Stories From the Bay Area Streets

What we can do to help people trapped in the middle of the homeless epidemic.

“The homeless are loving, kind people, yet they do not receive any help in getting housed and have nowhere to turn to when their possessions are taken from them.” 

As a line of people waited to get their share of food, “Thank you” were the words they all said as they received their soup and bread. Sister Marie was taken aback after a man told her, “Thank you for being a mother to me today.” Sister Marie works for the Missionaries of Charity in San Francisco. In our interview, she told me, “A lot of the people are very, very young and very poor, but they have always been respectful and good towards me.”

What is homelessness, and how big is it where we live? What do they all have in common? How are people helping?

181,399 unhoused people—over 28% of the nation’s total homeless population—live in California. This number is up nearly 40% from five years ago. People who are experiencing homelessness don’t just fit into one category, however. 

Homelessness has 3 subsections. The first is the rough sleepers who sleep in the streets on the sidewalk or in tents. The second is temporary accommodation. People in this category live in shelters. The third type is hidden homelessness, and these people usually are sleeping at a friend's or parent’s house.

But why do we see more homeless in San Francisco than elsewhere? All cities have homelessness in some way or another, but when I walk the streets of San Francisco it seems more visible. The reason why is simple: San Francisco is small. The city of San Francisco is 6.5 times smaller than New York. A decently big homeless population compacted into a small space makes it more likely you will run into a few homeless people as you stroll around the mission district.

Typical living conditions for a homeless person on the San Francisco streets.

This made me wonder, how bad is homelessness in the Bay Area? Oakland and San Francisco have the highest rates of homelessness per capita, compared to other large cities in California. San Francisco counts the homeless as “people sleeping outdoors, in cars, or in other places that are not meant for overnight use; People in shelters.'' Most of the homeless that Sister Marie sees become homeless because of drug abuse. Most people, according to a recent study by the San Francisco Chronicle, become homeless by falling on the wrong side of the law or because it becomes hard to find a job.

“Getting out of prison is like being condemned to homelessness,” Ronnie Goodman, a Bay Area local and native told Medium. It is hard to get a job when you are a criminal because it goes on your permanent record. Falling on the wrong side of the law might as well be a one-way ticket to homelessness. Thankfully Goodman was given a chance to work at Red Stone Labor Temple and eventually returned to stable housing, but many others weren't as lucky. If we add more places for the homeless to earn money, especially ones who have been formerly incarcerated, many more people will return to permanent housing.

The mural of the late Ronnie Goodman, who was an artist and advocate for the homeless,  can be found at 1885 Mission Street.

Even if you get a stable job in the Bay Area, securing housing might be difficult. The median sales price for a home in the Bay Area is a staggering $1.44 million. The median rent price in the Bay Area is “$3,900, which is $1,750 more than the national median.” Working eight hours a day for seven days a week at minimum wage—$16/hr—will amount to $3,584 in one month, still less than the median rent price. Pew Charitable Trusts looked into recent data on rent prices and homeless rates. What they found was not all that surprising.

Where the median rent cost increased, the number of homeless per 10,000 residents also increased. In Sacramento, the median rent price increased by 47% which in turn increased homelessness by 144%.

Adding to these existing problems is addiction. Tom Wolf, a Salvation Army employee who was formerly homeless, says by his experience, well over half of the homeless population had some sort of drug addiction. After facing half a dozen arrests, he decided to take the offer to go to rehab. Wolf says we need to crack down on the open-air drug market and hold drug addicts accountable while also persistently offering help to addiction-stricken individuals on the streets.

Ronnie Goodman admitted that his drug addictions were a negative outlet for letting his emotions out. When he was in prison, he joined an art class. He found his positive outlet and passion for running and art. He figured out that drugs were destroying his life, took responsibility, and discovered positive ways of dealing with them. Art “helps me unwind, to think about life differently, and solve problems.” It helps him calm down, relax, and escape reality. When we provide people with opportunities to find a healthy alternative, we can help set them on the right path. 

We can prevent people from becoming homeless by making sure that drug use education is taught in schools at a young age along with stricter laws to access drugs. This will prevent the number of drug addicts from rising and in return will lower people spending their life savings on drugs. 

We can build more affordable housing units such as mini homes and more apartment complexes at lower prices to lower housing costs while supplying a permanent home. We can teach more about financial decisions and prevent bad ones. All of this will be proactive, stopping homelessness before it even begins. 

What do homeless people think the city should do to help their situation better? That is the question the San Francisco Standard asked. Many homeless said, “The longer they spend on the city’s streets, the more difficult homelessness becomes to escape.” If this is the case, the city should make it easier to access housing. A homeless man told the Standard the city granted him housing at the Monarch Hotel, but he said many of his friends still live on the streets while rooms sit empty in his building, which is where we can house more people at night. This was after he was stabbed several times and was no longer able to fend for himself. They only gave it to him because he was unable to fend for himself, not when he needed it the most.

Lynda told Invisible People in an interview that two of her dogs were stolen.

