First do no harm.
Hippocrates
Greek physician, born 460 B.C.

First do no harm is the central tenet of the Hippocratic oath, the words with which the founder of modern medicine defined his craft. Hippocrates held that the body should be treated rationally and as a whole, rejecting the belief common to his time, that illness was the result of evil spirits and disfavor of the gods.

Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition. 2000

A common fallacy is to equate the Hippocratic oath with the word hypocrisy. When it comes to the most prevalent ways in which the oft-twinned (most frequently in a joined-at-the-hip kind of way) topics of substance abuse and mental health are viewed—and, more importantly, dealt with—it’s easy to see how the error came into being.

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Well, I’m sorry. There’s just no money left in the Section 8 program. The words sliced into my head slowly, like a dull knife wielded by a murderer without proper tools.

“But that will render my family homeless within three months,” I started to say, but I couldn’t quite listen to the response—something about how I waited too long to find a place. Families are given 90 days to find a landlord who will take the voucher, which in my case fell right in between the high-risk birth of my son and my mom getting a very serious heart condition. Therefore, I was unofficially dropped off the program and told my chances at reinstatement were slim.

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For there is no such thing in economic growth which is
not, at the same time, growth or change of a culture;
and the growth of social consciousness, can never, in
the last analysis, be planned.
E.P. Thompson

Ending homelessness through local plans has become the watchword in Washington, DC and elsewhere, but paradoxically, there is a rather revealing and ongoing debate over what homelessness even is, let alone how to end it. For its part, the Bush Administration has been quite deliberate in promoting an understanding of homelessness as the “most visible,” and has accordingly prioritized funding and policies reflecting this limited analysis.

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Again, while mining the STREET SHEET catalogue for a 15th Annivesary retrospective article, we are struck by how much our current raft of homeless “reforms” echo the failed policies of Mayors past. This article from the June ‘92 SHEET eerily forecasts the “innovations” of our current mayor’s homeless policy. And today we’re all well aware of former mayor Jordan’s stellar political career since he was voted from office after one term.

Mayor Gavin Newsom should be paying attention, because he can safely rely on the fact that we will.

On May 4, Mayor Jordan issued the first indication of his homeless policy at a speech before the Salvation Army. Jordan’s speech is more noteworthy for what it omits than what it contains. It offers no discussion of urban poverty, of why so many people are homeless at this place and point in time. There is no mention of the need for, or availability of, permanent housing, vocational and economic development, health care, education, or social services. Most strikingly, Jordan’s speech makes no reference to his own ‘92-’93 city budget, which proposes to eliminate existing homeless programs (Hotline Hotel, Homeless Referrals, and health services).

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Low-income means living on the edge. My apartment rent creeps steadily upward while my name has stagnated on the waiting list for Section 8 housing over the last three years. A crisis and I could end up on the streets again. I’ve been there. It was traumatic and frightening. Daily, countless others find themselves in similar devastating circumstances as the gap grows between those who have their basic human needs met and those who do not. In the 2004 elections, we have an opportunity to turn the tide with our votes.

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In God’s eyes we are all created equal, and yet, federal and state legislative bodies ignore this fact as they continue to cut vital programs for housing, health care, child welfare and education. The poor are being cast aside. Over time, the vote has been denied to the poor and people of color in this country by the enactment of laws requiring land ownership, literacy, and most recently, a permanent address. Many continue to be silenced. According to our own Declaration of Independence, governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” As citizens of this country, the government’s powers are derived from you and me. When we exercise our right to vote, we refuse to consent to a government that supports unequal treatment of its citizens.

In the Gettysburg Address in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared that, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” You and I are the people to which this government must answer. It is our duty to hold our government and ourselves accountable to acting in the manner of a compassionate, caring nation that does not perish from the earth. We can do this in part with our vote.

For many years, I didn’t vote. I can’t say that my one vote would have made a difference in any particular political race. The fact remains, however, that I didn’t take advantage of the one tool most readily available to me in making my voice heard by my government. For the last twenty years, I continue to live on the edge, but I vote, even when the odds are against the candidate of my choice, even when it feels pointless. Because I am poor, I sometimes feels as if nothing I have to say or can do is of any consequence in this society. For that reason alone, it is imperative that I vote, for when I vote, I choose hope over despair. When I vote, I am active instead of passive. We need to participate in the political process. Politics in and of itself is not a bad thing. It is the way we order ourselves as a society. We must elect politicians willing to work towards and equitable distribution of resources.

Vote—neither you nor I can change the system alone. Together we can!

Where to begin? There are so many “stories” to tell—not just the brief, glib patter used by the everyday handout hustler, but all the back stories that lie behind it, the interrelationships and interactions with others. The problem, though, is that so many of these stories have been told. And still we have homelessness; still we have panhandling.

So what’s going on here? What are we not doing? Because, clearly, we’re not doing something.

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Hace 12 años que nació en el sótano del MSC South o Refugio del Sur de la Market, una agrupación fundada por un grupo de inmigrantes latinos cansados de tantos maltratos por parte del personal de los refugios. Este grupo empezó a dar apoyo y atención a los inmigrantes.

Asi nació el proyecto AYUDA que posteriormente cambió el nombre a Hogares Sin Barreras (HSB) y que como Parte de la Coalición de Desamparados de San Francisco sigue trabajando con la comunidad latina, en especial a los desamparados y familias que usan el sistema de refugios de la ciudad. A lo largo de los años HSB se ha ganado el reconocimiento de la comunidad como defensor de los derechos de los Latinos que por diferentes razones tienen que hacer uso de los refugios. HSB ha creado una fuerte relación con los vecinos de la Mission. Y se han creado lazos con otras organizaciones para hacer frente a las necesidades cada vez más grandes de los desamparados latinos.

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