Homelessness

Transient: Homeless Heroes Save San Francisco From Space Invaders

Transient is like a batshit guy on the street telling you exactly why and how rain is seeded with pore-burrowing nanobots -- one of the craziest things I've seen in a while. It's the debut of Justin "Coro" Kaufman, a monster of a book -- an oblong, full-color graphic novel bound in heavy covers. And ... More >>

Law Enforcement to Round Up Homeless Sex Offenders Tonight

Homeless Sex Offenders: smart on crime? ​California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced trick-or-treaters will be safer since cops will keep homeless sex offender parolees indoors tonight in San Francisco. That announcement comes even while Harris' office is defending Jessica's Law -- the bal ... More >>

San Francisco Seems to Think OccupySF Protesters Are Just Homeless Folks

There IS a difference between the hippies and the homeless ​Garrison Keiller once had a great joke on "Prairie Home Companion" about a Lake Wobegon driver who, spotting a a jogger on the road, stopped to ask if she needed a ride. Keillor knew there was great comic potential in the naive attem ... More >>

Bouncer Imbibes Among the Marina Girls at the Tipsy Pig

Portrait of the Artist Living in a Parking Lot

Booting Reporters From City Hall Meeting Is Perfectly Legal, City Attorney Says

Reporting from San Francisco City Hall​Yesterday SF Weekly told you about an incident where Supervisor Jane Kim's staff kicked reporters out of a City Hall meeting as residents gathered to vent about the homeless problem in the Tenderloin neighborhood. It turns, the freshman supervisor's questiona ... More >>

Reporters Kicked Out of City Hall Meeting

Government watch​Just as a emotional community meeting over a Tenderloin homeless shelter was set to start at City Hall today, reporters were booted out -- and those are the facts. Ron Case, the president of Lower Polk Neighbors, reportedly walked outside with an aide from Supervisor Jane Kim's of ... More >>

Gavin Newsom's Daily Homeless Connect Now a Disconnect

You won't get services here ​Update: Barbara Garcia, director of the Department of Public Health, tells SF Weekly that no decision has been made as to whether the Daily Homeless Connect program will go forward. An internal meeting on the issue was scheduled for today but has since been canceled. O ... More >>

Garbage Collectors Allow Homeless Snoozing on Discarded Couches to Sleep In

Looks like this couch is occupied​You tried to do the responsible thing. Rather than just dump your aging couch on the curb, you called the garbage collection agency and scheduled a "large item pickup." You scratched away the last few cents of your deposit, marring the walls with a wide couch in a ... More >>

Daughter of San Francisco Homeless Man Is Looking for Dad on City Streets

Have you seen this man?​For years, Kelli Christensen knew very little about her father, Marty, only that he had a drinking problem and he had been estranged from the family. She and her family -- who live in Kingsburg, near Fresno -- had heard he was homeless in San Francisco. Christensen traveled ... More >>

Newsom Did the Most Work in his Last Seven Days as Mayor?

A Moderate Win​Gavin Newsom, who is this afternoon is departing his post as mayor, is leaving Room 200 with his prints all over it.As Former Supervisor Aaron Peskin -- a Newsom critic --  pointed out this morning on NPR: If Newsom's last seven years in office had been anything like the last s ... More >>

SF Weekly Letters

List: What else does PG&E want you to pay for?

Gavin Newsom Sweet-Talks Transbay Terminal Homeless Into Housing

It's hard to tell who's using whom....​Before the crowds arrived for the last tours of the creaky Transbay Terminal Friday, Mayor Gavin Newsom showed up for his own private walk through ("private" in mayor's terms means followed by his spokesman Tony Winnicker, staffers, Chron reporters and us). A ... More >>

Market Street Chess Games Shut Down

Games are gone​Among the tamest symptoms of San Francisco's homeless problem were the dozen or so chess boards set up on the north side of Market Street near the Powell BART/Muni station. Anyone was free to sit down to a game, be it a 10-move checkmate by an SRO-living grandmaster or an hours-long ... More >>

Homeless Man Accused of Setting Fellow Transient Ablaze To Be Arraigned Today

​A homeless man accused of dousing a fellow homeless man with lighter fluid while he slept and igniting him will face the judge today. Eric Dilbeck, 47, was in November charged with immolating 55-year-old Byron Rowe as the latter slept in Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Rowe suffered second- an ... More >>

