Back in June, I was overjoyed. The vaccine was being administered throughout San Francisco and City Hope was reopening! No more food line, no more to-go meals, no more double masking. Finally, we could welcome our guests inside, offer them a seat, a warm, plated meal, and give them a big hug!

But then...not so fast. As news of the variant spread, we at City Hope realized we needed to rethink our operations once more. It felt like a punch in the gut, but we needed to ask the question once again, “For the safety of our guests, staff, and volunteers, do we return to serving all of our meals outdoors?”

The answer soon became clear when the SFDPH and Mayor of SF, London Breed,  issued the Safer Return Together Health Order for San Francisco. Vaccinated San Franciscans were still able to dine indoors, so we decided to offer the same opportunity to our guests. In August, we pivoted to a hybrid model--guests that can show proof of vaccination are welcomed to dine indoors, while those who cannot, are offered a to-go meal. 

This hybrid model of serving free meals certainly comes with its challenges. For one, it has created more work for our program staff and volunteers. Chef Justin Gabbert once again increased the amount of delicious meals in to-go packaging while Program Manager, Jacey Massetto devised a new system of service. Our vaccinated guests would be prioritized first and would be seated and served one hour before we began delivering our to-go meals. When serving those who experience the trauma of homelessness, you never want to create a barrier to service, but we felt this was the best course of action. 
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One positive result of the hybrid model has been that it has created a  “membership has its privileges” type of atmosphere. Now our guests who have vaccine cards quickly jump the line and proudly show us their vaccine cards. Of course, not every person is happy about or understanding of this new model, and we often have to remind them that this is part of a city-wide policy, that we will still serve them a great meal, and that they can get vaccinated. 
In fact, they can get vaccinated at City Hope. City Hope will host a vaccination team from the San Francisco Department of Public Health to administer shots on September 29th and October 6th during our Movie Night Dinner. A free meal and a life saving vaccine--that’s an amazing combination!

In all of these efforts, City Hope takes another step forward. Diligently working toward and patiently awaiting the day in which ALL of our guests are welcomed back inside and offered a place at our table. We certainly could not do this without your commitment to volunteer, your financial support, or your encouragement. Thank you for moving forward with us!


Peace,
Pastor Paul Trudeau
Co-Director, City Hope SF

, Dear Friends,

​This time of year usually marks a season of transition, yet transition seems to be all we’ve known for the past year and a half. Every time we settle into a new way of being, things shift and we are called to adapt and get comfortable with - or at least try to survive - the unknown. 
What does back-to-school look like? Back to the office? What if we’re mourning the loss of loved ones, homes, jobs? 
At City Hope we’ve all wrestled, as individuals and as an organization, with many of these questions and the confusion they bring. Yet even as we adjust to the quickly changing mandates and regulations, as we worry about the health of our guests, as we name and mourn our losses of the past year and half, at City Hope we are choosing to lean into this season of transition for all the hope that it holds. 

The hope that comes from having a meal with a City Hope guest; the hope that comes from connecting with our team, even if it’s over video call; the hope that comes from knowing we’ve faced a lot together and have made it through. 
As we look forward into this season, City Hope is exploring new partnerships and is excited to launch the City Hope Café in the early Fall. We’re also focusing on staff health, understanding more than ever the importance of social-emotional health. We’re improving our operations and administration (like a good AC unit, it’s the work no one sees or feels unless it stops working!) All of this is going to set City Hope up for sustainable growth and enable us to walk alongside our community in deeper ways for years to come - through joyful times and in tough times. This past year has shown us we can do this.
This season will also be a time of transition for me personally. My husband and I are expecting our fourth child in September, so I’ll be on maternity leave through the fall. We’re a small organization and therefore really feel it when someone needs to step away but we have an amazing team and board, and I’m excited to see all they’ll do in this season.
How about you? What does this season of transition look like for you? What do you need to name and mourn? What can you hold onto in hope? What does it look like for you to share that hope with others?

As always, we’re grateful that you’re part of the City Hope community and that we get to enter this new season together.
Peace and grace,

Pastor Sally Steele, Co-director at City Hope

"Come on in..."  

