Once again, San Francisco voters are being forced to have the final say in how San Francisco administers its homeless program.

Thankfully, very few of you have ever been homeless, and know little of what it is like to live in, or to work in the City’s homeless programs. Regrettably, this lack of knowledge is often exploited by those whose ambition for political power exceeds their compassion for their community.

San Francisco’s Local Homeless Coordinating Board is an official governmental body created through legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors and signed by the Mayor. The Local Board (an initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — HUD) was created to “ensure the accountability and oversight of the proposed system of programs, policies and services” of local homeless programs.

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July 27th : Well, here they come — the City that is. The City has again declared war on homeless people. In a pre-dawn raid on a homeless camp located in front of the Mission Creek pump station near Pac Bell Park they came. They came with police, dump trucks and bulldozers. At around three in the morning police drove into the camp on Berry Street with lights flashing, sirens, and barking orders to evacuate the site or be arrested over their P.A. system. Panicked residents scrambled to grab what possessions they could.

About a hundred people had been living there in a tent village for close to a year. The camp on Berry Street was home for those without a home. But it was more than that, there was a community. For the most part, people there got along, and respected one another. There was more unity there than in some of the City’s best neighborhoods. The site was basically clean and well run. Even when the press started to came down to the site a few days prior to the sweep, none of then could point out any real criticism of the conditions of the camp. Despite claims from Public Utilities Commission officials that they were not going to evacuate the people from the camp until a new fence arrived — giving the residents about two weeks to move from the location — instead the campers got no warning and were evicted from the camp.

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How many of you feel that you should be punished for past mistakes for the rest of your lives? Well that is exactly what is happening to over 92,000 women across the country whose mistake happened to involve drugs. I am one of those women. A few years ago I was convicted of felony drug possession. I’ve been clean and sober for over three years now and I am working hard to get my life back on track. I’ve paid for my crime via the criminal justice system but, according to a law passed in 1996, myself and countless others will continue to be punished for our mistakes through a lifetime ban of welfare benefits.

Section 115 of the Welfare Reform Act stipulates that individuals who have been convicted of a drug felony are ineligible for TANF or Foodstamp benefits. No other criminal offense, including rape and murder, prevents individuals from receiving financial assistance. The drug felony provision has an unquestionably disproportionate effect on women and children because pregnant women and women with minor children make up the overwhelming majority of TANF recipients. Incarcerated women are also more likely than incarcerated men to have a drug felony conviction.

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The baby grunted again…. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you.”

“Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cheshire Cat. “I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.” One day the Haight Ashbury Clinic’s dove logo and a link to its website appeared on CareNotCash.org. The next day, like the Cheshire Cat, they were gone — at the clinic’s request.

In a July 16 Chronicle op-ed promoting his Care Not Cash initiative, Supervisor Gavin Newsom wrote: “I have joined with medical professionals and organizations such as Dr. Pablo Stewart of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic… in support of comprehensive reform of how we provide care to homeless San Franciscans.” In his July 16 Political Notebook, “Winning Care Not Cash,” Samson Wong echoed the statement: “Newsom has constantly emphasized the medical community’s support [repeatedly citing] …Dr. Pablo Stewart of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics.”

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Un jornalero sale a la calle César Chávez a las seis de la mañana los siete días de la semana a esperar trabajo. Con cada camion que pasa, él espera que hoy le toque trabajar unas horas y que pueda mandarle dinero a su familia en su país. Pero además de tener que hacer un trabajo duro que nadie más hace, él tiene que resistir el abuso de parte de la policía y el esfuerzo de parte de la alcaldía a echarlo de la ciudad.

Los trabajadores han esperando trabajo sobre la César Chávez por más de treinta años. La César Chávez es una calle pública y todos tienen el derecho de estar sobre las aceras de las calles públicas. Todos los días, la policía ha estado corriendo a los trabajadores ilegalmente de las cuadras entre Hampshire y Bryant. Usando el pretexto del tráfico y la seguridad de los trabajadores, les han amenazado, les han dado multas, les han corrido de la calle y les han arrestado. También han estado dando multas a los empleadores. La policía está facilitando el plan de la alcaldía a correr los jornaleros de la César Chávez.

