Amplify Community Voice!
Using Participatory Action Research, our Community Liaisons gather essential feedback from people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. We share this feedback with the City and County of San Francisco to improve the homeless response system and ensure that the voices of those affected by policy decisions, including the potential criminalization of homelessness, are heard. We believe in providing competitive compensation for our team's labor and expertise.
Restorative Community Solutions (RCS), in partnership with Talent Poole Consulting, is dedicated to empowering those who have experienced homelessness by amplifying their voices and sharing power with the community. Over the past three years, our team Community Liaisons in San Francisco have gathered crucial feedback from people experiencing homelessness to improve the systems that affect their lives. We engage the community as trusted messengers, utilizing Motivational Interviewing to meet people where they are, listening deeply, and relaying their experiences to those in power.
Our surveys, focus groups, and interviews informed San Francisco’s 5-year strategic plan on homelessness. We highlighted the struggles of individuals at the intersection of homelessness and incarceration, sharing our findings with key stakeholders such as the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH), the Sheriff's Department, and the Mayor’s office.
We are committed to continuing this work, sharing resources and tips with those trying to exit homelessness, and speaking truth to power in San Francisco.
Your support will allow this vital work to continue! If we raise the funds, we will be able to continue & expand this work including:
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Developing & deploying innovative outreach training to outreach workers and case managers
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Regularly survey and connect with people experiencing street homelessness
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Connecting with city agencies to distribute our findings
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Gathering the voices of people experiencing homelessness, providing an view of of the conditions people are facing without bias
Your support has a direct impact!!
$2,500 Provides a stipend for one month of Community Liaison work
$5,000 Supplies 100 $50 grocery cards for survey respondents
$1,000 Provides 10 $100 gift cards for focus group participants
$500 Provides childcare for focus group participants with children
$200 Provides pizza and drinks for a shelter focus group
$5 Provides a package of socks for outreach in the winter months
Key Insights from Our Research in SF
Shelter and SRO Programs: There’s a need to overhaul current programs and provide direct access to tailored services for mental health, addiction, domestic violence, gender, and families.
Transparency, Collaboration & Communication: Clear communication about available services and eligibility is essential. Agencies need to work together better.
Access and Efficiency: There are 400 families on the waiting list for shelter in San Francisco alone.
Programs need to be more accessible with reduced waiting times.
Family Unity: Stop breaking up families who wish to stay together, including the inclusion of pets.
Interaction and Support: It’s not enough to check in once a month. People in crisis need daily or weekly contact.
Employment of People with Lived Experience: Prioritize hiring individuals with experiences of homelessness and incarceration, and empower them with training.
The Challenge
🏦Budget Cuts and Funding Delays: Budget cuts and government contracting delays have jeopardized our ability to pay our team continuously to do this work.
🚨Urgent Policy Changes: In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision, which allows cities to criminalize homelessness, our work is more urgent than ever.
💡Tokenism and Conflict of Interest: Contracting with government agencies can create pressure that influences research; independent funding will allow us to provide unbiased feedback without feeling tokenized or pressured.
Support our work today by making a donation, sharing our work and connecting with us!