Last spring, the mainstream news about San Francisco’s admittedly severe and shameful homelessness problem was decidedly upbeat. The focus was on the City’s newly adopted “Housing First” approach, with its emphasis on immediate housing for the most visible, “chronically homeless” people. The Mayor seemed both concerned and effective. The City had a task force, keys to hotel rooms were distributed to much fanfare, and Project Homeless Connect was rallying increasing corporate and individual support for the cause amid a flurry of media acclaim.

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As I watched people dying on national television in the days following the Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee breakage, I realized that the problems were far larger than the storm itself or the government’s absolute failure to respond effectively. The people left behind were living in abject financial poverty, too poor to get out of town, too poor to warrant proper upkeep of the levees that protected them, too poor to be worthy of rescue by a system that had built its wealth on their backs. With the military busy making the world safe for oil companies by killing poor people overseas, there weren’t even enough troops left at home to save seniors from rooftops.

I chose to volunteer with the Red Cross (not the band), because they paid for airfare, lodging and expenses. I signed up, took a one-day training and found out I could be called at any time in the next few weeks to be deployed within 48 hours. One month later, my cell phone rang. I kissed my pregnant wife, Sarah Beth, and my son, Day, goodbye and on Thursday, October 6th I left for Baton Rouge.

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On October 20, the Senate passed an annual spending bill for the Departments of Transportation, Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Next up, the Senate and House will negotiate differences between their two versions of the bill. Under the Senate bill, the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program would receive $15.6 billion, which is $100 million below the House level and $870 million above the 2005 funding.

While extreme budget cuts and radical changes to the voucher program continue to be successfully thwarted, a disturbing trend of Congress failing to fund any new vouchers persists. It is perhaps hard to imagine, but President Gerald Ford’s request for over 500,000 new vouchers represent a high water mark for the program.

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Common Ground Collective has called a National Caravan to arrive in New Orleans on November 20th and work over the week of Thanksgiving until November 27th.

What: Common Ground wants 300 volunteers from all around the country to converge in New Orleans with donated funds and building & cleaning supplies. Volunteers will work on a particular section of the 9th Ward picking up yard debris, cleaning the streets, tarping rooftops, etc.

Why: The poor neighborhoods of the city don’t have electricity and are not being cleaned up or repaired, while the French Quarter and other predominantly white areas are relatively clean and quite functional.

Who: We need volunteers with specific skills: electricians, mechanics, plumbers, mold abaters, roofers, construction workers, carpenters, tree workers, lawyers, cooks -and people who can train other volunteers and residents in these skills.

How you can help: Go to New Orleans and work. Donate $$$$. Donate supplies. Help spread the word.

To get plugged-in: Please email sfcaravan@mutualaid.org or call (707) 644-6575

We seemed not to have learned much since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous dictum “What we have to fear is fear itself.” The fear factor is our nemesis. The Bush administration uses it well. But it is not confined to the Bush administration. Check out our own fire fighters union which put Proposition F on the ballot. Their contention is that if not all firehouses are not open 24/7 we are doomed to a fiery inferno. What they failed to note is that ”…we have 42 firehouses budgeted with up to 1500 firefighters, to put out an average of only one working fire a day.” (more…)

On November 15, 2005, everyone needs to make a decision about prescription drug coverage. If you don’t use a lot of prescription drugs now, you still need to make a decision!

Part D of Medicare’s new prescription drug coverage is NOT just for seniors! It impacts all consumers on Medicare, all government income programs, including Medi-Cal and the limited-means sector. Know this: your costs WILL vary depending on your financial condition and which drug plan you choose.

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El pasado día 20 de octubre, familias sin vivienda de San Francisco se concentraron frente al ayuntamiento para demandar del alcalde Newsom soluciones para el problema de la falta de vivienda. En una de las ciudades más ricas del mundo tenemos suficientes familias desamparadas para llenar un pueblo.

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The Coalition on Homelessness works for and with homeless people to defend their basic human rights and to create a permanent end to homelessness. On a daily basis homeless people have to deal with civil and human rights abuses in addition to the standard difficulties of living on the streets. Recently the Coalition has been hearing reports of repeated abuse from individual San Francisco Police officers directed at homeless people.

Weekly, the Civil Rights Department of the Coalition conducts “street watches” where volunteers and staff members go into the streets to interview homeless people and to build relationships of trust between our homeless non profit organizations, business and housed residents. The purpose is to educate the public about the laws regarding our rights as community members in San Francisco and also to educate people about the constant efforts of the police to criminalize ordinary activities of daily survival of those who are forced to live on our streets. We then work together with those who are affected by different laws, legislation and policies to find possible solutions. It is in this forum that we were informed of the police abuse.

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S200enator Reed (Democrat, Rhode Island), along with 13 cosponsors, has introduced legislation that will reauthorize the Federal funding for McKinney, at $1.6 billion for fiscal year 2006—the proposed bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.

Since it was enacted in 1987, the McKinney Act has comprised the largest chunk of federal money spent on homelessness. The main components of the bill are presented below, highlighting the government agencies and programs that will be affected. The reauthorization bill replaces what local communities currently call their Local Homeless Coordination Boards – the groups charged with overseeing federal monies for the development and implementation of housing and services for homeless people—with what will be referred to as collaborative applicants (CAs). It also increases funding for the Interagency Council on Homelessness, as well as broadens its role.

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