User:Marisa Balades/Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area

Hotels not Hospitals
Since the beginning of March in 2020, at the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hotels not Hospitals (HnH) was one of the many non-state actors who participated in the housing effort to move unhoused individuals into safe and sanitized shelter-in-place rooms. With the pandemic making living conditions even more dangerous for the unhoused, HnH recognized the lack of support provided by the local government and city officials and expeditiously stepped in with their community-funded housing approach. HnH works to identify hotels and, more recently, apartments that can provide the unhoused community with warm, safe spaces to live since the global pandemic has only inflamed issues of poverty. They are increasingly becoming focused on the creation of long-term housing for the San Francisco community, and have actively fundraised tens of thousands of dollars towards both keeping their current residents in their hotel or apartment arrangements while also getting more people off the streets.

The Community-Supported Housing Model relies on community funds to pay for housing expenses such as rent and utilities and the hotel rooms that are rented out for the unhoused. In order to obtain these funds, HnH takes to social media, direct actions, and the streets to explain their mission and why continuing to collect community funds is imperative to the sustainability of Community-Supported Housing. This housing model inherently expects that state or city-funding of any type is minimal and, instead, relies on community members to consistently donate when they can. HnH utilizes third-party applications such as PayPal and Cash App to funnel in their donations and continues to update their social media platforms with the progress they have made with these community funds.

Alongside their fundraising efforts to house the community, they have also prioritized addressing the political economy side of this issue. Throughout 2020, HnH hosted two direct actions to ensure the continuation of proper housing for those who are currently staying in hotels and apartments. As the organization believes that meaningful political reform has to take place in order for homelessness to see an end, they have taken to the streets and social media in order to share their message and encourage others to join and volunteer as well.

Hotels not Hospitals views housing as a quintessential human right. They have openly expressed that they believe the issues of homelessness and poverty are not problems to be simply solved. They believe that capitalism in itself ignores issues of human suffering within all communities, and that, in order to find an end to the human suffering caused by homelessness, capitalism is a system to be abolished. In accordance with this belief, HnH has written and spoken to the city about their concerns over the lack of acknowledgement of the unhoused community throughout the duration of the pandemic. The organization is also able to rely on their community of supporters as they continue to advocate for political reform. Turning to their active social media platforms, HnH posts upcoming actions, local San Francisco protests, updates their supporters on the political inaction of the City, and informs followers on why it is important to continue acting as an ally to the unhoused.