Newsom for Mayor? The Facts You Requested or What the Chronicle Chose NOT to Tell You
The mayoral election in November finds San Francisco at a crossroads: is Willie Brown (pro-business, no-homeless strategy) to be succeeded by Gavin Newsom (pro probusiness, tough on homelessness) or a more leftleaning candidate like Tom Ammiano, Angela Alioto, or Mat Gonzalez? So far, Newsom is leading in the polls, mostly because of two (partly overlapping) campaign promises: 1) He will invigorate the City’s economy. 2) He will alleviate the City’s homeless problem.
Newsom understands that the key to the mayor’s office lies in presenting a silver bullet for homelessness. As for how effectively “Mayor Newsom” would tackle the problem, voters should closely examine the solutions he has so far proposed. For at the end of the day, things will hardly get better than the promises of the campaign.
EULOGY FOR A BAD IDEA
To show San Franciscans he means business, Newsom introduced “Care not Cash,” an initiative designed to cut General Assistance money (GA). It is noteworthy that Care not Cash is the only real homelessness idea Newsom has so far presented — an idea which, in his own words, “won’t end homelessness,” and which only partly affects homeless people (no more than 25% percent of GA recipients are homeless).
The Care not Cash campaign began with lies small and large. “The New England Journal of Medicine has found that cash-only systems cost lives.” This claim was at the heart of Newsom’s conviction that welfare payments equal drug abuse enabling. However, the prestigious Journal had never said such a thing, and it promptly sent Newsom a “cease and desist” letter threatening legal action. Other “expert research” cited by the campaign turned out to be conveniently distorted as well.
In conjunction with the Chronicle, Newsom continued to equate welfare recipients with homeless drug users and freeloaders. He neglected to mention that the money he wanted to slash is actually pay for performed work, and that many GA recipients are elderly or disabled.
Leaving them with $59 a month, as proposed, would have actually driven more people into homelessness. But as the reality of welfare is too complex for a smooth campaign, Newsom deliberately kept things simple: Taking money from junkies and moochers is so much easier to support.
Ironically, once Care not Cash had been struck down in court, the Chronicle suddenly discovered welfare recipients who spend their money on food and rent (the paper also admitted that no more than 50% of homeless people are substance abusers).
Such deception aside, the main reason why a judge threw out the measure was another: Newsom’s approach was simply unlawful. He bypassed the Board of Supervisors (knowing full well they would notice the measure’s flaws) and instead courted voters with a misleading campaign.
That’s how you get things done in a democracy. Instead of asking for the judge’s head, people should rather look at how Newsom treats his supporters: Voters were duped, and a slew of donors was talked into paying handsomely for a measure that Newsom should have known was illegal. If I were part of his business lobby, I’d have a serious talk with the man who would be mayor.
Still, the Chronicle screamed bloody murder,accusing the supervisors of ignoring the will of the voters and doing nothing to fight homelessness.
The latter accusation is nonsense: Both Chris Daly and Tom Ammiano have presented detailed homelessness strategies, and the Board itself passed the “Continuum of Care,” an elaborate five-year homeless plan. Unfortunately, since these ideas did not come from Newsom, the Chronicle all but ignored them.
As for the will of the voters, the Supervisors had the advantage of looking closely at Care not Cash — and they found the measure impossible to implement. Budget Analyst Harvey Rose said that the funds gained by slashing GA would never suffice to pay for Newsom’s “guaranteed services.” In fact, as a result of Care not Cash, homeless people who don’t receive welfare checks would have been booted from their shelter beds. Like the Supes, I fail to see how such a shelter shuffle would alleviate homelessness.
Finally, Newsom claimed that Care not Cash was “…a step that has proven itself in the cities of Chicago and New York and the counties of Alameda and San Mateo.” In reality, when Newsom requested Bay Area information from the Office of the Legislative Analyst, he was told that there was insufficient evidence that such plans have worked. Instead, the response said that Care not Cash “…may lead to ineffective use of public resources, or to punitive withdrawal of funds that are desperately needed.” The “success stories” of Chicago and New York are even bleaker: According to the University of Chicago, 130,000 to 166,000 men, women, and children become homeless each year in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. In New York, the number of people in the shelter system has grown since 1998 from 23,000 to 35,968. NYC’s budget for homeless services in FY2000 was a whopping $444 million dollars.
It is not the Supervisor’s fault if Newsom’s claims turn out to be false. At closer inspection, Care not Cash proved to be bad policy, marked by ignorance of the facts and remarkable contempt for the poor. The complete ineffectiveness of his signature measure shows that Newsom is a long way from understanding, let alone solving, homelessness. Whatever he wants voters to believe, verifiable facts continue to contradict his campaign rhetoric.
WHAT NEWSOM WILL BRING THE CITY
Let’s face it: Newsom’s self-styled air of compassion has always been sheer veneer. His politics are extremely conservative (Newsom publicly supported war in Iraq) and his idea of care is mainly to move the homeless out of sight.
For at the end of the day, it is really about one thing: “Cleaning up” San Francisco. Many citizens suffer from compassion fatigue, and all they want is for the mess on the streets to go away. If the homeless get screwed in the process, it’ll be considered mere collateral damage. Also, powerful business interests demand that the City shape up for tourists, which is precisely what downtown pays Newsom to do.
Of course, business interests and public outrage are valid concerns that need to be addressed. However, given Newsom’s record of incompetence in regard to homeless issues, voters shouldn’t expect any real change. After all, Newsom is the handpicked successor of Willie Brown, who became a lame duck mayor two weeks after his re-election (Not once did I see the Chronicle lament Brown’s inactivity — I wonder why?). While a mayor can always “clean up” a city — it’s been done in New York — bigger shelters and relentless police clampdowns won’t make the poor simply evaporate.
The National Conference of Mayors warned last year that demand for shelter and food has gone up all over the country. What we see is a national, systemic crisis, not an increase in junkies and moochers. San Francisco can’t afford any more short-sighted, band-aid solutions: It will come back to haunt us like it’s now coming back to haunt New York City.
Personally, I’d rather stand every week at Tom Ammianno’s door and complain, knowing that the mayor strives for real solutions, than to have Gavin Newsom sweep the streets with a huge, undiscriminating broom, enforcing counter-productive “tough love,” doing nothing to really address the problem. Newsom’s approach will be a lot like ex-mayor Jordan’s: A heavy-handed clampdown to make homeless people go away. Ask yourself how effective Frank Jordan was (“Matrix” anyone?), and if his “toughness” helped San Francisco.
San Francisco means different things to different people, and the November 4th election will show what the majority wants. But should you support Gavin Newsom, whatever your reasons may be, DO NOT expect homelessness to get any better. With Newsom as mayor, we are guaranteed to have the same discussion four years from now — only the mess on the streets will be worse.
Chester