NO MORE CHILDREN LIVING IN THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO
VICTORY! Homeless families win end to shelter evictions and $30 million in new rental subsidies
Press Release from the Recently Arrived Families Committee, Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Today the homeless families’ committee of Faith in Action Bay Area, in partnership with United Educators of San Francisco, announced two major victories: an end to the City’s experimental policy of evicting families from homeless shelters after 90 days, and $30 million in new investments in the City Budget to house homeless families and young adults.
“We’re grateful to the leadership of Supervisor Jackie Fielder and her colleagues on the Board of Supervisors who took our concerns seriously and listened to the solutions we proposed,” said Sadie Bermudez, a member of the committee who is still on the waiting list for shelter.
The two wins come after over six months of organizing led by the homeless families’ committee working closely with United Educators of San Francisco, the local teachers’ union representing 6,000 members, and the Coalition on Homelessness, an advocacy group that works with homeless people and front-line service providers.
“As educators, we know first-hand how homelessness impacts kids and their learning,” said Cassondra Curiel, president of UESF. “It’s a moral crisis that we have nearly 3,000 homeless students in the San Francisco public schools. We’re happy to hear that City leaders have agreed to stop evicting our students from shelters and to start investing in solutions.”
The homeless families’ committee ramped up their organizing efforts this spring when the City Department of Homelessness began implementing a new policy of evicting families from shelters after 90 days, claiming that it would increase “flow” through the system.
“We started receiving eviction notices almost every month,” said Yaneth Perez, a member of the committee who lives in Oasis shelter. “It created incredible stress and anxiety for us and our kids. We had to host press conferences outside schools to stop some of the evictions. We met with Mayor Lurie back in February about this. We’re glad he’s finally listening.”
The families pointed out that they too wanted to leave the shelters within 90 days, but that an arbitrary shelter stay limit with no new resources for long-term housing would simply mean sending kids back to the streets. They learned that the Department of Homelessness had no plan to end family homelessness, so the families wrote their own plan, “Ending Child Homelessness in San Francisco: A Budget Proposal from Homeless Families,” which showed that targeted investments of $66 million in rental subsidies and basic income could ensure safe and dignified housing for all families in the city.
Over the past six months, the homeless families committee met with over 1,000 parents, educators, medical professionals, and other concerned San Francisco residents who supported their efforts. They organized mass meetings, press conferences, and research meetings with elected officials, with widespread media coverage, including a Mother’s Day op-ed laying out their proposed solutions.
The families were disappointed when they learned that Mayor Lurie’s proposed budget did not include any new investments for family homelessness. But working with Supervisor Fielder, Budget Committee Chair Connie Chan, and other supportive members of the Board of Supervisors, the families were able to secure $30 million in new funding for homeless families and transitional age youth.
The new $30 million investment will be used for rental subsidies to allow homeless families and youth to move out of shelters and into more permanent housing, including 130 new subsidies for families under the Rapid Rehousing program and 30 new Shallow Subsidies. The Department of Homelessness’ revised length of stay policy allows for as many 90-day extensions as are needed by families and includes a formal appeals process when extensions are denied.
“We won this battle, but the struggle continues,” said Veronica Coto of the Faith in Action families’ committee. “As our experience and research shows, more investment is needed to ensure there are no more children living in the streets of San Francisco.”
We met with new SF Mayor Daniel Lurie on February 26, 2025. We’re so glad he has agreed to end the shelter eviction policy and invest in rent subsidies to allow families to access permanent housing.
RESEARCH REPORT: We can end child homelessness in San Francisco!
Ending Child Homelessness in San Francisco: A Budget Proposal from Homeless Families (June 2025)
By Faith in Action Bay Area and the Coalition on Homelessness
In a tough 2024 budget year when the San Francisco city government was cutting hundreds of millions of dollars, there was one notable increase—an additional $50 million to address the needs of homeless families. This new investment was the direct result of our collective organizing efforts!
There are over 400 homeless families on the waiting list for shelter in San Francisco. After nine months of organizing by Faith in Action Bay Area leaders, the City is finally taking action with this investment to implement the plan designed by the homeless families themselves, which includes:
80 new emergency hotel vouchers, bringing the total to 115, to ensure that no child has to sleep in a car, on MUNI, or under a bus shelter
165 new rent subsidies, to expedite the movement of families out of shelters and into more permanent housing
The campaign for this important victory was led by the Recently Arrived Families Committee of Faith in Action Bay Area, comprised of directly impacted asylum seekers who are currently living in shelters or on the street. Its success depended on the involvement of so many of you, who donated to the Emergency Fund, sent emails to public officials, and attended our public actions—including the big one on March 7—to show city officials that it’s not OK for children to be sleeping on the street in our Sanctuary City.
Click the button below to donate to the emergency fund too help homeless families.
