Episode 5: Community Forward SF

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A transcript, lightly edited for clarity and length, follows.

Show Guest: Sammie Rayner, Chief Program Officer, Community Forward SF

Voices of the Community Introduction: Welcome to voices of the community which explores critical issues facing Northern California communities. We introduce you to the voices of community thought leaders and change makers who are working on solutions that face our fellow individual community members neighborhoods cities and our region. This is George Koster your host.

Series Introduction: This episode is part of a series of interviews we conducted through our participation in the Bay Area Video Coalition’s TV Show titled San Francisco Nonprofits Spotlight. The interviews were conducted via Zoom from April to June 2020 during the height of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Shelter in Place requirements. The goal of the series is to shine a spotlight on the nonprofits and their staff who are struggling to deal with the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their operations, services and sustainability. The series of interviews we conducted features voices from a cross section of organizations that make up the fabric of our community.  Each of them brings a unique perspective on how they and we are dealing with the issues facing our community during the pandemic. 

Show Guest Sammie: I think now is a time when the public is recognizing that homeless services, are public health services, um, housing is healthcare, right? You can't be safe from a pandemic if you don't have somewhere to stay.

Episode Intro – Show Host George: In this episode we feature the voice of Sammie Rayner, Chief Programming Officer with Community Forward SF. Over the past 40 plus years Community Forward SF has been helping our unhoused community members to move off the street, find comprehensive services and stabilize their lives. Community Forward SF serves over 6,000 un-housed community members annually. Some of the most vulnerable community members are cis-gendered and trans women. Community Forward SF is the leading agency addressing the unique needs of these fellow community members.  As part of providing comprehensive services Community Forward SF provides housing, a sobering center, and medical services. 

Show Host George: I'm joined remotely via zoom by Sammie Rayner, the Chief Programming Officer of Community Forward SF. Sammie thanks for being here this afternoon 

Show Guest Sammie: Thank you George

George: I would love to start with, um, having you kind of walk the audience through, what your model is of what you guys call the holistic full person services.

Sammie: Of course, yeah. Community Forward we are a network of programs that serve the homeless service community, focused really on the most vulnerable people in the homeless population. So, whether you are a trans woman and looking for a safe place to just rest for a little while we have a woman's place drop in center, all the way through to a medical shelter facility. Um, if you're recovering, imagine recovering from cancer chemo and, being in a homeless shelter, you're going to need more services and care. So, um, we provide medical services in addition to just a shelter, through a partnership with department of public health, all the way to housing and, um, run two different.

Housing programs in the Tenderloin and the common thread, the holistic care that you mentioned is really adding in a mental health, behavioral health, and medical health services on top of, just a room, um, and a place to stay and recognize that you really have to meet individuals where they're at and provide services that support the very diverse range of needs of our community.

George: And then you, also work with, um, you have a sobering center, as well, which kind of gets back to the whole idea of, housing first, you know, as being, a city policy, but then you also work with seniors. Can you share a little bit about that?

Sammie: Of course, we, we're a 41-year-old agency. Um, so have, have been around for a while and extrovert, actually, one of the very, very first services, that the agency provided was, um, sobering and, and going, driving around vans, helping folks on the street who needed a safe place to, sober up. 

Um, and so we do on, have a sobering center where. People can come and just have a safe place to rest, sleep, be under nurse nurse's supervision while they're getting better. And, and then at the end of that, when they, are able to kind of come out of and sober up, they're able to talk to a nurse, talk to a case manager and think about, um, other steps that they can take for their life. And, we also, I think didn't necessarily start focused on seniors, but the whole homeless population is aging. That's something that not a lot of people know. Um, so majority of the folks that we serve are over 55, across all of our different programs.

George: The other thing I wanted to kind of get to, uh, was how has COVID-19 really impacted, your entire network of services?

Sammie: It's hit each of our, but each of our operations slightly differently. For particularly, I think one of the heaviest and hardest impacted, places are our drop-in center. Our, a woman's place drop in center serves about 3000 women a year. And so, as you can imagine, um, that's not an operation that can really run safely, um, having lots of women in one space doing laundry, taking showers.

And so, it was really, I mean, extremely difficult when shelter in place set in and city. I don't know if you know, but city shelters weren't taking new reservations. And so, we're having lines of women coming like, hey, what am I supposed to do? And there was a really hard several weeks. When we were actually just sheltering in place in our drop-in center.

So, women in plastic chairs for weeks um until the city was able to open up, hotels. And that has been a really exciting kind of lift of, pressure off of us. Um, not just the drop-in center, but our shelters were also really too full to properly socially distance. So now that, um, hotels are open to our clients, we've moved all of our folks who are over 60 out of the shelters and programs and into hotels um and our staff are actually moved with them and continuing to provide care and services in hotels. So that's been the biggest transition is just, you know, figuring out how to run these programs in hotels and, and keep people safe.  

George: And so, what are some of the other needs that you're seeing?

Sammie: Where, you know, I think there's a lot of, of needs across the community. I think one of the biggest is just to continue this hotel push. There are not nearly enough people in safe spaces yet. We have been able to move a lot of our folks, but there's so many people who are still on the street, who would normally be knocking on the door of a Woman's Place, drop in center and getting services who aren't being served right now.