Those were the words that greeted our guests on June 16th, as we reopened the City Hope Center. It was a joyful event. We were finally able to offer our guests a seat at a table that was adorned with flowers and candles. Our volunteers offered our guests a menu and presented a delicious meal on a plate! Reopening the City Hope Center has been terrific. Since that evening, I’ve been reflecting on what we’ve learned about our organization and our community:

• Reopening has been easier than expected! Over the past 15 months we served thousands and thousands of meals as to-go orders. We drastically increased the amount of food we served and often offered multiple meals to the larger community. We became the organization that our community needed at that time. As we reopened we were somewhat anxious. After all, this was a massive transition from to-go service back to a sit down restaurant service. We didn’t know if this might confuse or even disappoint our guests as we put a hard stop to grab-and-go meals. Instead, the transition was incredibly smooth. Our volunteers have been amazing and our guests have been equally as wonderful. Thank you to everyone who has joined us once again, to provide the dignity of a meal that welcomes everyone, respects our guests, and celebrates who they are!

• We cannot forget what we learned during the pandemic. The sacred space that is held by City Hope combats many of the issues that residents of the Tenderloin struggled with prior to the pandemic. Our guests struggle with isolation and marginalization, which is devastating to anyone’s mental health. During the pandemic we, as a society, grappled with this challenge, along social and economic divides. Many people, myself included, had to address the state of their mental health with more intentionality than before. As the restrictions that caused us all to struggle with isolation and disconnection, are being lifted, my hope is that we will remember that we must continue to hold sacred space together! My hope is that we continue to prioritize spaces and services that build healthy community in San Francisco. We rejoice in reopening, but let us not forget what we learned during the lockdown. 

• Let’s reopen, better than before! City Hope is not simply committed to reopening as we were, we are committed to expanding. The expansion of the City Hope Cafe space at 750 Ellis Street, is scheduled to open this September. At that time, we anticipate offering a quieter space in which our guests can enjoy a cup of coffee and simple breakfast, with even more resources. We are now hosting wonderful organizations such as Trans Thrive, once a week, and an AA meeting now meets at City Hope twice a week.  We’re also working on strategic partnerships with other non-profits. We’re excited to expand our services as we build more partnerships like these. 

Though this work can be overwhelming at times, there isn’t a day that I am not extremely grateful for reopening City Hope. Thank you for being a part of what we do. And if you are willing to join us in volunteering, “Come on in” to volunteer…or give.

Peace,
Co-Director Rev. Paul Trudeau

Dear friends,​
With the recent (belated) society-wide recognition of Juneteenth, we are being collectively presented with an opportunity to deepen our understanding of - and actions towards - liberation and belonging. Now is a time for us to assess the ways we are helping to liberate and the ways we are hindering that liberation, consciously or not. We do this in part by understanding the history of Juneteenth but we must not stop there. The Crunk Feminist Collective recently wrote that liberation is episodic. That is, it hasn’t happened in one fell swoop and in fact it is still in process. Black America (and therefore all of us) is still not fully free. The question becomes, then, how do we - as individuals, as a community, and as an organization, City Hope - help further this process of liberation?
City Hope has always been an organization that seeks to center people and stories in their fullness. As I think of how City Hope can honor Juneteenth as a celebration of liberation, I start to dream of ways we can more boldly articulate both the particular manifestations of injustice in our community as well as the hope that comes from continuously creating a genuine space of belonging with our most marginalized neighbors. In seeking the liberation of others there’s a place for our City Hope values of making sure everyone is welcome, respected, and celebrated. 

This is an honoring of Juneteenth in a microcosm. There are bigger societal and legislative moves that must happen for true liberation to take hold and to become the norm. I strongly encourage all of us to look at those pieces, to consider the history of Juneteenth (then, through today and beyond) and the ways that political will, socio-economic power, and beliefs in superiority intersect to keep people in bondage. Yet looking at our microcosms is also important, and so I encourage us to interrogate our particular spaces and see how we can seek liberation there as well. How do we make space for others to be fully free - to be their full and true selves, to have equity in access and opportunity, to have an equal say in the crafting of the space itself? What needs to be removed? What needs to be added? In what ways do we ourselves need to change? 
These are all complicated and multifaceted questions. And yet we can’t claim to honor Juneteenth without asking them. We can’t whitewash this holiday and truly celebrate it. Hard questions must continue to be asked. And this demands that we hold onto the hope that real change can be made, that liberation is possible and coming. 
We’re making our own steps towards liberation here at City Hope and, as always, we are grateful to be on that journey with all of you. 
Peace and grace,
Pastor Sally
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sources:

• https://www.galvestonhistory.org/news/juneteenth-and-general-order-no-3
  Mack, Carl. Black Heritage Day IV. 2020.
  • This publication is in the form of a daily Black History calendar. In a new partnership with Google, you can now ask your Google Assistant what happened in Black history today (on any day of the year) and it will quote information from this calendar.
• Galveston Historical Foundation, Juneteenth and General Order No. 3, read on June 19, 1865 and announced that all slaves were free, is one of Galveston's most important historical moments.

