Homelessness: We Have What it Takes to End It
At Organization Night for our theme on Homelessness, we had much to be thankful for. Jill Minkus, Battery Powered’s Grants & Impact Manager, gave thanks to the organizations presenting that evening not only for their time but for supporting someone very close to her who experienced homelessness. A story we have heard several times over from other members throughout this theme.
And by the end of the night, we left with a sense of optimism about the plans and capacities of these organizations. We heard that the collective wisdom and resources to prevent and end homelessness in San Francisco exists. Whether those experiencing homelessness are families, veterans, seniors, young people, single adults or individuals suffering severe mental illness, we know what we need to do, said our finalist organizations. The 12 featured organizations shared their strategies to address affordable housing shortages and provide wraparound support services for San Francisco’s homeless population.
Photo Credit: Viet Jose Chevez
Social Medicine
Too often our nation’s hospital emergency rooms are a revolving door for the most housing insecure populations among us, providing band-aid solutions to life-threatening symptoms. In fact, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) has an estimated 40,000 patient encounters each year involving people experiencing homelessness. Dr. Jack Chase and ZSFG's Social Medicine team are changing the culture of care coordination for these vulnerable patients by treating the whole person. The Social Medicine team has served over 2,000 patients since 2017: designing individualized care plans for more than 800, providing medicine in hand to 800+, and averting over 300 social admissions. With Battery Powered’s help, Chase will further develop the team’s intervention model, bringing it to all ZSFG departments and beyond.
Housing at Scale
“The solution to homelessness is simple,” said Stephany Ashley, Northern California Housing Services Director of Brilliant Corners, “the solution is a home.” Ashley continued that even though the solution is simple, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Keeping someone in a home requires services, legislation, and philanthropy—but it needs to start with a home. And Brilliant Corners’ housing acquisition specialists do just that, finding homes by negotiating with San Francisco landlords to find and lease units. Brilliant Corners’ Housing Coordinators then step in, and working with caseworkers and service providers, they help individuals experiencing homelessness move in and stay in the units they find. Of the 3,500 people experiencing homelessness that Brilliant Corners has placed, only 10 have been evicted.
Photo Credit: Viet Jose Chevez
John Fisher, from the Community Housing Partnership Board of Directors, challenged Battery Powered members to “imagine a better San Francisco.” A San Francisco with supportive community acceptance in addressing homelessness, instead of a San Francisco hiding homelessness in the most disadvantaged and struggling neighborhoods. As thought leaders and innovators in homelessness solutions, Community Housing Partnership would like to partner with Battery Powered members to increase community engagement and support for supportive housing and advocate for legislation that will build it.
Customized Care for Unique Populations
Over 1,300 young people sleep outside or in unsafe conditions every night in San Francisco, said Sherilyn Adams, Executive Director of Larkin Street Youth Services. These children are disconnected from education, employment, and family support networks. And nearly 90% have suffered some sort of abuse or neglect. Larkin Street offers these youth a nationally recognized program of support and services. Three out of four young people that complete their housing program exit homelessness. And Larkin Street has big plans for the future: it is the lead agency of the Rising Up campaign, whose goal is to reduce youth homelessness by 50% in San Francisco by 2023. Larkin Street Alumnus Zak shared that Larkin Street not only alleviates human suffering, it invests in future generations: not doing so, he said, is an opportunity lost.
Photo Credit: Viet Jose Chevez
The San Francisco Interfaith Council has a 30-year history of helping homeless populations in San Francisco, said Michael Pappas, Executive Director. With the help of Battery Powered, the Council would partner with Episcopal Community Services to pilot a new Navigation Center-like winter shelter program, specifically to address the growing population of homeless seniors—set to double by 2030. Located in the Haight-Ashbury, the pilot would not only provide nutritional meals, respite, transportation to appointments, medical and mental health care, and medication management, it would offer a place of community where seniors could overcome social isolation until long-term care and housing placements can be made.
Swords to Plowshares created its first drop-in center for Vietnam veterans in 1974, helping vets navigate their way through the Veterans Administration services. In the 1980s, it realized San Francisco was facing a real homeless veterans crisis: veterans represented just 10% of the overall population, but 40% of the homeless population—more needed to be done to address their often chronic physical and mental health issues. Adopting its approach, Swords to Plowshares introduced an integrated model of care, providing direct services to veterans and advocating for policy change to meet their specific needs. Its tireless work has reduced the homeless veteran population in San Francisco by 50%—with the help of Battery Powered it would like to reduce it to 0.
