About 4.3 percent of the district’s 55, 537 students are believed to be homeless, according to a 2023 report.
Over 300 people gather for a community meeting at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church on Cesar Chavez St. to demand immediate action from the city to help unhoused immigrant families. Photo by Yujie Zhou, March 7, 2024.
Last night, over 300 new immigrants, advocates, teachers and medical practitioners gathered for a community meeting at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church on Cesar Chavez St. to demand the city help unhoused immigrant families. Many of these families had to flee their home countries because of persecution or violence, and found themselves sleeping with their children in cars or gas stations in San Francisco.
The alliance of congregations and community leaders led by nonprofit Faith in Action called on the Department of Homelessness to expedite moving families into permanent housing and to create an online public dashboard that allows families to monitor their progress on a waiting list. Emily Cohen, McSpadden’s deputy director for communications and legislative affairs, attended the meeting. “Over the last six months, we’ve seen a really significant increase in the number of families asking for shelter, and we understand that shelter is no place to raise a child,” she said. “We are committed to working with you to get the resources, to expand the family shelter system so that no family has to sleep on the streets at night.
“We are working very closely with departments across the city to come up with additional strategies to address the increase in new arrivals coming into San Francisco and to ensure that they have the safety and dignity they need to get on their feet in their new community,” she added.