We are kicking off our annual May Month of Giving! 
This year our ambitious goal of $350,000 will help us better care for our neighbors and finish out this second difficult year, strong!

• The first 50 gifts (new or increased recurring gifts) before May 15 will be entered into a drawing for amazing Fellow coffee products
• All donations in May = 1 ticket per household to our City Hope Cafe Grand Opening
• Please view our campaign video on the front page of our site and stay tuned in to our social media to follow our progress!

*To arrange a pledge, stock transfer, employer match, or recurring gift, please contact Kelly Cole at give@cityhopesf.org 

Friends,
It has been a week since we witnessed the violent insurrection on Capitol Hall. In that time we have learned more about the coordination and calculation of the terrorist attack. We learned of the lives lost and damage done. 

When we look beyond the star spangled facade we find the truth. Our democracy is under attack by fascist racists fueled by white supremacy. And sadly this is nothing new. This is America and we need to do something about it. We know we need justice. We know we need system-wide change. On a day like last Wednesday it was hard to know what I personally could do to enact any kind of change. Then, I headed to City Hope. 

That night, I gathered with a team of volunteers to serve a hot meal to our friends on the street. On such a disturbing day I was especially grateful for the opportunity to do good. As we gathered, we prayed and gave thanks for having more than enough food to serve, for our physical ability to serve, and we asked that God’s love be expressed through our words and actions. 

City Hope is a place where we come together to prioritize the needs of the marginalized. It is a community of compassion that welcomes all of our neighbors, no matter what they are going through. It is a community where people who have often been left behind by our society know their voices will be heard and their presence will be celebrated.  
One of my favorite roles at City Hope is to walk the line and serve our neighbors a rich cup of coffee or a hot cup of tea. In those moments, I see the hope and joy in their eyes and I am reminded that we are called to a greater purpose. We are called to love and serve our neighbor. This is our act of resistance. Together we can do so much good. Thank you for joining us in this goodness and thank you for supporting City Hope.

Peace,

Paul
Co-Director of City Hope

Articles

• No More Money for the Police by Philip V. McHarris and Thenjiwe McHarris
• America, This is Your Chance by Michelle Alexander
• A Moment of National Shame - And Hope by John Allen
• Police Reforms You Should Always Oppose by Mariame Kaba 
• The Only Solution is to Defund the Police by Alex S. Vitale 
• James Baldwin’s Journey by Ronnie Almonte
• The Uncompromising Anti-Capitalism of Martin Luther King Jr. by Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., Ph.D. (2014)

Websites

• https://blacklivesmatter.com/
• https://thejusticecollaborative.com/
• https://m4bl.org/defund-the-police/​

Reading List
(adapted in part from Michelle Alexander’s article America, This is Your Chance)

• How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi -- great place to start. Lays a framework for what racism is and isn't, how it manifests itself in everyday life and in systems, and how we can move towards being antiracism.
• Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racists Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi (see also Stamped, an adapted version for young adults) -- deep dive into the history of race in America, tracing both the development of race as a concept and how racist ideas have evolved and been implemented throughout American history.
• Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson -- reframes race in America around the language of caste, comparing the caste systems of India, the United States and Nazi Germany. A fascinating study that helps us understand the difference between caste and class, and how maintaining the racial caste hierarch of America has dictated so much of the structures of American life and policies. 
• From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
• Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color by Andrea Ritchie

As we settle into month 5 (!) of COVID-19 response, City Hope is continuing to build relationships and meet the basic needs of our most marginalized neighbors. Even though we can’t gather indoors, the points of connection we provide at City Hope are critical to the social and emotional health of our guests. City Hope guest Thomas Coy emphasized, “It’s not only the meal, the meal is important, but it’s meeting our friends two to three times a week that matters to us.” 

The data on COVID-19 is both encouraging and deeply disappointing. The good news is that COVID-related infections and deaths among the homeless in San Francisco have been low - only 5% of documented cases and 1 of the 50 deaths according to City data. Unfortunately, inequities persist as Black, Latinx and Indigenous people - who are underrepresented in San Francisco but overrepresented in those experiencing homelessness and/or working low wage, essential jobs - continue to be disproportionately impacted by COVID.

The added stress of COVID-19 has also led to increased deaths among those struggling with addiction. "Homeless deaths due to overdose and addiction have increased from 3-4per week to 8-10 per week since mid-March,” says Dr. Barry Zevin, MD, Medical Director, Street Medicine and Shelter Health for SF Department of Public Health. He believes the current increase in deaths are a direct result of decreases in intake to and closures of shelters, drop-in centers, and clinics due to their risks of spreading the coronavirus.
 
“It’s hard to social distance out here. People don’t give you the respect of 6 feet. I got people standing over my shoulder with no mask on.” - Franklin Porteor, City Hope guest

Last week I had the opportunity to attend an online meeting with Jeff Kositsky, Director of HSOC (Healthy Streets Operation Center) on COVID-19's impact on our unhoused neighbors and the city’s response in the Tenderloin in particular. While the low COVID-19 infection rates among those experiencing homelessness are attributed to the relative safety of living outdoors, stopping the spread also requires maintaining 6 feet of spacing. Alleys are being cleared of tents and people are being relocated to the city’s alternative housing sites (approximately 3,000 units). At City Hope we are keeping a close eye on the official data and a close listening ear to our community so we can continue to provide accurate information, implement best practices, and offer our guests the best City Hope experience possible. 

“The hardest part is keeping our hands washed, keeping a mask on, just staying safe, and keeping sane.” - Ruthie Torrey, City Hope guest

​City Hope is committed to keeping our neighbors, volunteers, and staff safe. Aside from the additional sanitization, enforcing mask use, and reconfiguring our space for volunteer distancing, we are handing out PPE to guests and implementing new temperature monitoring prior to admitting staff or volunteers into the building. 

While we are unsure what the fall and winter will look like for City Hope we are staying informed and thinking creatively about ways we can provide a safe - and just - community for our unhoused neighbors. Regardless of what else 2020 hurtles at us, we appreciate your ongoing support and partnership! 
Peace,
Pastor Sally
Data Sources
San Francisco 2019 Data
National 2019 Data 
SF Homeless Count & Survey Report - 2019

Through these cold and rainy weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to have a home. A place where we are welcome, where we find protection, provision, peace. A place among our people, where we are known, loved and respected.It’s something that each of us needs and deserves. It’s balm at the end of a difficult day; the moment we can exhale and fully relax.
The reality for many of our neighbors is that they never get those precious moments to unwind, to feel at peace in a place of their own.
In San Francisco there are an estimated 7,500 people without housing. Only about 3,100 of that population find any kind of shelter by the time night falls. We simply do not have enough housing or shelter for all of the people living on our streets, and we may not for some time.
This is a complex problem and it’s not one that we’re going to solve overnight. But at City Hope we are determined to make an impact in people’s lives, even while they wait on housing. We’re working hard to provide as many elements of home as we possibly can for our neighbors on our streets.
For 25 men and women this is an actual home. The City Hope House is a two-year sober living environment where people grow in their recovery, job development, and prepare for their next opportunity.
For hundreds of others, this is the City Hope Community Center - a living room for those without living space. It is the dignity of bathrooms and hot showers, basic human necessities like a toothbrush or socks. It is a healthy home-cooked meal, prepared and served to you by those who know and love you. It’s a place where we have fun, a place to laugh even when you’re struggling. We play games, watch movies, and even sing to each other. Most importantly, City Hope is a community where strangers become trusted friends. A place where your friends become your family. It is a place that believes everyone deserves to belong and to be loved.
Working to provide home for the homeless is hard work but when we work with creativity and courage, wisdom and compassion; when we keep faithfully serving our neighbor and placing our faith in them - we will see lives transformed, we will see our city transformed.
When you partner with City Hope, you are part of this unique work – restoring dignity and humanity to our neighbors so often ignored. Thank you for your support, for your partnership in bringing home to the homeless each and every day.
Peace,
Paul

Thursday, March 22 | 5:30 - 7 PM | City Hope Community Center | 45 Olive St
Snacks and drinks provided
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Join us as we launch City Hope's new learning workshops! Each workshop is designed to help you better understand a particular issue, with practical tools for meaningful engagement. Current and future volunteers are strongly encouraged to attend - all are welcome. 

City Hope's first workshop “Addiction 101: Understanding Addiction at City Hope and in the City”. Tyrone Kelly will be teaching about the basics of addiction and practical ways to interact with people experiencing addiction at City Hope and around the City. Join us at 5:30pm - snacks and drinks provided!

​I love San Francisco and after 12 years of living here and raising my family here, I can easily say that every inch feels like home. Yet there is a painful paradox to this city - it is both extremely rich and poor. This can be uncomfortable to talk about and difficult to face.