Accused Child Porn Professor to be Arraigned Today

Kenneth Kyle​Kenneth Kyle, the Cal State East Bay professor arrested earlier this month at San Francisco International Airport on child porn charges, will be arraigned this morning at San Francisco's Hall of Justice. The 47-year-old is facing felony charges of child pornography possession and chil ... More >>

S.F. Man Fails To Register As Sex Offender -- Because He's Dead

​According to the state's sex offender registry, Nicholas Chaykovsky has been in violation of registration requirements since Sunday. He has a decent excuse. He's dead.   Chaykovsky died at age 61 last month after suffering a heart attack. And though the San Francisco Police Department s ... More >>

City hounds the homeless for dog licenses

Perverting Justice

Jessica's Law prevents paroled sex offenders from residing near schools or parks. That means they can only live one place in S.F.: on the streets.

One Day After Media Reports Car Arsons Have Abated Since Arrest of Homeless Woman ... They're Back Again!

​On the heels of both the Chronicle and KRON-TV noting that the July string of 13 car arsons abruptly ceased with the arrest of a homeless woman in her 60s named Fafa Chan -- that's no longer the case. Firefighters doused a flaming Honda not long after 3 a.m. this morning at 21st and Balboa, not f ... More >>

Chris Daly Shows He's a Typical San Franciscan After All -- By Moving His Family Out of Here

The chores ...The stores ... Fresh air ...Union Square!The news that firebrand Supervisor Chris Daly has bought a house in his wife's hometown of Fairfield and his family is currently residing there comes as something of a shock. But the notion of a successful thirty-something San Francisco family u ... More >>

SFPD Homicide Inspector Has 'Fingers Crossed' That Suspect He Nabbed For Unrelated Felony Is Man Behind Fatal SOMA Mugging

Helen CanafaxHomicide Inspector Richard Martin told SF Weekly that he's hopeful a man he arrested on May 7 on an outstanding felony warrant could be the mugger police are seeking behind last month's fatal purse snatching of 63-year-old Helen Canafax -- but more witnesses could be needed to prove the ... More >>

Everybody Dance Now

Homeless SF State students struggle to stay in school and stay loaded

Taste Interview: Askinosie Chocolate

Yo! Danielle! Gimme a Quarter!

Bitch Fights, Trannys and Big Surprises on Top Model

Jessica's Law Knocks Sex Offenders Off the Grid

C.W. Obvious Discovers Bums in S.F.

The Call for “Vagrant” Hunters: San Francisco Chronicle’s homelessness crusade raises ethical questions

SF Main Library Bathroom: 'Glory Hole' No More'

Gavin, Golden Gate Park and the Homeless: A Theory

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Finding His Niche

Steve Bingham, a famously exonerated ex-fugitive who advocates for the poor, helps lead the charge against Care Not Cash

A Tale Worth Retelling

When an elderly man left the city millions to build apartments for homeless old folks, neighbors tried to block the project. Fortunately, they failed.

A Modest Post-Election Proposal

For Preventing the Homeless People of San Francisco From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to the Public in an Energy-Efficient Manner

A Pair of Aces

Either Newsom or Gonzalez will make a good mayor, but Gonzalez has the creative edge

Gaffing Gavin

In which we head into the Tenderloin on a secret nocturnal mission

In-laws You Can Live With

How a new law on in-law apartments can help solve S.F.'s housing shortage

Project Censored

Lefty weeklies are always bitching about the mainstream press. Here're some rotten chestnuts we wish the alternative press would quit serving up.

A Brand of Justice

Homelessness has put the city's image in danger. Our options: Hound the poor. Fine Safeway. Corrupt Lance Armstrong.

Pleasantville

Over the years, homeless squatters have claimed the Albany Landfill as their own. Now it's time for them to leave ...

No Place Like Curb

So many San Franciscans live in cars, vans, campers, and buses that the city wants to create a "vehicular community" where they could legally park. But if we build it, will the "houseless" come?

The Larry David Show

A movie about something, sort of

The Grid

Letters

Dish

Home Is Where the Car Is

Tales of the wheeled homeless

The Straight Poop

Human excrement in the parks -- dangerous or just dirty?