Alameda County:
http://www.everyonehome.org/media/resources_EveryOneHome_plan.pdf
Contribute to our campaign to spark a grassroots movement of concern and community action: