Accountability Workshops: how we’ll know what to build
This was originally published on December 19, 2023.
Last November, we talked about the Office of Innovation’s focus on one of Mayor Breed’s top priorities: “Accountability in the Homelessness Response System.”
We’ve supported HSH’s Scattered Sites program, and are now deep in a project to integrate the data collected by the City’s Street Response Teams.
But what does all this have to do with “accountability”?
Performance measurement is one of the i-Team’s core values. And if we’re going to measure program performance in the City’s response to homelessness, we need to tell the public about it.
How should we communicate to the public?
Collaboration is another of our core values. If we are going to produce something for someone, we should probably ask them about it, right?
So instead of sitting in our ivory tower and simply producing another dashboard with vague numbers, we know that we need to talk to the people of San Francisco.
Workshops and Surveys
Our public engagement efforts began earlier this year, and are broken into two categories:
- Community Workshops
- In-person surveys at public libraries
Our goal is to speak with at least 1,000 San Franciscans and cover each of the City’s eleven Supervisor Districts.
What are we looking for
In this process, we want to answer two main questions:
- What is accountability to you?
- How can we best tell you that story for the City’s homelessness response?
At the end of this effort, we will build [something! A website? A billboard? Who knows?!!!] that tells residents and stakeholders in San Francisco:
- What the City is doing to address homelessness (likely focused on specific elements of the City’s response),
- What the City is trying to accomplish, and
- How the City is doing in its efforts
Our tools
Community engagement does NOT need to be an expensive process. Here’s what we’re using:
- Sticky notes
- Markers
- Poster boards
- Your advice and opinions
(Also, Miro boards have been really helpful as a digital whiteboarding tool)
How it’s going
We’ve already hosted 7 workshops and tabled at libraries in 6 of the City’s Supervisor Districts.
Workshops have been hosted by a diverse set of groups:
- Tenants associations
- Merchants associations
- Community members at a YMCA
- And more
We’ve even had one Supervisor participate!
Perhaps most importantly, we’re extremely grateful to the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA) for their help ensuring that everyone can participate regardless of what language they speak.
Each workshop moves through a progression of questions (each followed by a brief discussion), followed by direct feedback on some of the websites that the City currently uses to communicate homelessness response efforts.
Each attendee fills out answers, culminating in a robust constellation of feedback:
We then transcribe these answers and discussion into Miro.
Each individual session undoubtedly yields interesting insights. But it’s the combination of feedback from all the sessions that illuminates the critical themes that will guide our work.
Library surveys are a condensed version of the workshops.
We don’t quite have the time to engage in lengthy discussions (well, we do but most people at the library don’t!), so instead we ask for quick written responses to three questions:
- Describe the City’s repsonse to homelessness in one word
- Tell us what “progress” looks like to you
- Tell us what “accountability” means to you
What’s next?
Over the next six months, we’ll continue to go to Branch Libraries and facilitate formal workshops.
Want to host or participate in a workshop? Email Stephen Sherrill at stephen.sherrill@sfgov!
