This year marks the 30th anniversary of Hamilton Family Center, an emergency shelter for families that's been serving the Haight since 1985. A 30th-anniversary party is set for the fall, but the shelter is kicking off the celebration with a "family reunion" for former clients and neighbors alike.
In its early years, Hamilton Family Center was housed in the basement of the United Methodist Church at Belvedere and Waller in the Haight, and staffed entirely by church volunteers. (It's now called the Waller Center, and its basement is home to the Haight Ashbury Food Program.)
The group's ambitious goal is to end homelessness by 2020. From a press release about the event:
"From 2007 to 2014, family homelessness more than doubled in San Francisco. At the end of the 2013-2014 school year, there were over 2,300 homeless students in our public schools and the waiting time to access family shelters was over nine months. In 2014, responding to a goal set by the Obama administration, Hamilton Family Center implemented a plan to end family homelessness by 2020. In partnership with the City and County of San Francisco and the San Francisco Unified School district, we expanded our eviction prevention and rent subsidy programs. As a result, the wait list for family shelters has fallen by over 50%. After years of increases in family homelessness, the tide is finally turning."
In recent years, the center has grown to multiple facilities, and expanded its services to include mental health and family planning, children and youth services, rapid rehousing, and safety-net support services like medical services, therapy, and job-training. Along the way, it's received awards from Mutual of America and the National Alliance to End Homelessness. You can read a full profile of Hamilton Family Center's work here.
While Hamilton Family Center vacated the church basement at 1525 Waller long ago (their current HQ is at Hayes & Lyon), the organization will return to its original home this Thursday at 6:30pm, and everyone's invited. Staffers will serve dinner (cooked by a former program graduate of the Haight Ashbury Food Program), and screen a 20-minute documentary they've had commissioned to mark their 30th.
The guest list is nearing capacity, and it's "packed with folks from the past 30 years—staff, volunteers, clients, board members, donors," says senior development associate Nicolle Gameiro. If you're interested, you can RSVP here.
For those who can't make the event, Hamilton Family Center will post the new documentary it commissioned on its YouTube page on Friday morning.
