After intensive city-wide organizing campaigns, the Board of Supervisors passed what many have dubbed “a true people’s budget,” whereby over $28 million will be directed to poor people and their organizations. Veteran budget navigator Supervisor Chris Daly chaired the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors and ushered the other members of the committee through the maze. The other hard-working Committee members included Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Ross Mirkarimi, Bevan Dufty, and Sean Elsbernd. The committee spent weeks pruning the City budget of patronage, redundancy, and just plain unessential expenditures.

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Everyone loves San Francisco—even homeless people. Why else would we tolerate the way it treats us? To whatever extent we love San Francisco, our city does not love homeless people back. A recent study by the National Coalition for the Homeless has determined that our fair city of romance, beauty, art, culture, refined decadence, and above all tolerance is outright hostile to many of us. Those of us with any brain cells left don’t need a national research report to know we are catching hell here.

The National Coalition for the Homeless, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a national network of current and formerly homeless people, advocates, service providers, activists, and others committed to the common struggle of ending homelessness in America. Working in conjunction with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty—a collective of lawyers, law students, clerks, and volunteers—they have jointly and in collaboration with others published a series of articles on the criminalization of homelessness. The latest article published this year, “A Dream Denied: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities,” lists the 20 meanest cities to the homeless in America. Our fair San Francisco is on that list.

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Telling the truth, or at least getting the facts straight, has apparently become an increasingly arduous task for the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (US-ICH). The same Federal agency that in recent years has characterized deep cuts to the Section 8 program as a “reform” measure or described flat funding of annual homeless assistance grants as a “record investment,” has now gone international to assert the following in the Council’s June 28, 2006 newsletter:

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San Francisco has been an enlightened city for as long as we all can remember, but in the past several years we’ve developed an indifference and at times downright suspicion of homeless people.

In this climate, on a chilly and dreary evening, Donald Turner walked by the Civic Center Residence at the foot of McAllister Street in the heart of the city, on the gritty streets of the Tenderloin. He stopped to smoke a cigarette with me, taking a quick break in the doorway, before hurrying home to his bunk at MSC South. He was tired after working his shift as a volunteer at the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center.

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For the past 16 months, the Coalition on Homelessness’ Families and Immigrants workgroup (FAIM) has carried out a Housing First for Families Campaign to secure dependable and affordable housing for homeless families, regardless of immigration status or credit history. This July, FAIM celebrates the achievement of two of its three initial campaign goals as it continues to work with homeless families how to proceed towards the third. FAIM is dedicated to obeying the leadership of homeless families. To this end, FAIM is making significant efforts to engage and encourage homeless families to get involved in whatever ways they can.

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On Tuesday, July 17, 2006, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to enact the Minimum Wage Implementation and Enforcement Ordinance. The ordinance (sponsored by Supervisor Maxwell and co-sponsored by Supervisors Ammiano, Daly, Mirkarimi, and McGoldrick) expands the powers and duties of the City to implement and enforce the San Francisco Minimum Wage Ordinance. The Board voted unanimously 11-0 to pass the legislation. In a related action, the Board of Supervisors added four new wage enforcement staff positions and funding for a community-based worker outreach program to Mayor Newsom’s 2006—2007 City budget.

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Gentrification is the process by which Real Estate Management displaces less fortunate tenants in order to renovate units in the interest of aristocratic clientele. The word “to gentrify” is derived from the Norman (French-English) word “gentry.” The “noble gentry” descend from the Norman Conquest (of the British Isles) in the year 1066 A.C.E. The word “gentlemen” is of course another derivative. Chairman Mao Tsetung, father of Modern China (1893-1976) often makes references to “The Evil Gentry” in the English translation of The Selected Works of Chairman Mao. The famous Robin Hood (1280-1346) fought tenaciously against the Norman invaders of Britain. Below is a case history of Evil Gentrification:

The author of this article moved into the Flamingo Motel in Berkeley with one of his girlfriends on January 1, 2006. (The Flamingo Motel is located at 1761 University Ave. Berkeley, CA, 94703). They split the rent 50/50. (The rent was $1100/month. Each paid $550.) The couple paid the rent dutifully and on time from January, 2006 through April, 2006. In April, another lady decided to move in. She paid one third of the rent, giving the author a sixth and the other lady a sixth. The Evil Gentry Manager at first raised no objection. Then, in the middle of April, he declared eviction of the new lady after all of her money was depleted. The eviction of the third person caused a reaction/reverberation which led to all three of the tenants’ being forced to sell back the remainder of April. By this time the author and his main girlfriend had established legal residence. They couldn’t leave the new lady strapped with nothing. As they had depleted their unemployment insurance (SSI) funds as well, they were forced (yes, forced) to acquiesce to the managers’ oppressive pressure and sell back the remainder of April. (The author of this article signed “under protest!”)

But the Evil Gentry didn’t stop here: Every tenant was forced out of the Flamingo Motel, including the maid, Anabelle. What’s worse, the author’s unemployment entitlements have stopped arriving at the address. The Robber Barons are breaking the New Deal. Death to the Evil Gentry!

Note: (For more information on the historical Robin Hood, please refer to the book Mysteries of the Unexplained.)