by XUEER LU JANUARY 28, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
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Homeless families housed in shelters across the city and facing evictions on Feb. 8 or 10 will be granted a 30-day reprieve, city officials said.
The decision made by the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing followed a letter personally delivered to the mayor’s office on Jan. 21 by half a dozen families, which Mission Local covered.
Deborah Bouck, a spokesperson for the homelessness department said “everyone was getting” an automatic one-time 30-day extension now that the department has “updated the policy.” Bouck added that “families are encouraged to work with their case managers to continue the journey of resolving their homelessness.”
Bouck was referring to a policy adopted in December, which reinstated the 90-day limit for families in city shelters that was in place prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The policy change in December allows shelters to authorize up to three extensions of 30 days each, based on the family’s circumstances.
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This automatic one-time 30-day extension is included in these three possible extensions that shelter providers can authorize. Emily Cohen, deputy director for communications and legislative affairs for the department, said that “it’s important to note that further extensions are possible with the approval of HSH and in alignment of the policy.”
The affected families, however, still feel insecure about such an update. Matt Alexander, the lead organizer for Faith in Action Bay Area, delivered the Jan. 21 letter alongside the homeless families, said that as of this morning only some of the families have heard of the automatic extension. Alexander added that the families have only heard of it through a verbal notice from the shelters — with nothing in writing yet.
Neither Faith in Action nor any of the homeless families has received any response from the mayor’s office, Alexander said. Mission Local reached out to the mayor’s office on Jan. 23 asking if Mayor Daniel Lurie had read the letter or responded to it, but was referred to the homeless department.
There are currently 305 households enrolled in family shelters, according to data from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing’s online navigation and entry system. Of those, 253 households — 83 percent — are families with children. The other 52 are families that include a person who is pregnant.
At the same time, almost the same number of families — some 308 of them — are still waiting to get into the shelters, where they will only be able to stay for a total of 120 days under the most recent policy without further extensions. It figures that the extensions granted the families in the shelters will result in longer waits for those outside.
Alexander said that, so far, some 20 families have reached out to Faith in Action Bay Area regarding the eviction notices.
Veronica Coto, who is staying at Raphael House near the Tenderloin with her son, was originally facing a Feb. 10 eviction. She attended a Faith In Action Bay Area meeting this morning, hoping to get an update since she and others last delivered the letter to Room 200 at City Hall last week.
“We basically realized that we need to put more pressure on the mayor because clearly we are not being listened to,” Coto said. “We delivered the letter a week ago but we have not received any response.”
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XUEER LU
Xueer is a California Local News Fellow, working on data and covering housing. Xueer is a bilingual multimedia journalist fluent in Chinese and English and is passionate about data, graphics, and innovative ways of storytelling. Xueer graduated from UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism with a Master’s Degree in May 2023. She also loves cooking, photography, and scuba diving.More by Xueer Lu
