As of 2017, there have been roughly 7,000 folks residing with out houses in San Francisco, a quantity that contains minors — quite a lot of them. The San Francisco Unified School District estimates that as of 2017, roughly 2,100 of the kids within the college system have been homeless — a quantity that it stated seemed to be escalating, not shrinking.
While mother and father might not hesitate to ship their offspring to those identical faculties, some within the metropolis’s northeast nook could also be uncomfortable with the thought of homeless adults and households looking for shelter in shut proximity. Such seems to be the purpose of a GoFundMe marketing campaign that was launched late final week known as “Safe Embarcadero for All.” Its goal: to lift $100,000 for authorized counsel to push towards the creation of a shelter alongside the town’s jap waterfront area.
The marketing campaign is a response to an thought launched earlier this month by San Francisco Mayor London Breed to show a parking zone alongside Embarcadero that’s owned by the Port of San Francisco into a middle that would supply well being and housing providers and round the clock stays for as much as 200 of the town’s homeless residents.
It isn’t simply theoretical. If the Port Commission agrees to the plan, Breed estimated the middle might be open by summer time. Thus the GoFundMe marketing campaign, which has now raised $71,250 as of this writing from 180 folks, a few of whom presumably dwell within the luxurious high-rise flats close by and others who share the marketing campaign organizers’ issues that the shelter might introduce “public safety, drug use, and other problems.”
It’s a irritating state of affairs, although some are discovering inspiration in a brand new, rival marketing campaign that was created yesterday in assist of the middle and which is quick gaining monetary assist. Called a “SAFER Embarcadero for ALL,” it has already raised greater than earlier GoFundMe marketing campaign, with greater than 1,021 donors contributing greater than $76,000 as of this writing, together with Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who has been a frequent and public supporter of Breed and a variety of her initiatives.
Lawson seems to have given $20,000; Benioff has given no less than $10,000 to the marketing campaign and is utilizing Twitter as a platform to drum up extra assist.
Join me in supporting @TheCoalitionSF and @fbach4 and @LondonBreed in constructing a brand new navigation middle in San Francisco on the Embarcadero. Homelessness is our quantity disaster and it requires all of our consideration and assets. https://t.co/hY6KxeT5D9
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) March 29, 2019
Some are heralding their involvement as proof that tech CEOs do care about San Francisco’s homeless inhabitants, which they’re usually accused of exacerbating by planting themselves within the metropolis, paying their workers excessive wages, and driving up the price of every little thing from hire to groceries within the course of.
Even GoFundMe itself has joined sides, donating $5,000 to the brand new marketing campaign in assist of the homeless middle or, extra particularly the Coalition on Homelessness, which has been promised the monies.
“I don’t think the tech industry is doing enough about the homeless issue,” GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon advised the San Francisco Chronicle this morning. “We wanted to do our small part, even though we’re not located in San Francisco.”
No doubt critics will argue that as a result of GoFundMe is 25 miles south of San Francisco, in Redwood City, the corporate has much less at stake.
Still, proponents of the middle will take assist wherever they will discover it.
As Jennifer Friedenbach, govt director of the Coalition on Homelessness, advised the Chronicle earlier right now, the group is already planning to make use of the brand new funds to assist with public schooling, to get enter on the middle, and to teach residents about what they grossly misunderstand concerning the metropolis’s homeless inhabitants.
