Thank you SF Examiner for publishing our director of public funding Mary Kate Bacalao’s op-ed piece on how the criminalization of homelessness is causing people experiencing homelessness to move from sidewalk to sidewalk, which is resulting in the contamination of San Francisco’s streets with HIV, hepatitis B and C and other viral diseases.
Here is Mary Kate’s call-to-action:
“It is true that many San Franciscans experiencing homelessness have acute service needs, but the answer to service needs is services. It is not quality-of-life enforcement that makes each experience of homelessness as difficult as possible, aggravating the conditions that give rise to service needs in the first place. Our laws should reduce harm, not cause it…. If quality-of-life enforcement contributes to extreme contamination on our sidewalks and in tent encampments, then it is the laws, and not the encampments, that should be banned.”
For more, read the article from the SF Examiner.