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Proposition N, financed by big business and brought forth by media darling Supervisor Newsom, would cut cash assistance to the poorest San Franciscans by 83%.

The powerful and elite are hinging the next Mayoral election on the backs of homeless people, hoping if they win, they can ride the hate wagon right into office. In the mean time they have put out more erroneous information, twisted facts, and outright lies then we have ever seen. These are meant to fool well intentioned voters into thinking that Prop N will actually help homeless people. Here are some of the highlights:

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Oscar y Lily son organizadores de una organización comunitaria llamada P.O.D.E.R. (Personas Organizando a Demandar Derechos Ambientales y Economicos).

Yo, un Boriqua de Nueva York, mientras que estaba trabajando con otra organización comunitaria llamada el Comité de Vivienda de San Pedro, tuve el honor de trabajar con estos dos compañeros. Oscar, un organizador en sus veintes y Lily, una organizadora joven me explicaron como las familias y la juventud del Distrito de la Misión han celebrado su resistencia en contra del aburguesamiento con una fiesta el 29 de junio en la cuadra entre 22 y 23 sobre la calle Shotwell.

Lily: Bueno, familias y jovenes de la manzana de las calles 23 y Shotwell, organizaron una fiesta, llamada “Todavía Estamos Aquí: Celebrando el Plan Popular.” Miembros de la comunidad difrutaron de una celebración por un día entero que incluyó actividades para los niños, información sobre servicios para familias, exhibiciones de arte, y presentaciones de música de salsa y hiphop de grupos locales.

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When President Bill Clinton ended “welfare as we know it” in 1996 one of the new Welfare Reform regulations was a five-year lifetime limit on benefits. What this means is that a family on welfare has only five years to go to school, receive skills training and find a good paying job before being cut off of all financial assistance provided under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. In California, the clock started ticking in January 1998.

Along with the hoops that a family has to jump through to stay on welfare, a family also has a life to live. Besides just being poor, families must also contend with many extenuating and unexpected circumstances such as raising children, incapacitation of a loved one and the length of time it may take to go through a treatment program. All of this can be difficult to manage within a five-year time limit. Some states have developed contingency plans for families reaching their time limits.

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This Fall, San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness (COH) is proudly celebrating its fifteenth anniversary. Now, as it was then, our mission is to build the capacity of homeless and low-income people to advocate and design programs and policies that will ensure humane exits from homelessness and poverty.

In 1987, the Coalition set out to establish a structure for a non-government-funded group that would focus on maintaining a forum where homeless people and social providers could come together and advocate on issues of social and economic justice. This has been accomplished by implementing an effective strategy that both addresses homeless people’s immediate needs and provides the necessary support in maintaining their ongoing participation in creating permanent solutions to homelessness.

The genesis of modern homelessness in the United States began in the late Seventies. What occurred was a systemic decline and shift in federal funding for housing subsidies away from low-income communities. Additionally, welfare reform and other policies and legislation have decimated benefits, social services, housing, and educational opportunities aimed at low-income communities. The result has been the largest population of homeless Americans since the Great Depression. Ill-prepared local governments responded with “band-aid” solutions: opening up shelters for homeless people for the first time in fifty years, and providing minimal, insufficient emergency services to mitigate extreme poverty and hunger.

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On August 6th the Senate Committee on Public Safety Heard a proposed bill to create a homeless courts pilot project: Assembly Bill 2899.

The purpose of this bill is to establish a four year homeless courts pilot project in Sacramento County, the City and County of San Francisco, and a third County to be selected by the Judicial Council. The intention of this legislation as stated by its author, Assemblywoman Carol Migden, is as follows: The Homeless Court Pilot Project (HCP) would help homeless people to dispose of certain criminal charges that could act as a barrier to accessing services. Relatively minor offenses would be addressed in a homeless court, which would be set up in the shelters, and hearings would be conducted on a monthly basis. It would offer alternative sentencing to these charges provided that the homeless individual plead guilty and waive their rights to a jury trial.

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