Safe and Healthy Housing
Our Safe and Healthy Housing practice model is the foundation of our year round home repair and modification work. Our home repair programs focus on increasing the safety and mobility of seniors and neighbors with disabilities, preserving affordable housing for low income families, and reducing isolation and displacement.
25 Safe and Healthy Housing Priorities
Safe and Healthy Housing is the foundation of our home repair work, targeting significant safety and health hazards based on the Eight Principles of Healthy Homes— keep it dry, clean, pest-free, safe, contaminant-free, well-ventilated, maintained and thermally controlled. Our 25 Health and Safety Priorities target significant health and safety hazards in homes and provide a common framework to complete comprehensive in-home assessments and set repair objectives based on each homeowner’s special needs and health status. Through critical home repairs and home modifications in underserved communities, we address the connection between health and housing, while preserving the existing affordable housing landscape across San Francisco. To expand our work, we partner with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) on this initiative to provide Critical Repairs that helps us expand our reach and depth of work by addressing accessibility, structural repairs, and fall prevention installations.
Disaster Preparedness and Wellness Calls
RTSF has served 150 low income households since December 2020 with Disaster Preparedness Safety Kits, and provided weekly Wellness Calls to hundreds of families throughout and in the aftermath of COVID-19. This work addresses emerging needs central to safety and care, decreasing isolation and sharing critical resources, and ensuring families and neighbors are prepared for future disasters such as earthquakes – providing supplies, security, safety and education that is often neglected to low-income households, specifically those in brown and black communities. Our Safety Kits contain over $100 worth of basic safety supplies, including a Red Cross First Aid Kit, emergency radio, flashlight, space blanket, soap, canned foods, and more, to ensure that all San Francisco are prepared for an earthquake or other disaster.
Equity in Energy Efficiency
Part of our work toward thriving communities is offering appliance upgrades to low income households. We are committed to making energy efficiency accessible to all neighbors with upgrades that will reduce their environmental impact, save them money with reduced energy bills, and improve air quality. Installing adequate and quality ventilation and appliances helps alleviate many common household health problems, improving air quality in the home is critical to protecting many of our neighbors in fragile health.
Community Build Days
Community Build Days bring community partners and volunteers together to revitalize and repair homes and community spaces. We host two large volunteer efforts per year; National Rebuilding Month in April focuses on projects supporting low-income homes, and our Fall effort focuses on projects at community spaces and facilities.
National Rebuilding Month
A city and nation-wide renovation effort in April that engages the community to provide repairs and improvements that increase the safety and comfort of income-qualified neighbors and families.
She Builds
A unique effort to empower and enrich female-led and centered organizations and support women staying safe in their homes and communities. This program is run and completed entirely by women, focused on engaging and supporting a strong network of women in the trades in the Bay Area. She Builds promotes women supporting women in their communities and is held during National Rebuilding Month in April.
Fall Community Build Day
An opportunity for community members and partners to support a community space, garden, park, or facility with projects that create lasting and impactful renovations and upgrades to an underserved neighborhood. These projects are focused in an intentionally targeted community and work to build resiliency and connectedness with neighbors across San Francisco.