Housing in San Francisco now forcing families to be displaced. Through photographs and narratives, eight Mission-based Latina mothers tell a housing story that has yet to be in public view. Mission Economic Development Association (MEDA) Community Planning Manager Dairo Romero, a co-lead of the project, worked with the women to help them write their photo narratives and frame their housing-advocacy message. “An American Dream?” Community Assessment for Safe & Affordable Housing (CASAH), a project organized by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), and MEDA announce the inaugural exhibit on July 13.
Portraits of courage and resiliency will deepen viewers’ understanding of how the extreme lack of adequate housing and the resulting overcrowding affects the well-being of poor and marginalized families. In particular, the impact on women’s pregnancies, child development and educational achievement.
Low income families with children, generally -- and Mission-based families, in particular -- have been deeply affected by San Francisco’s housing crisis. The San Francisco Unified School District reported that 40 percent of their homeless and marginally housed students stay in temporary shelters, residential motels or outdoors. The remaining 60 percent are doubled up. SFDPH Maternal Child and Adolescent Health staff report meeting people who feel housing insecurities on a daily or weekly basis.
“This exhibit has allowed community researchers to provide a human context for the cold statistics used to describe San Francisco’s housing crisis. It has the potential to ground public dialogue about housing insecurity and its solutions more fully within the reality of peoples’ lived experiences.”
EVENT DETAILS:
“An American Dream?” Photo Voice exhibition
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m., Program at 7:00 p.m.
Mission Neighborhood Centers
362 Capp Street, San Francisco
