Water & Supplies for Homeless Encampments in SF

We are a group of 5 nurses who volunteer our time in San Francisco and Oakland to help unhoused folks on the streets manage their health and link them to appropriate levels of care. Because of COVID-19, we now provide weekly outreach efforts to ensure our unhoused neighbors have access to supplies, food, water, tents, sleeping bags, hand sanitizer etc...

During our outreach efforts near the SF Civic Center today, we began to notice one majorly unmet need: water. Tent after tent, person after person, we talked to was asking us for drinking water. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people at the encampment near the Main SF library, and they have little to NO access to running water. As SF gets warmer, and these folks continue to shelter their tents this need for water will continue to grow. These folks, although at high risk of getting and dying from COVID19, may be more likely to die of dehydration given the current situation.

Over the past few weeks, the encampments around San Francisco have grown exponentially. Shelters around the city can no longer take folks because of risk of disease transmission. Many who had jobs, no longer can go due to shelter and place orders and have run very low on money for even basic supplies. With closed businesses and stores in the area, it has been difficult for many to get access to public restrooms or running water. Additionally, with less traffic and pedestrians on the streets, there is less access to panhandling money that helped some scrape by in pre-covid times.

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected the health of this low-income, marginally housed population that is already at increased risk for acute and chronic illnesses and premature death. SF is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, and it also has the highest number of people experiencing homelessness per capita. With growing job losses related to COVID19, this number will likely continue to soar over the next few months, if not years. We are many months into this pandemic and we still have not found a good solution for folks living on the streets in San Francisco. We have not moved enough folks into hotels, as promised. We've exposed them to sick contacts by keeping them in the shelters too long. And now, as we extend shelter in place orders and encampments continue to grow, we have left them without access to water. The city has not been able to support these folks, and we need to step up and act now for our houseless community members. 

We are asking for your help and donations to help us get water and supplies to our unhoused neighbors. If you cannot donate water or water bottles, we ask you to donate money so we can purchase these needed supplies to get them to these folks on the street. 100% of the proceeds we raise will go directly to the supplies for these unhoused folks. Please consider donating.