SAN FRANCISCO WOMENS CENTERS
3543 18th Street 8, San Francisco, CA 94110 www.womensbuilding.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: The Women's Building is a women-led community space that advocates self-determination, gender equality and social justice.

GENERAL PROGRAM - The San Francisco Women's Centers known as The Women's Building (TWB) is an enrichment hub offering a community focused on support, progress and strength. Our programs include partnering with organizations to strengthen our core mission of women's empowerment, community events and activities for social and cultural engagement, advocacy efforts against gender based violence, as well as the programs from our Community Resource Room (CRR) which advocate for women's rights. During the last Quarter of our fiscal year we also pivoted our resources to address the client's need from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Community Resources - The Women's Building Community Resource Room offers free bilingual cultural sensitive services to the community. Here everyone can come together and find their own confidence and strength. We offer everyone the tools and resources to create better lives for themselves, their family and their community. All of our programs come from 2 big subcategories: FAMILY REUNIFICATION AND COMMUNITY RESOURCE ROOM (CRR). From all clients served, CRR staff helped 62% of those clients while Family Reunification grew to serve almost 38% of our clients. On FY 2019-2020 we were able to assist 9,644 clients with 1/3 of those being unique clients (3,335) categorized in the different programs: Food Pantry (237); Computer Lab (200); Information & Referrals, Job Search, Tech (368); Yoga (104; Taxes (501); Financial Coaching (134); Calfresh Benefits Application (80); Housing Assistance (167); Legal - Immigration (165); Legal - Civil (123); Family Reunification Cases (152); TWB ICWC Paper Prints (389); Family Reunification Fingerprinting (715). More than half percent of our clients are from Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala. The majority of our clients are women (76%). From all the clients we served through our Information and Referral, Job and Tech Program last year, 95% have an income of less than $30,000 per year. Due to the pandemic and the SIP (Shelter in Place), TWB had to close their offices and community spaces for the staff and clients in March 2020 which made some staff work from home and continue providing phone and online services for the majority of our programs except the ones considered essential mentioned below. Also, due to the new social distancing regulations, The Women's Building had to close their computer lab along with their technology tutoring program, the Yoga Classes and the Civil Legal Clinic. Financial Coaching: The Women's Building (TWB) collaborated for 2nd year with Smart Money Coaching (SMC) to assist clients in need of financial coach, advice and education. This program is a free one-on-one bilingual appointment that either staff at TWB or SMC schedule for our clients on a wednesday where client situations range from wanting to make ends meet, to budgeting in order to save for a special occasion. This collaboration is possible due to a partnership with the San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment and Balance to bring the Smart Money Coaching Program to the Community Resource Room. In FY 2019-2020 we scheduled 182 appointments where only 130 were completed reflecting a show rate or attendance of 71%. This number of appts. overpassed the goal we established at the beginning of the FY with this collaboration. Immigration Legal Clinic: Most of the cases involve clients seeking asylum or other forms of humanitarian protection. They also seek different types of legal status or visas including applications on behalf of the survivors of domestic violence pursuant to the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The majority of our clients, 76%, that have been helped by our legal clinic are women while 24% of our clients are men. It is important to note that 99% of clients that come to us for immigration legal counseling identify themselves as Latinx and primarily speak Spanish. It is imperative that we have bilingual lawyers on board so that clients feel comfortable understanding their case and can get the help they need. Additionally, we are happy to serve clients across the greater Bay Area. While 70% of our clients live in San Francisco, 17% of our clients reside in the East Bay, and 13% of our clients reside in the San Mateo County area. Many of these clients seek legal assistance at The Women's Building because they cannot afford legal aid fees. Lastly, a good portion of our clients are younger in age. 33% of the individuals we served in this fiscal year lie between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. Civil/Employment Legal Clinic: This legal service aims to help all clients with advice on different areas that are tight into Civil or Employment Law where clients want to legally pursue or find more information about. This year we helped 123 clients. From all clients, 77% identified themselves as She/Her and 23% identified as He/His. All the clients came for a variety of reasons. 