Report from the Richmond: The Mayor’s “Townhall” Meeting on Homelessness
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!
This reporter did not attempt to learn the identities of these five individuals dressed in bright yellow feathered chicken costumes; yet they made themselves plain enough as they clucked their message and handed out printed materials to all those interested.
It seems the “chickens” were there to get their message across: in their judgment, Mayor Newsom is “terrified to face real political debate,” and is “utterly unwilling to engage in any public discussion whose outcome isn’t established in advance.” It is commonly held that this type of public forum/discussion is valuable, but that it is equally valuable for our Mayor to heed the majority of his public when it has urged that he also engage in a monthly meeting with our Board of Supervisors to discuss important City policy with them.
So, following his rejection of the will of the San Francisco voters by refusing to comply with the passed Proposition I, our Mayor has been dubbed: “Mayor Chicken!”
The meeting convened at around 10:15 a.m. inside in front of the public. Mayor Newsom’s five-member panel consisted of the following persons:
Ms. Angela Alioto: Chair, 10-Year Planning Council to End Homelessness
Father John Hardin: Executive Director, Saint Anthony’s Foundation
Mr. Ron Miguel: President, Planning Association of the Richmond
Mr. Ken Reggio: Executive Director, Episcopal Community Services
Mr. Trent Rhorer: Executive Director, Human Services Agency
After the welcoming remarks made by the Mayor, Mr. Yomi Agunbiade (General Manager, Department of Recreation and Parks) offered an update on the activities undertaken during the past three months to clean up Golden Gate Park and the simultaneous effort taken to offer housing alternatives to the contingent of homeless folk found living in more or less permanent encampments throughout the Golden Gate Park area.
Mr. Agunbiade’s report to the public was interesting in that emphasis was placed on the number of homeless folk placed in situations of alternative housing (80 such individuals), the number of homeless folk found living throughout the Golden Gate Park area that took advantage of free bus tickets and money for food as they traveled elsewhere (31 such individuals), and the sheer tonnage of debris cleared out of areas within the Golden Gate Park—as if there might be some sort of correlation between those 111 encamped homeless folk found living in Golden Gate Park and the “thousands of pounds of debris” removed! (Personally, I found that kind of hard to accept.)
In related remarks, Mayor Newsom offered the information that an “underground encampment” had been unearthed that was found to have had wiring for electricity and “computers up and running” in it. After a few mildly shocked gasps from some of the public in response to this disclosure, I thought that this particular item of information reflected someone’s intelligence and even a level of tenacity seldom associated with homeless folk in general. (I was kind of proud to hear of this unknown brother or sister of mine who had shown such a level of personal industry.)
Father John Hardin addressed many issues in relation to homelessness in general: that of offering supportive services wrapped around the core need of affordable housing, the needs of families in crisis (either already homeless or on the edge of being so); that of ending the mythos of the concept that San Francisco is “attracting other homeless populations” to San Francisco by virtue of being such a good provider of services for the homeless population already living here; and that of the principle that the underlying concern for all individuals and organizations involved locally in combating homelessness should be centered around a concept that he termed “relationships.”
In relation to the very polished and prepared particulars some of the other panelists offered to the public regarding statistics, numbers, and methods used to address the problems of homelessness, Father Hardin’s obvious compassion was genuinely appreciated.
It was some time during the remarks made by Ms. Alioto that I overheard a member of the public sitting nearby use the phrase “cheerleader for the Mayor” and a couple of titters and snickers of agreement—I only report what I hear.
As this one hour and 45 minute meeting came to a close, I looked around the crowd and could not help but feel a bit lonely: I had seen and talked with a couple of the members of the San Francisco People’s Organization; I knew that there were many supporters for the Ammiano/McGoldrick Amendments to the Living Wage Law in attendance, but were there no homeless people (or formerly homeless and newly-SRO-housed poor, such as myself) in the room?! It certainly did not seem so.
Once again, it seems from those carefully culled “questions from the public”—via little 3″ x 5″ cards passed out to the crowd to be filled out and handed back to the Mayor for consideration—and from the strutting and the photo-opportunities—that the political machine was well-oiled at the Richmond Recreation Center on January 13, 2007.
Larry
