Tax Returns Filed For Free

The San Francisco Human Services Agency has a website where you can find resources in getting your tax returns done for free. It costs at least $250 to have tax returns filed and most people just cannot afford this amount of money. With inflation blasting through the roof and the cost of living becoming unbearable, that $250 is needed for food, heating and essentials.The website also has a multitude of other resources to help your finances - from working family credits to Covid-19 stimulus payments.

Please share this post because no one should have to dish out hundreds of dollars to pay taxes. 

California’s Rent-Relief Program to Stop Taking Applications March 31

Featured in the San Francisco Public Press:

California will stop accepting applications for rent assistance from people facing COVID-19 hardships at the end of this month, the San Francisco mayor’s office said.

Local governments throughout the state will have to figure out how to help people still struggling to cover rent as the economy continues its climb back to pre-pandemic levels.

“We are working diligently with our community-based program partners on a public information and outreach campaign to get all eligible tenants and landlords to apply and respond to the program by March 31st,” said Audrey Abadilla, spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.

The state has committed “to provide support to eligible applicants” who apply for rent relief by then, according to a government memo the Public Press obtained and that Abadilla verified as authentic.

“It is critical applicants act as quickly as possible to complete their application and reply to any requested action or response,” the memo said, because that would allow quicker processing.

People can apply for financial aid to cover past or future rent and utility fees, going back to April 2020.

Though the statewide eviction moratorium ended in October, rent-relief applicants have retained eviction protections while they awaited a decision from the government.

Those protections will also terminate at the end of March, meaning that landlords will be able to evict renters with outstanding debts beginning April 1. To avoid eviction, by that date tenants must pay at least 25% of what was due from the beginning of September 2020 to the end of September 2021, as well as 100% of what came due since then.

Potentially thousands of San Franciscans will still be awaiting payments by April, leaving them vulnerable to eviction, based on a recent Public Press analysis. Renters across the state could face the same risk, according to a survey published Tuesday by Tenants Together, a statewide coalition of tenant-rights groups.

San Franciscans have continued to apply for rent relief in recent weeks, though the pace has slowed compared with earlier in the pandemic, according to the Public Press’ Rent Relief Tracker. The government had received $298.4 million in requests and paid out $115.7 million by last week.

Throughout California, requests totaled at least $7.1 billion by mid-February, and the state had paid out at least $2.1 billion from more than $5 billion available, according to data from the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Those figures do not count requests and payments processed by locally operated rent-relief programs throughout California.

Last month, the Legislature passed a budget bill that authorizes the state to pour more money into the rent relief program if the volume of eligible applications merits it.

Eviction protections for people facing COVID-19 hardships are complex, and the Public Press has created a flow chart to help tenants understand their rights.

Are you facing eviction? Call the Eviction Defense Collaborative at (415) 659-9184 or send an email to legal@evictiondefense.org as soon as possible. The organization advises that tenants respond within five days of being served with court papers to avoid the risk of a default judgment against them.

Is your landlord suing you to recover pandemic rent debt? Go here to read our guide on how small claims court works, and how to argue your side of the case.

 

Credit: Ben Wicks

 

Golden Gate Park’s Coolest Gardens Will Soon Be Free

Featured in the San Francisco Standard:

f there was ever a moment to brag about being a San Francisco resident, now is it! Residents of the city and all veterans will soon be able to visit the Conservatory of Flowers and Japanese Tea Garden for free, in addition to already complimentary Botanical Gardens. 

Mayor London Breed’s ordinance to make all three of Golden Gate Park’s specialty gardens free to San Francisco residents passed at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, March 8. It will take effect in late April, 30 days after Breed signs it.

“Access to our city’s vibrant public spaces and cultural institutions is more important now than ever before,” said Mayor Breed in a press statement.  “As our city continues to reopen, providing equitable admission to historic attractions where residents can gather safely and engage in enriching activities is critical to the development of our city.”

Not a San Francisco resident? Fear not! The legislation provides free or reduced pricing for both gardens, which has been in effect since 2019. Discounts are available for visitors receiving government assistance (EBT) or purchasing a multi-garden ticket. Last month, Supervisor Gordon Mar amended the law to allow non-resident veterans free entrance.

 

SF Launches First Navigation Center to Serve Homeless Transgender People

Featured in the San Francisco Public Press:

 

Joaquin Remora moved to California with $1,000 in his pocket, no job and two back-to-back evictions under his belt. The move was a lifesaver.

“I was like, ‘I’m either going to come out as transgender, or kill myself,’” he said. “San Francisco was the only place that I could think of where I thought it wasn’t going to be a problem for me to be trans.”

