Homelessness
- By Alex Tourk | Special to The Examiner |
- Jan 4, 2023 Updated 17 hrs ago
San Francisco has had tremendous achievements over our history. We’ve also experienced devastating heartbreak. Yet we have always risen like a phoenix.
Our history is rich with innovation and solutions to impossible community problems — we revived a shattered city from a devastating earthquake and demanded national action in response to the AIDS crisis. Our community has ignited worldwide movements, including the Beat Generation and the LGBTQIA civil rights movement. We are the home of same-sex marriage, universal public health care and urban climate innovation.
We are a transformational city. We always come together. We always come back.
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I became deputy chief of staff for then-Mayor Gavin Newsom after working on his campaign leadership team. The year was 2004 and, unsurprisingly, homelessness was the issue of the day. The mayor entrusted me to lead his response to the crisis, which at the time felt preposterous considering the fact that I was a political operative with no policy expertise.
My task was to inspire, engage and activate the public. From this effort, Project Homeless Connect was born. It was the first time then — or, I will argue, since — that there has been a genuine portal to civic engagement on the issue of homelessness, and the public responded. Thousands of volunteers showed up at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium every other month to help, understand and play a part. PHC quickly became known throughout the homeless community as a safe space to receive support: medical, dental and psychiatric care, housing, food and connections with compassionate San Franciscans who wanted to help.
Despite what this innovative model was, and has been able to achieve, when the volunteers and social workers left and the auditorium closed for the night, I was always left with the question about what tomorrow would bring. PHC was the proudest work I have ever done, but the reality is, it’s not a permanent solution by any stretch of the imagination. But it did strengthen my drive to be part of the movement to end homelessness.
In 2007, I took a risk and launched my own firm that helps private sector and nonprofit clients maneuver local government and build meaningful partnerships in the community. We have represented some of the most reputable organizations working to address homelessness, including Episcopal Community Services, GLIDE, HealthRight 360, Larkin Street Youth Services, St. Vincent de Paul and Tipping Point Community.
This is not by happenstance. This work has become part of who I am. I love San Francisco. I have raised a child here, served in the highest levels of government and owned a small business here for over 15 years. I want to be part of the solution.
For a half century, since the deinstitutionalization of mental health facilities by then Gov. Ronald Reagan, smart and committed public servants have attempted a multitude of strategies to address the homeless crisis. Yet here we are. From my time serving in government, I learned that politicians respond to organized action. What issue is more important right now than saving the lives of our unhoused neighbors?
Over the past 18 months I have been conducting research and speaking with leaders with a diverse range of expertise, and this process has led me to two conclusions: We need an immediate influx of temporary housing solutions so people can quickly exit the streets; and these solutions cannot be concentrated in a few select neighborhoods.
One unit of permanent supportive housing can easily cost over $750,000 and take three to five years to construct. We simply cannot build our way out of this crisis quickly enough to avoid an unconscionable humanitarian cost. To put it bluntly, the longer we take, the more people will die.
We need solutions that can be implemented swiftly and brought to scale: tiny-home communities. These are not a silver bullet, and we need more of everything, permanent supportive housing included, but this model needs to be part of our broader system of care. Tiny homes can be constructed at a fraction of the time and cost and offer what I believe to be a basic human right: the dignity of a lock and a key. The pilot project at 33 Gough is an example of what is possible.
About a year ago, All Home, a regional organization dedicated to eradicating homelessness and uplifting households living in poverty, recommended that San Francisco create an additional 2,000 units of interim housing for people experiencing homelessness. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing just confirmed this number in its ”A Place For All” report released last week.
I took this recommendation as a challenge, and have since personally dedicated myself to creating these units and recruiting and activating the public to support this effort, not only in concept, but by embracing these solutions in their own backyards.
In April of last year I founded a nonprofit foundation, MyOwnLockandKey.org. This is a labor of love, and neither myself nor my firm will be compensated a dime by this organization. Our mission is simple, and inspired by what I learned during my earliest days at PHC; the government and the nonprofit community cannot solve this alone and the only way we will truly make progress is for the public to be involved.
My ask of you, the public, is simple: Organize a group of your friends, neighbors, or colleagues and have a conversation with me. Frustrated with street conditions and the need for The City to build capacity to offer anyone a safe and secure alternative that cannot be easily declined? Let’s talk about it. Tired of watching politics or NIMBYism derail concrete solutions to resolving homelessness? Let’s get organized. Dumbfounded that proven models to tackle the opioid crisis — which clearly overlap with homelessness and street conditions, such as safe consumption sites and wellness hubs — are being rejected at the highest levels of state government? Let’s address it.
These are the conversations we need to have as a community and I aim to have 500 of these conversations citywide, with you, in 2023.
As a father, as a business owner and as a San Franciscan, I am asking you to reach out at tourk@myownlockandkey.org and join me.
If we engage in these conversations, I am confident that together we can achieve a tangible result that will save lives.
What do we have to lose?
Alex Tourk is founder and principal of Ground Floor Public Affairs and founder of MyOwnLockandKey.org.