So, continuing to do that as important, um, continuing to donate and provide personal protective equipment is really important. And I think just to honor and recognize the staff, not only of our agency, but of, um, organizations across the community. I think now is a time when the public is recognizing that homeless services, are public health services, um, housing is healthcare, right?

You can't be safe from a pandemic if you don't have somewhere to stay. Um, so, continuing to advocate to your supervisors, letting people know this is really the most important way to keep people safe. We all keep hearing over and over ah to socially distance, right. And protect yourself. So, advocating for everyone to be able to do that is really important. 

George: And Sammie, how can people, who are viewing this really help, Community Forward SF? What do you guys need? You know, volunteers, I know you've kind of, you've launched a funding campaign, just like everybody else out there uh that has been impacted. What can folks do to help? 

Sammie: We do have a fundraising campaign for who we call our Frontline Heroes. Community Forward has over 80 staff members who are on the ground daily checking people's temperature at the hotel or at the shelter to make sure that we're tracking for who might. Get COVID, um, and keep people safe. So those are, those are really the City's Heroes. And so, we're doing a fundraising campaign to provide hazard pay, to recognize the incredible risks the staff are taking who have their own families, their own you know communities that they also want to protect at home. And so, yeah, needing to recognize that risk they're taking. And that campaign is on our website www.communityforwardsf.org, um and also on the Hand Up platform. 

George: So as, we eventually, uh, lift the, you know, the shelter orders, what are some of the things that you and your team would like to see happen?  You know, as the shelter in place is actually lifted? 

Sammie: This pandemic has. I think like I already said has shown us that housing is healthcare, that we really need to recognize homelessness as a public health crisis, even before COVID. And this change that has come about of, placing people in hotels, I hope is one that will stick. And we'll recognize that the old shelter model is, is flawed. It's really hard to provide for individual needs in really kind of overpopulated, shelters. I don't know about you, but when you're not feeling well or when your kind of at a low point in your life. If you're crowded with a bunch of other people and aren't necessarily getting individual care, it can be hard to advocate for yourself and your needs. And so that's the wave of change that we're hoping will continue, um, after this is, is the broader recognition that, it's, not just about these individual folks’ safety. It's our entire community's health. Um, that's at risk by not providing housing.  

George: The other final question would just be, you know, here we have a pandemic and kind of a meltdown in so many ways.  What would you say are some of the positive things that could come out of the crisis to support t, not only our, you know, our unhoused community members, but society at large?  

Sammie: Uh, I'd love for us to buy a building for the City to buy up buildings. I think that, you know, that could be a, you know, there's going to be empty offices, empty spaces. I think that now would be an amazing time to really, truly double down on the Housing First model. Yeah. And to, I guess, yeah continue to keep people in either the hotels or some other kind of housing model. And then I guess the other piece is just, I hope that people will see our staff see the public health workers who are like, even before this pandemic. To me, they were heroes they're out there every day, providing and caring for the people who often are left invisible. And so, I would love for you know, minimum wage increases or, you know, anything that can help provide more of a living wage for people who are on the front lines so that their whole focus can just be on those clients and their needs. Rather than how am I going to work two to three jobs to be able to do this work that I'm so passionate about. 

George: Thank you Sammie for sharing your team's work today. And uh, we'll make sure that we have all the contact information, on the website and social media of how people can follow up with you guys and, uh, and get engaged. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you that you would love to talk about today? 

Sammie: I think those are, those are the key things. You know, keep reaching out to your neighbors and checking in, seeing where people can use help, but also look at the neighbor’s neighborhoods outside of maybe your immediate surrounding and, yeah,  

George: Sammie, please stay safe out there and healthy and, give my best to Kara and to the whole staff.  Thank you.

 Sammie: Thank you.

Episode Outro – Show Host George: That’s it for this episode of voices of the community. You have been listening to the voice of Sammie Rayner, Chief Programming Officer with Community Forward SF. As part of their response to providing support for un-housed community members to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, Sammie mentioned their Funding Campaign to support their staff who are working on the frontlines to provide essential services. The Support Our Team Fund will help Community Forward SF’s staff to continue to provide essential services for their shelter residents. With COVID-19 the staff now does temperature screenings, maintains higher sanitation standards and implements social distancing measures in Community Forward SF’s shelters. To find out more about the program please visit www.communityforwardsf.org/covid

Series Outro: We hope that you enjoy the insights, points of view and personal stories from the voices of change makers and their nonprofits featured in the series. To find out more and get engaged with the nonprofit and staff members, featured in this episode please go to my web site georgekoster.com and click on Voices of the Community to find links to this episode. Please consider a donation and volunteering to provide a hand up to your fellow community members.

Series Credits: I want to thank my associate producer Eric Estrada as well as the wonderful team at Bay Area Video Coalition. Go to www.bavc.org to find out more about Bay Area Video Coalition’s services. To listen to our next episode in this series and to our archived past shows which feature community voices working on solutions to critical issues facing Northern California communities, please go to georgekoster.com. While you are on our website please consider making a donation to help us provide future shows like this. Please rate us on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and share this story with your friends. Follow us on twitter @georgekoster and please email us at george@georgekoster.com. I'm George Koster in San Francisco and thank you for listening.

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