For the first few months after he arrived, Remora lived in his car. “I didn’t access housing services because it was too overwhelming,” he said. “I was traumatized, I didn’t feel like I was deserving of them.”

On March 9, the city’s first navigation center to specifically serve transgender and gender-nonconforming people opens in SoMa. Operated by St. James Infirmary, a nonprofit that serves sex workers, the 65-bed shelter (81 after COVID-19 restrictions end) will provide case management, health care, job opportunities and substance use treatment for people experiencing homelessness.

“We know that queer people in general, and trans and gender nonconforming people specifically, are overrepresented in the homelessness system,” Shireen McSpadden, director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, told the Public Press after meeting with staff and touring the site. “I think that this is the right response.”

It will fill a gap in homeless services that has excluded a highly vulnerable population. Transgender people are 17 times more likely to experience homelessness than the average person, and 70% of those who have stayed in shelters report having experienced harassment, according to a study conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality. As a result, unhoused transgender people are often reluctant to engage in traditional services.

San Francisco is no exception. A lack of culturally competent shelter staff is something Remora, who eventually got housing and a job with a homelessness nonprofit, witnessed firsthand.

Early in the pandemic, he worked at two navigation centers in the city, where he says he saw staff struggle to address the intersections of violence, sex work and gender identity. The idea for a navigation center that serves only transgender and gender non-conforming people emerged late one night, while Remora worked an overnight shift at the Embarcadero Navigation Center with one of the few gender-nonconforming staff members, Britt Creech.

Yesica Prado/San Francisco Public Press

 

Joaquin Remora, left, describes the genesis of the navigation center for unhoused transgender and gender-nonconforming people. He sits with Britt Creech, on far side of table at right, who collaborated on the idea.

“We just started talking about this dream we had,” Creech said. “This is the most marginalized community that we see. They’ve been let down over and over and over again.”

Several months later, an opportunity to open the center appeared. The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing reached out to the Transgender Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice Project, a prison abolition organization, to see if they’d be interested in taking over the Bryant Street Navigation Center, which had been converted to an isolation ward during the pandemic. The organization suggested the city reach out to St. James Infirmary, where Remora was working as the inaugural director of a new city initiative called Our Trans Home SF. All of a sudden, he had a path forward to creating a new type of homeless shelter for transgender people.

Creech came on board as managing site director. Together, they decided to christen the new space the Taimon Booton Navigation Center, in honor of an unhoused gender-nonconforming youth who made a significant impact on them both before dying in 2020.

The navigation center, located under Interstate 80, is one of the few not built in a large white tent. Instead, it has orange and blue walls and a large tree emerging from its patio. Its planters, currently containing struggling greenery, will soon be filled with succulents; Creech has a green thumb. There are plans for murals honoring local trans activists and fairy lights to illuminate the outdoor areas after dark. Gendered signs outside the bathrooms and showers will be removed. 

Yesica Prado / San Francisco Public Press 

Showers and restrooms at the navigation center will become all-gender facilities, accommodating all residents.

St. James Infirmary’s commitment to hiring employees with lived experience of its clients has continued at the navigation center. Remora recruited staff using solely Instagram posts and word of mouth, hoping to build a racially diverse team of transgender and gender-nonconforming staff. The response was enormous.

“I interviewed 60-something people in five weeks,” he said. “The numbers showed when we started the interview process — and everyone else was having a hard time hiring — how many trans people are not applying to regular jobs, because they know that it’s not sustainable for them or healthy. This is a really big opportunity to work somewhere you can be yourself.”

The commitment to a peer-based model of services is something McSpadden applauds. “I think this can be transformational for people,” she said. “It’s healing. It’s safe. It builds community. That, to me, is really exciting.”

That healing is central to St. James’ mission for the space. Stephany Ashley, St. James’ former executive director, consulted on the opening of the center. “Trans people, and especially trans feminine people, experience so much violence on a daily basis,” she said. “It’s one thing to have a home to go to at the end of the day, and a door to close, that’s your safe space. But for people who are unhoused, there’s never that moment where you’re not subjected to that violence. This place is really going to be a refuge. That’s what’s been missing from the system of care.”

With just a few days to go until the navigation center opens, St. James’ staffers are busy alerting nonprofits, frontline workers and case managers — who already have relationships with transgender people experiencing homelessness — about its presence. A guest list is starting to form, though the plan is to bring in residents slowly.

“People are traumatized, and if they don’t have a space where they can start the day with some peace, then they’re always going to stay in trauma,” Creech said. “We have people in place to help guide them and open those doors. So maybe we start with a little bit of care, get people to open up, then the world’s their oyster.”