Don’t say that a hurricane destroyed New Orleans. Hurricanes do not drown cities.
It was a “perfect storm” of a different kind that put that great city underwater: Bush-era neglect of our national infrastructure, combined with runaway global warming and a deep contempt for poor African-Americans.
There are people in our community who are clearly in need of mental health services. In San Francisco we are fortunate in that we have a number of public health clinics where people can obtain treatment and assistance with their distress. Many homeless and poor people find these services-which include case management, therapy, medications, residential treatment-accessible and useful. There are times however when consumers (people who are utilizing mental health services) are dissatisfied with the treatment they are receiving from the city’s mental health system.
However, when consumers need to make a complaint, there is no formal representation or advocacy for them in the current set-up. (more…)
On August 29, Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophic storm those of us who live in New Orleans had long feared, made a direct hit on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana. Communities stretching from Louisiana to Florida suffered severe damage from high winds, storm surge, and subsequent flooding. As the images from this disaster have been broadcast around the world and have touched millions of hearts, we are reminded of the hundreds of thousands of people have lost everything and are now hungry, homeless, out of work, and without health care.
There are serious problems with the way seniors, immigrants and the terminally ill are released from respite beds. It has come to the attention of the Coalition on Homelessness that sick people recovering from various things are being displaced. Reports that people from the respite have been returned to the streets with no exit plans or places to go.
Hay serios problemas afectando como personas mayores inmigrantes y enfermos terminales se ven dados de alta de las camas de reposo. Nos ha llegado información de que personas con serias enfermedades están siendo desplazadas y se están encontrando en la calle, sin recursos y sin ningún lugar que les acoja.
About one year ago, a group of business owners, property owners, residents and representatives of the Coalition on Homelessness began meeting to discuss a proposed Community Benefit District (CBD) in the Tenderloin.
On August 31, 2005, San Francisco’s Ten Year Plan Implementation Council held its first public hearing since the plan was completed in 2004. The purpose of the council is to oversee the implementation of the plan. The purpose of the plan is to lay out how San Francisco is going to abolish chronic homelessness over the next ten years. The purpose of the hearing? To weigh in on how San Francisco is faring in this implementation phase.
Where are our Federal and State funds going when the President says, “No child left behind”? We have all these unused housing units that non-profits could be receiving as “set-asides” to house us low-income people. All the resources needed to expedite the process are there and not happening. We are only spoken to at voting time, but spoken around with all the Catch 22s. You know, the addendums and amendments put in place to ensure the containment of our poverty-formulas basically designed for us to be counted strictly for political purposes and nothing else.
The town council had enough of vagrants, beggars, and drunks. So it passed some laws. First, it ordered that foreign vagrants not be allowed to stay in the city for more than three days. Then, it required that indigenous beggars obtain a license from the city government. Finally, it hired police inspectors to patrol the streets.
I have been investigating now for quite some time why it is so hard for indigent defendants in San Francisco to obtain legal representation when facing an eviction.
I have found that we are paying over 2.1 million annually to a number of organizations of which-according to city hall-was providing indigent representation.