HISTORY OF THE FIABA RECENTLY ARRIVED FAMILIES COMMITTEE
The Recently Arrived Families Committee began organizing in September 2023 when several asylum-seeking families connected with Faith in Action Bay Area organizers through a local church and our community response hotline. We went together to the city’s Access Point, where we were shocked to find that after a 90-minute intake process with many personal questions, the families were told, “Sorry, you haven’t been homeless for long enough, so we have nothing for you. The shelters are all full. There are hundreds of people on the waiting list.” They were sent away with nothing but a handful of bus tokens.
We sprang into action and began raising money through our Belong Emergency Fund to get the kids off the streets (thank you so much to the many of you who donated!). After advocating with city supervisors, several families got into the city-funded hotel voucher program—but it only lasted a few weeks, and in late September, they faced eviction from the hotel, so we organized a media event where the families spoke out. In the middle of the press conference, we received a call from the city Department of Homelessness saying they had suddenly located available space in a family shelter, starting that very night.
From the beginning, the leaders were clear that their goal was not just to help themselves and their kids, but to ensure that people who came after them would not have to suffer the same way. So they began doing outreach to other families in the shelters, at churches, and at their kids’ schools, working with teachers and social workers to connect with new families. Soon we had a committee of two dozen parents meeting weekly, building relationships and developing a plan to address what was clearly a failure of the city’s homelessness system.
LISTENING
After building relationships with other homeless families and hearing their stories, the Recently Arrived Families Committee began meeting with City Supervisors and representatives of the City’s Department of Homelessness, to understand why children were being allowed to sleep in the street, and what could be done about it. They discovered the following:
Guaranteeing same-day access to shelter space or a hotel voucher is the only feasible and humane way to ensure there are no more children living in the streets of San Francisco.
Hotel vouchers are a cost-effective way to keep children off the streets.
A major reason the family shelters are full is due to the slow progress in moving families out of the shelters and into more permanent housing.
Valuable public resources already funded by taxpayers are not being distributed to families in need
The voters of San Francisco want immigrant families, and all homeless families, to receive shelter and basic supports
Based on this research, the families sent a letter to Shireen McSpadden, Director of the Department of Homelessness, urgently requesting a meeting and proposing concrete solutions. Director McSpadden responded by emphasizing the Department’s lack of resources, and she did not respond to the families’ proposals or request for a meeting.
RESEARCH
Because Homelessness Director McSpadden would not meet with the families, they decided to organize a public community meeting, to hold the city government accountable and push for action. On Thursday, March 7, 2024, over 350 San Franciscans representing 40 congregations, schools and organizations gathered at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in the Mission. The leaders ran the meeting, giving powerful testimony about the reality and laying out their proposed solutions. Supervisors Ahsha Safai and Dean Preston, along with Supervisor Hillary Ronen (who was unable to attend), committed to supporting the families’ demands.
“People told us that San Francisco was a Sanctuary City where they protected immigrants, and that was one of the main reasons we wanted to come here,” said Karla Margarita Solito, who arrived from El Salvador last summer with her four children after gangs threatened multiple times to kill her husband. “But the reality has been different.”
Jenifer Carcamo, another asylum seeker from Honduras, explained, “I thought we were going to have stable, safe housing, but at the City Access Points, they just tell us that they are full, the shelters are full, there is no space. Even with my one-month-old baby, there is no response.”
The audience included teachers, social workers, doctors, clergy, and many concerned San Francisco residents. “I moved here in 1982 with the man who is now my husband,” said Jim Lichti, who attends First Mennonite Church of San Francisco. “This city has been a welcoming city, a place where so many of us have found sanctuary. It breaks my heart to see these children having to sleep in the street. That’s not what San Francisco stands for.”
A few days after the community meeting, Supervisor Ahsha Safai responded to this display of people power by introducing a resolution at the Board of Supervisors supporting the Faith in Action Bay Area leaders’ demands. Four Supervisors attended a press conference we organized on the steps of City Hall to challenge the mayor to increase support for family homelessness.
ACTION
After the City budget passed the Board of Supervisors with the new investment, the Recently Arrived Families Committee celebrated and reflected on what they had learned. A few of their reflections were:
Before we were intimidated by the system— and now we’ve learned how to navigate it. This gives us the power not just to help ourselves, but also to ensure that others don’t have to experience the same problems.
No one is going to do for us what we can do for ourselves. San Francisco calls itself a Sanctuary City, and people do want that, but the system doesn’t work that way—unless we speak up and shine light on the truth, and do the work to make it real.
Only by being united and organized can we create the change we need to see in the world.
In recent weeks, the leadership committee has begun another round of listening and outreach to newly arrived families. They met several families living in vehicles who went to City Access Points and were turned away. It was clear that the $50 million in new funds was not yet being used to ensure that children do not have to sleep in the streets. One of the leaders commented, “That’s how the system works. We’ve been too passive in the past weeks, we’ve let the government forget about us. We need to redouble our efforts and keep organizing to ensure that money acutely gets to the people who need it!”