Mayor Lee Announces Immediate Investments to House Homeless Families

WASHINGTON, D.C. – November 16, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — Mayor Edwin M. Lee today launched a new Family Homelessness Initiative to ensure that families with elementary school children never have to spend a night on the street due to lack of available shelter or housing. The Mayor has directed the City’s Human Services Agency to work with the San Francisco Unified School District, the philanthropic community, and community partners to present a plan for inclusion in his upcoming FY 2016-17 budget, with the stated multi-year goal of clearing the existing family shelter waitlist and creating a system to assist homeless families with elementary school-aged children.

As the multi-year plan is being crafted, the Mayor is ensuring that currently homeless families receive immediate increased support. The Mayor and the Human Services Agency have identified funding to begin serving 50 homeless families who are either in shelter or on the waiting list for shelter through the Home for the Holidays initiative, at a cost of $500,000 in the current year. Additionally, the existing housing voucher program will be expanded to serve 70 more families in the shelter system throughout the course of the fiscal year. The full cost of the expansion to 120 families will total $5 million over the next two years.

“As we as a City come together to develop a multi-year plan to tackle the challenge of family homelessness, we must have key stakeholders join at the table to provide necessary knowledge and expertise on this issue if we are to make real progress,” said Human Services Agency Director Trent Rhorer. “We need our existing generous civic partners and any new funders to participate and support solutions for our everyday challenges of serving and housing homeless families.”

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