Lynda, a San Francisco homeless person, thinks we can solve homelessness if we have “a better system” for giving shelter space or tiny homes. This would help a lot of the  homeless because it is easier to get into stable permanent housing when you have a safe place to return to. One problem is that their valuables are constantly stolen or swept away by the city. Lynda is a woman who takes compassionate care for her dogs. She says her dog, Puppet, was murdered and she never went to court or was told what happened to the man who killed Puppet. She says she has been on the streets too long. It is unsafe for her because lots of people steal her stuff. Many homeless have similar stories to Lynda. They are loving kind people, yet they do not receive any help in getting housed and have nowhere to turn to when their possessions are taken from them.  

In another example, after a man’s encampment was swept his stuff was taken as trash, and a shoe box with his life savings was thrown away. He originally had over 50 items and only received 5 back. Many workers turned him down and did not offer help.

How are we currently helping the homeless? There are 51 nonprofits dedicated to homelessness in the Bay Area. A Home Away From Homelessness is a nonprofit whose mission is to radically alter the trajectory of children's lives by providing safe and supportive environments that foster their strengths, creativity, and abilities. They have a program called the Beach House where they select children ages 5-17 from shelters to a house at the beach. The children learn about nature and have a chance to play. Another one of their programs, the School House, is an after-school program where they help kids grades 5-12 with their school work and teach them important life skills. 

One of the many places where A Home Away From Homelessness provides 2,200+ homeless children care

Another nonprofit is WeHOPE, which is dedicated to helping individuals become healthy, employed, and housed using innovative solutions. They offer emergency food and shelter to the homeless who need it and offer job training and life skills such as a Custodial Technician Certification. Their newest project, Dignity On Wheels, is a mobile unit with showers and laundry machines so the homeless can remain sanitary.

How are other cities approaching the issue? Currently, San Francisco spends $690 million on homelessness. New York spends $2.3 billion. A lawsuit made it so that New York needed to spend a lot of this money on shelters, but it did not solve homelessness. In New York, people cycle through shelters and don't find permanent housing. But because everyone has a shelter, you see fewer encampments and unhoused people sleeping on the streets. This is a problem because to solve homelessness you need to get more people into permanent housing than newly homeless people going into the system. You can’t just put a bandaid on the situation. You need to deal with homelessness at its roots.

In 2024, Finland announced yet again that their homeless population was declining, with 3,429 homeless people in 2024. What is their secret? Housing first. Finland used to have an expansive shelter system, and that didn't work. So they got together: an activist, a politician, a social scientist, and a priest. One thing all homeless people have in common is that they need a home, so they came up with the “housing first” plan. “Housing first” is where a permanent stable home comes first and not a result or reward of getting your life together.  

Homeless people are just like you and me: human. So, how do we approach these people and help them? Sister Marie told me, "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” She said that every person has a different approach. We should do what feels comfortable to us. If we do not want to physically interact with the homeless we can donate or if you feel inspired you should hand them money.  Remember to treat them as your equals and show that you care. Sister Marie explained a lot of people she sees feel grateful when she shows her care for them.

There is still so much more to do before homelessness in the Bay Area becomes fully eradicated, but there is so much we are doing and can be doing to help these people. It's not a question of who gets a home; we all need one. The place we call home is special; it is a place where we can feel safe and comforted. We all have a part in this problem and we can all help. The government indeed needs to solve this growing issue. San Jose experimented with small homes, and Finland gave all homeless people a permanent home. However, homelessness is a problem that we, as individuals in the community, can solve because many minds are better than one. Sister Marie reminded me that we should “never give up on a person, because we all make mistakes, but keep on loving” because little love can go a long way in changing a homeless person’s situation from hopelessness to positivity.

Works Cited

Allen-Price, Olivia. “From New York to Helsinki: What the Bay Area Can Learn in Addressing Homelessness.” KQED Bay Curious, KQED.com, 22 April 2021.

Austin, Paige. “Study: 13,000 Slip into Homelessness in LA County Each Month.” Patch, https://patch.com/california/redondobeach/study-13000-slip-homelessness-la-county-each-month.

Bainbridge Jay, Gibbs Linda, Mammo Tamiru, Rosenblatt Muzzy. How Ten Global Cities Take On Homelessness; Innovations That Work. University of California Press, 2021.

Horowitz Alex, Hatchett Chase, Staveski Adam. “How Housing Costs Drive Levels of Homelessness.” PewTrusts, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2023/08/22/how-housing-costs-drive-levels-of-homelessness.

Horvath, Mark. “Powerful Story of San Francisco Homeless Woman, Her Dogs, and Neighbors That Care.” YouTube, updated by Invisible People, 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnCZEbFXxfs.

Johnson, Sydney. “San Francisco Is Clearing Homeless Encampments Ahead of APEC.” KQED, https://www.kqed.org/news/11966960/san-francisco-is-clearing-homeless-encampments-ahead-of-apec.

Kendall, Marisa. “How big is California’s homelessness crisis? Inside the massive, statewide effort to find out.” Cal Matters, https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/01/california-homeless-point-in-time-cout-2024/.

Rufo, Christopher. “The Truth About Homelessness in San Francisco.” Uploaded by Christopher F. Rufo, 6/30/2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw8MACDZ3RI&t=358s.

Sjostedt, David. “How do homeless people think San Francisco should solve homelessness?” The San Francisco Standard, https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/29/ask-the-standard-what-do-homeless-people-think-san-Francisco-should-do-to-solve-homelessness/.