Thanks to the We Are Visible Facebook page I was alerted to the article titled Phone-in system proposed to reduce lines at homeless shelters where San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee and the Board of Supervisors discuss a new way to help the city’s homeless reserve a shelter bed, or at least call in to see if there’s anymore available for the night.
I learned that at times some homeless are forced to wait up to 17 hours in an outside line, rain or shine, in hopes to grab a warm bed without knowing if there’s 100 or 1 left available. I can’t help but imagine the single mother of 2 waiting in line all day just to find out no more beds are available. With the next shelter being miles away, and still no chance of knowing whether there’s beds available anywhere else, where will her and her kids sleep?
These are the things I think about. This is the reality.
After reading the article, I posed a question on their website asking what about those homeless who have no access to a phone? And if there’s still pay phones around town, would it be free to call this lottery-based shelter-bed phone reservation system?