68.3% of clients came in specifically for Family Law Consultation vs 12% for Employment; and the rest for others.Our Legal Clinic was impacted by Covid-19 in March 2020 for which we had to close the Building and prioritize other services, considered as essential. Calfresh Screenings, applications and orientations: The Women's Building was the first site in the mission district that collaborated with Calfresh around 8 years ago. We offered this year 80 appointments for screenings and applications out of which 43 were approved. Among all the approved applications we are reaching 80 family members that benefit from CalFresh Benefits. Calfresh has been a challenging program due to the fear from the immigrant community and public charge rule as well as the changes on immigration law from the current administration. Nevertheless this program has a huge impact on families that need supplemental help with food security for the eligible members of the family, such that the total benefits given through Calfresh to clients of TWB in this FY is $6,133.00. Although the majority of applicants are adults between 18-59 years old, we assisted 35% of children and almost 10% of people older than 60 years of age. One advantage of having Calfresh when the pandemic started was that clients could qualify for free diapers as well for the Pandemic program automatically which in a way alleviated some of the clients we serve. For the rest we had to submit additional applications. Yoga Classes: The Women's Building provided free Yoga classes to 208 women every Monday and Thursday of the week. Due to COVID-19 all yoga classes were cancelled for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. The Yoga program served only 100% of self-identified women. 208 were between the ages of 28-55+ years of age, with 50% being over 55 years of age. Housing Clinic: In Dec 2019 we formalized a program to help people apply for housing. This program was also part of a collaboration with 4 other organizations (Mission Economic Development Agency, SF LGBT Center, BALANCE, African Advocacy Network). From December 2019 through June 2020, we assisted 167 people through this program. We held 2 Housing Clinics in which we assisted 45 people at each Clinic with information and applications. The 3 top neighborhoods that we see clients coming from are: Inner Mission, Van Ness|Civic Center and Hunters Point. 90% were Latinx and the other 10% African American and Chinese. The Community Resource Room organized 2 community events this year, one before the pandemic and one during it. 1. Bloom Event: In March of 2020 The Women's Building hosted the Bloom event where 200 clients came to access services centered on wellness and connect with community organizations that empowered them. We raffled off a variety of prizes to our attendees and provided items to be donated. We partnered with 9 organizations such as Freenome and Haircuts with Heart to make this event possible. 2. Clothing Event: On June 19th The Women?s Building was able to organize our first social distancing event that provided clothing, toys, books, snacks and hygiene items to 180+ clients. This event came together after the conversations that our program?s staff had with some clients where many needs were identified, such as the need of essential items and clothing. Clients were paired with a runner that assisted them and walked them through the event always maintaining self distancing. The majority of clients were women and families and they were able to get hundreds of items. The Women's Building has partnerships with the following organizations: San Francisco Family Support Network, Computer Technology Network, University of San Francisco, Simply the Basics, Blossom, San Francisco Digital Equity office, San Francisco and Marin Food Banks, LIRS, Smart Money Coaching, Plaza 16 Coalition, Survivors Story Quilt Project , SF Department on the Status of Women, One Love Foundation, Alliance Girls, CALCASA (California Coalition Against Sexual Assault), SFLPEC, The SF Market, CivicMakers, MEDA and California Hunger Action Coalition. Housing - Advocacy work was integrated into The Women's Building programs to ensure that not only are we providing essential services but also to ensure that we are engaging, enriching and empowering our community members. 7 years, The Women's Building started with Housing Advocacy and specifically with joining a local, neighborhood coalition called Plaza 16 which focuses on ensuring that the Mission District does not experience further gentrification and displacement by fighting the construction "The Monster in the MissionX and creating the "Marvel in the Mission", 100% affordable housing on 1979. Plaza 16 is a grassro

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