San Francisco is booting two migrant families and their three young children out of a homeless shelter Monday.
The families, including a Honduran couple with two children in kindergarten and third grade and a single mother from Peru with a second-grader, will be forced to leave a Catholic charity-run shelter at 5 p.m., according to Faith in Action Bay Area, an advocacy group that organized a protest on their behalf.
The advocates said the families had nowhere else to stay tonight and could be forced to sleep on the streets.
School teachers criticized Mayor Daniel Lurie for what advocates call an “experimental policy” of 90-day shelter limits for homeless families. They also said the evictions defy Lurie’s recent statement that families working with case managers would not get kicked out. The rally took place outside Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School on Cesar Chavez Street, where some of the affected children go to school.
“The situation that we’re in is really serious and bad,” said Maria Flores, who emigrated from Peru with her son, in Spanish. “I have my son, and I don’t want him or I to have to sleep on the street this evening.”
The protest comes amid controversy over funding and implementation of the city’s homelessness policies. Lurie previously met with homeless families on February 26 and stated that families making progress with case managers would not face eviction, according to organizers.
“It is mistreatment,” said Vilma Arias, who is from Honduras, in a statement that was read at the protest. She said she has an appointment to get a housing subsidy on March 20, but the shelter has still said she must leave. “We were told that we could only show up [at the shelter] if we could prove that we had secured housing.”
Both mothers said they don’t know where they will go tonight if they are not permitted to stay in the shelter.
The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said that providers can authorize up to three 30-day extensions beyond the 90-day limit based on family circumstances, with additional extensions possible through the department directly. In January, the department granted all families in shelters a one-time automatic 30-day extension.
The Flores and Arias families had received a 30-day extension but were denied another, according to Faith in Action Bay Area.
The homeless department defended the policy as part of reforms rolled out in December to increase the flow of families through the shelter system.
“The intent of the policy is to ensure that shelter is used as an emergency resource focused on connecting families to long-term housing options to resolve their crisis as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Staff from Flynn Elementary, where the affected children attend class, said there are usually 60 to 80 unhoused students enrolled in the school.
“The situation is really desperate, and we are demanding that the mayor and the city do their part to help all families who’ve experienced so much,” said school social worker Alisa Wolf. “They deserve to have a safe place to stay, and no child and no family, no person deserves to sleep on the streets.”