[3] Homes Not Jails does public actions as well as legislative advocacy and squatting (occupying empty buildings for free).
Homes Not Jails has also done and assisted with hundreds of "covert" squats in which vacant buildings are broken into so that people in need of housing can move in.
In addition to traditional homeless advocacy, Homes Not Jails has used squatting as a tactic since its first public takeover.
On Thanksgiving Day, shortly after this first occupation, the group held a rally and marched to another building at 250 Taylor Street, and publicly occupied it.
[2] San Francisco Supervisor Angela Alioto introduced legislation in 2004 sponsored by Homes Not Jails that would allow the city to seize abandoned buildings and give them to nonprofit housing groups; these could employ homeless people to repair and live in them.