Dear Colleagues,

The coronavirus has caused tremendous disruptions in our community and around the world. We are grateful to our colleagues in city government and at front-line service organizations working ‘round the clock to ensure that our unhoused neighbors—and indeed all our neighbors—stay safe and healthy. Our partners’ adaptivity and perseverance inspire me: delivering thousands of meals to home-bound seniors and families, tripling down on cleaning services in residential buildings, creating a 200-person shelter in a matter of days at Moscone West… the list grows longer every day.

We are seeing the long-standing crisis of homelessness compounded by the COVID-19 emergency. It is almost impossible for unsheltered San Franciscans or people living in shelters or SROs to “shelter in place” and practice good hygiene and physical distancing. In addition, years on the street have left our unhoused neighbors uniquely vulnerable to COVID-19 from a health standpoint. We all must rise to the urgent needs of this moment, while expanding the solution space until it is large enough to contain the larger challenge of ending homelessness in our City.

Onward,
Chris Block
Director, Chronic Homelessness Initiative

Spotlight: The Chronic Homelessness Initiative + COVID-19

Through our Chronic Homelessness Initiative, Tipping Point is working on multiple fronts to reinforce our homeless response system in the face of COVID-19.

We are making several emergency grants, guided by our Community Advisory Board, who themselves who have lived experience with homelessness. These funds will support key front-line non-profits as they expand their services to meet our neighbors’ needs. As of April 8, we have made the following emergency grants to support front-line organizations’ COVID-19 response:

$20,000 – Hospitality House
$10,000 – Coalition on Homelessness
$10,000 – Faithful Fools
$10,000 – Mother Brown’s + United Council of Human Services

We are also leading a campaign in partnership with the City to recruit paid workers and volunteers to fill critical staffing vacancies at front-line non-profits who are housing, feeding, and caring for people experiencing homelessness. We are working with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and more than twenty non-profits to respond to urgent staffing needs with a coordinated recruitment and hiring program. In sprints of 10, 45, and 90 days, we are recruiting hundreds of talented personnel they can add to their ranks, in order to help alleviate the twin crises of unemployment and surging demand for people to serve our neighbors experiencing homelessness. We expect that some of these positions will be permanent, with staff remaining on after the coronavirus crisis has passed

We are also advocating at the local, state, and federal levels to secure long-term resources so that solutions we implement today help people transition permanently out of homelessness. In conjunction with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, we activated hundreds of San Franciscans via the All In campaign to weigh in on the federal stimulus package, successfully securing billions of dollars for Housing Choice Vouchers, public housing, shelter, and rapid re-housing services. We are now working to ensure that this expansion of resources results in a system that more effectively prevents or helps people exit homelessness long after the coronavirus crisis has passed.

What We're Reading

Finding solutions to homelessness that last beyond the crisis — COVID-19 has inspired quick action, we need to maintain that urgency. All In Campaign Manager Andrea Evans calls for us to respond to the urgency of this moment in a way that helps our unhoused neighbors get – and stay – housed. (San Francisco Examiner)

Homelessness crisis creates weakness in pandemic resilience — Chris Herring, a sociologist and doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, has studied homelessness and its governance for the past decade, and says the coronavirus crisis has interacted with and exacerbated the public health problem of homelessness. (SF Public Press)

Chronic Homelessness Initiative Overview

There are approximately 3,000 people experiencing chronic homelessness on any given night in San Francisco. Tipping Point’s $100 million pledge marks the single largest private investment to address homelessness in City history.

Tipping Point takes a three-pronged approach to our impact goal. See here for more details. If you are receiving this email as a forward, subscribe here to receive this update monthly.

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