SELF HELP CENTER’S UNCERTAIN FUTURE
I have seen much of the budget process, but since space is limited, I have picked one program that is facing the present budget crunch. Watching group after group that come to City Hall asking that their budget or program not be slashed is a sad affair. The truth is that an argument could be made for all of them.
While thinking of the budget process, my mind wanders to our present Mayor’s re-election campaign. All those high salaried special assistants he hired took leaves of absences to work on his campaign. Somehow, the City was not forced to declare a state of crisis or emergency. In fact, the City went on with its business without so much as a burp. That has been our Mayor’s MO; in-your-face favoritism and overspending.
In a budget surplus situation, despite opposition, he could and did get away with it. In a budget deficit climate he’s counting on the public’s short memory. That is the point of this article, to remind people of some of the political spending that, if better managed, could have helped with some of our budget woes. What’s really troubling is that this mismanagement is still going on, and the budget cuts are being dumped on the backs of the poor. This isn’t really surprising with Brown’s administration and in today’s political arena; where money means more than people or their vote.
According to Jackie Jenks, Executive Director of Central City Hospitality House, there are two budget cut possibilities. One would cut $100,000 from the Tenderloin Self-Help Center’s grant. The result of that would be the elimination of three staff positions and a decrease in hours of operation from 12 hours a day to 8 hours a day. The Center would not be open during critical early morning and evening hours, thus depriving access to bathrooms, telephones, crisis intervention counseling, and other services to a population that needs those services.
The other budget cut scenario is even more dire. Besides the $100,000 cut, the Center’s entire grant allocation would be eliminated. This would close the center’s doors. 10,000 people a year (unduplicated clients) currently use the Center.
ITEM: In a budget deficit economy, the SF Chronicle breaks a story about a $25,000 per month ($275/hr.) Willie Brown-recommended consultant at SFO. After (!) the story breaks, they cut the consultant back to $10,000 a month (but still at $275/hr.). Surprisingly, airport operations continue as if nothing happened.
According to Elana Galante, CCHH’s Harm Reduction Counselor/Educator, closing the Self Help Center would probably end the whole program because “Without the support of this infrastructure, the whole of Hospitality House might crumble. There would be no infrastructure to support the Arts Program, the Dorm, or the Employment Program.”
Galante says it would be a real tragedy if Central City Hospitality House were to go away. It’s a piece of San Francisco lore. It was the first drop-in center in the city. This was the first homeless shelter in the city.
“This agency has always been about empowering people in the community and empowering its program’s participants. People who come here have been through all types of programs, what we do differently is give people an opportunity to re-invest in life. Take this away and it will give a whole lot of people a reason to give up.”
ITEM: A billion dollars in Medi-Cal cuts as Governor Gray Davis scrambles to deal with the budget deficit. Earlier it was announced that prison guards, the darling donors of his election campaign, would receive a billion dollar pay increase over a several years. Their budget increased even though the prison population is going down.
According to LS Wilson of Hospitality House’s Board of Directors, Hospitality House provides “grassroots services” in the Tenderloin. “We serve hundreds of people a day from all walks of life. If the center is closed due to these budget cuts those people that we serve are going to be out on the street. On the one hand we’re saying that we want to help people out of homelessness, and on the other hand with these cuts we’re going to put people out on the streets. I feel that with Central City Hospitality House or any other grassroots service providers our policy makers should sit down with these agencies when they sit down at the table to make decisions for people that they know absolutely nothing about. They’re looking at a bunch of paperwork.”
Wilson continued, “In order to make a difference, you need to talk to the people who are going to be affected by the decisions that are going to be made, and you need to include the people that are working with the people who are going to be affected. In order to make something work, you have to touch base with the source; you don’t just make rules and regulations and try to criminalize people or to make life so hard for them and think that they’re going to leave, that’s just not going to happen. Where are they going to go?”
ITEM: Willie Brown’s appointee Tammy Haygood, in a budget deficit climate, blatantly overspends her budget by 5.6 million dollars. Some of it was spent on several P.R. consultants (at $225/hr.) to repair her image after numerous embarrassing election-related incidents.
According to Allison Lum, another Hospitality House board member, “They’ve been talking about getting a music space together in the basement. It’s ideas and action like this that give homeless and low income people the truth that they are valued members of our society and the neighborhood that they live in. The Art Center does that now, and that’s a different way of dealing with people. Other service providers operate in a mentality that says, ‘I’m a service provider, you need services, I’ll give them to you — but only under my conditions’. The difference is that when you give services that empower people, those people regain their sense of being a valued member of the community. I think it’s pretty hypocritical to realize that the Self Help Center is a model to be replicated, and at the same time consider cutting its budget 100%. That really doesn’t make any sense.”
ITEM: One week after a favorable ruling on a building code item, California pipefitters gives Gray Davis a quarter million dollars to his re-election campaign. When I write for STREET SHEET I always have trouble trying to figure out who my readers are. I talk to every single vendor I see on the street, and when I tell them that I wrote such and such an article, they always know what I’m talking about. So, I know that they’re reading it. I know advocates buy and read it. It’s the others I’m not sure about.
Do they buy it as an act of kindness and then throw it out? I don’t know. I guess my point is that poor folks and advocates are like preaching to the choir; they already know what I’m trying to say. Take a hard look at what this article is trying to convey — that there is another way, and it’s a better way. Our government has worked and can work again.
Imagine that.
Gross