Homelessness in San Francisco is a humanitarian crisis in our own (rich) backyard. Even the UN has labeled our city’s dystopian housing situation a violation of human rights. No one is going to end the situation in SF overnight; it’s too complex and too layered of an issue to solve in one fell swoop. But together we can help push the needle in the right direction.

The reality is that, even though most of us are highly disturbed and saddened by the crisis and want to help, most of us don’t. …

Is there anywhere more strange and mysterious than Treasure Island? Sandwiched between San Francisco and the East Bay, the 5,500-by-3,400 manmade hunk of dirt is known for its boarded-up buildings, weird radioactive history, amazing views, new urban wineries and the tight-knit community of 3,000 folks who call it home. On top of this, it’s served as a stalwart place for the homeless since the early 1990s.

Developers have been itching to build on the island for years but have been put off due to a combination of a statewide rollback in redevelopment funding and a lengthy series of lawsuits around…

We’re proud to be joining other SF Homeless Project partners for the second Homeless Day of Action. Today, we bring you stories of currently or formerly homeless San Franciscans.

“I slept in my car and abandoned houses for six months.”

From Columbia Law School in the 1970s to homelessness in the 1990s. Read more…

Exploring the meaning of freedom with a man who just got out of prison

I think we can all agree that that was a mostly terrible two weeks with a few bright moments. If you consume news like I do, perhaps you also find yourself conflicted between A) gluing yourself to any available screen and reading everything about every (inter)national crisis; or B) zoning out to cute puppy pictures in hopes of forgetting about the traumatic news cycle for a spell.

So this week, I’m sorting our roundup by your emotional state.

If you want to reflect: Cirrus Wood’s “After Orlando: The Routine of Terror” could just as well be called “After Nice” —…

By Lilian Wang

I’d met Monroe at Episcopal Community Services’ Tuesday breakfast support group for homeless seniors. He came by a couple of times a month with a toothless grin on his face, telling animated, long-winded stories about his childhood in Mississippi. But my first memory of him is of a triumphant win at bingo. The prize: a bottle of fragrance. With the perfume cradled in his arms, he performed a one-man show of his swooning women and his flirtatious conversations with them.

Monroe is no stranger to being a ladies’ man. Growing up, he chaperoned his sisters to high…

The beloved local newspaper columnist Herb Caen once said, “If I do go to heaven, I’m going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco.’”

Herb’s sentiment is understandable. When you live in San Francisco, it’s easy to get caught up in it — the way the air off the Pacific feels on your skin, the way the sunset lights up the fog, streetcars tinkling like toys up and down the hills. It can be idyllic. But San Francisco has a problem — one…

By Sarah Han

Oakland artist Gregory Kloehn rose to fame in 2011, when he created small homes made out of transformed dumpsters. Taking what he learned from making these mini living spaces, he’s started a new project building brightly colored tiny houses out of found materials and donating them to the homeless.

By Paul Krantz

Elevator doors opened up to the fifth floor of my workplace in SOMA, and I stepped around a collection of people with phones in front of their faces. The key card attached to my hip opened the door to an office full of white desks covered with silver desktop computers, and office chairs filled by young, clean-cut professionals.

I felt self-conscious about the stains on my sleeves and the hairs clinging to my flannel as I navigated the aisles to my seat. Would anyone notice that I had worn the same clothes two days prior? …