In San Francisco it is illegal to sleep on the sidewalk, illegal to sleep in the park, illegal to sleep in your car, and illegal to loiter. For a homeless person, this means it is illegal to sleep. Through this growing system of hostile City ordinances that target homeless people, combined with the widespread practice of illegal police profiling of homeless people and an ongoing imprisonment of homeless people in county and state facilities, the City of San Francisco has made it a crime to be homeless.

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“It’s stressful… These days, pretty stressful.” Floria Cartago (name changed) reflects on her family’s single-room occupancy (SRO) hotel room: “It’s stressful for the kids, too. The boys don’t have enough space to move around; they can’t jump because it makes noise for the neighbors downstairs.”

Judith Martínez reports similar problems: “The apartment is so small, and the kids want to get around, get out,” but the Martínezes have no yard at their SRO hotel.

In a 2001 resolution co-sponsored by then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom, families living in subadequate housing are included in the City of San Francisco’s official definition of homelessness. Recent research suggests that there are at least 2,040 such families—in shelters, on the streets, doubled up, or in SROs—in San Francisco. The Housing First for Families Campaign (HFF), composed of families such as the Martínezes and Cartagos, has made it its mission to end family homelessness in San Francisco by seeing housing created for every one of those families.

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Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse: After last year’s $600,000 million cuts to the Public Housing budget, Congress is slashing again: this time by 24%! Philadelphia has laid off 350 Housing Authority workers. San Diego plans to sell all of its public housing units. San Francisco has already lost its security services at senior/disabled buildings due to last year’s cuts… We can expect disastrous consequences unless Congress takes a stand.

A spending bill is expected to be passed by February 5, and we need our representatives to ensure that funding levels are increased in that “joint funding resolution.” Send a letter today at http://www.local-impact.org or learn more at http://www.hrcsf.org.

I arrived about an hour before the scheduled 10:00 a.m. start of this public forum, and watched the gathering crowd on the sidewalk in front of the Richmond Recreation Center exchange quiet pleasantries and self introductions with one another. In addition to the usual contingent of news media crews and uniformed officers of the SFPD, one could not miss the fact that there were a few chickens running about. But not without their heads and totally with a purpose!

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The Republicans may have lost control of Congress, but they still maintain a tight rein on homeless policy and the public perception of homelessness. The House and Senate can change and change again, but thanks to the tireless efforts of the White House, Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), the acknowledged “experts” on homelessness are still Phil Mangano with his traveling minstrel show, HUD with its Federally-funded studies, and White House award-winning NAEH with its compassionate conservative approach to “ending homelessness.”

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In all of the books that I have read, including for college, very few of them had the power to impact me the way this book did. Criminal of Poverty was written by Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, who did an exceptional job. This is an amazing story that sheds light on a subject that many people would rather simply ignore and forget: homelessness and poverty. This book opens our minds to the fact that not all people living in the streets are drug addicts or lazy alcoholics. The book also clears up the assumption that everybody chooses that lifestyle.

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It is very easy to view homelessness as an issue simply about the supply and demand of housing, but I believe that it is a more complicated wealth vs. poverty issue. Real estate and access to it is one of the most tangible, dramatic, and visible symptoms of the “equality gap” between wealthy people and poor people, in the US of A, these days. HUD has been an agency of the US Government that has supervised the redirection of a portion of America’s vast wealth towards the housing needs of poor people in America. However, HUD did not create its own wealth, nor was it ever structured to generate revenue: It was dependant on funding from the Federal budget. As the amount of wealth HUD was allowed to receive was reduced, HUD’s ability to house poor people was reduced. This is where, at the institutional level, contemporary mass homelessness began, and is allowed, by our elected leadership, to continue.

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Admit it: Despite yourself, the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness seduced you. What’s not to love? An eager, energetic, down-on-his-luck—and briefly homeless—father, Chris Gardner (Will Smith), takes his adorable five-year-old preschooler, Christopher (Jaden Smith), by the hand, guiding him on a dangerous odyssey through San Francisco’s labyrinthine streets, subways, and skyscrapers, and modeling for his little son the grit and determination that culminates in his final tearful realization of the American Dream.

Who wouldn’t be touched by the total loyalty and trust between Christopher and Chris: a father who pledges never to abandon his son as his father abandoned him, especially when played by actors who are actual father and son?

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