The navigation center now has a series of planter boxes and murals throughout the facility.
Credit: www.sfchronicle.com

Alan Nethe, who spent 15 years on the street, answers succinctly when asked what he likes about the new Navigation Center in San Francisco’s Mission District.

“Everything,” he says. “What’s not great about it? You’ve got food, laundry, showers, and everybody in here cares about the program and how it runs.”

It’s not just the kitchen, community room, laundry, and showers that make the center unique. Here, in the site of a former high school, city officials are trying something that hasn’t been done anywhere else: moving in whole homeless encampments. That means couples or communities that have formed can stay together. By providing a place to store their belongings, an area for their pets and no curfew so people can come and go, they are removing barriers that keep people out of shelters, says Bevan Dufty, the head of […]