Family First
Compass Family Services exists, said Executive Director Erica Kisch, because extreme stories of abuse and neglect that lead to homelessness are too normal: “92% of homeless mothers will experience severe physical and/or sexual abuse in their lifetime…[and] 1/3rd of homeless children will develop a major mental disorder by their 8th birthday and won’t have access to mental health care.” Compass Family Services not only places keys in the hands of homeless families, it provides free, on-demand therapy to address the trauma these families face. Its therapy is trading destructive patterns for long-term success: 87% of its clients that participate in at least three therapy sessions show improvement in keeping homes, maintaining relationships and supporting their children.
Tomiquia Moss, CEO of Hamilton Families said she goes to work every day because of something Nelson Mandela once said: “There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.” Moss said that no child should be without a home, and we can do better for the 1 in 25 students in San Francisco who don’t have a home to go to. She invited Battery Powered members to be a part of Hamilton’s solution: Heading Home. Since 2016, Heading Home has housed 300 of San Francisco’s homeless families, with a goal of housing 800 families by 2020. Hamilton is committed to focusing on long-term stability of homeless families until we can truly say: “no child is without a home in our town.”
Photo Credit: Viet Jose Chevez
Housing Stability
Dr. Fumi Mitsuishi, Director of UCSF Citywide Case Management Programs, would like to create a Medical-Legal Partnership at Citywide to meet the growing needs of her clients. Citywide serves 1,500 of the city’s most severely mentally ill homeless, or formerly homeless, population. Getting legal aid when you are homeless is challenging on its own, more so, said Mitsuishi, when your illness prevents you from doing something most of us wouldn’t consider a barrier to services: standing in line. With the help of Battery Powered, Citywide could create a legal aid partnership in its offices to fight evictions and other obstacles to maintaining a home, creating a one-stop shop for clients that need both health and legal services.
HealthRIGHT 360 is at the intersection of poverty and addiction, said President and CEO, Dr. Vitka Eisen. Also known as the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, with the help of Battery Powered, Healthright 360 would like to create a team of housing navigators to help clients “get better, do better and be better.” 94% of people who go through HealthRIGHT’s 90-day substance abuse treatment program arrive homeless. Chances are, said Eisen, they will not have a home after three months of treatment. And the 160 clients who are fortunate enough to have a residential step-down bed for up to one-year post-treatment, need navigational services for the next step, so they don’t end up back on the streets. HealthRIGHT 360 wants to commit to its clients that it will be there to help them find housing—and with Battery Powered’s help, it can make that commitment.
Photo Credit: Viet Jose Chevez
Employment Pathways
Martha Ryan, Founder and Executive Director of Homeless Prenatal Program, said “housing is foundational” to end homelessness, but “housing alone is not enough.” Recognizing that her clients not only need prenatal care and trauma support but also a path forward, Ryan created a 14-month Community Health Worker training program for homeless mothers. And her success is astounding: 92% of graduates get a job with a living wage within 30 days of program completion. Battery Powered funding could mean the Homeless Prenatal Program could invest in more women, more deeply with its life-changing program and services.
Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco has a long history of successfully meeting the needs of our homeless, said Beth Stokes, Executive Director. However, Stokes acknowledged that in its latest survey of 4,000 homeless individuals in San Francisco, it missed a key opportunity: it didn’t ask a single employment question. Episcopal Community Services would like to follow a model led by Chicago, Seattle, and Houston— to put employment at the “front-door” of the services it provides to the homeless. The city recently introduced an Adult Coordinated Entry system to match people to housing and services, but employment training and jobs are not part of that system. Episcopal Community Services, which leads Adult Coordinated Entry, would like to enhance that system with workforce development, particularly to help the 75% of the homeless population for whom shelter is not available.
For more information on our 12 Homelessness finalists, check out their project pages here, which include summaries of each organization’s mission, work, and impact.
On March 19th, Battery Powered members will gather at Allocation Night to decide which organizations will be awarded a grant. Want to be part of the process? Join Battery Powered here.
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