The Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness, Jennifer Friedenbach, spoke on NPR’s Talk of the Nation this morning. Check it out here.

Check out the article here.

On Wednesday, Alfonso Jackson, Secretary of HUD, borrowed a few pages from Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Phil Mangano as he released a HUD report claiming an 11.5% decrease in the numbers of chronically homeless people from 175,914 in 2005 to 155,623 in 2006. He claimed 20,000 people moved into transitional and permanent housing between 2005 and 2006. This is directly attributed to HUD and local continuums of care creating more supportive housing units and, “breaking the vicious cycle of homelessness for those who have lived on the streets as a way of life,” as well as better data collection. He further claims HUD awarded “$286 million to 1,100 programs that house and serve individuals experiencing chronic homelessness… creating 4,000 new units of permanent supportive housing.” (You might be tempted to ask how 20,000 people fit into 4,000 units but wait we’ll get to that.) He also claimed that since 2001 the Bushies, “have awarded $9 billion to support thousands of local housing and service programs throughout the nation and is seeking a record $1.6 billion… for FY 2008.” He says this is a 41% increase compared to 2001. He then refers to the, “comprehensive shelter and street point in time snapshots,” as a, “powerful tool to gauge the progress in meeting the homeless challenge and creating innovative housing solutions in response.” He then repeated the mantra of, “754,000 persons homeless on any given night.” Note that the last two sentences are the only ones that say “homeless” with the chronic label in front of it.

So, now a little fact checking:

HUD’s mission statement says they are, “the nation’s housing agency”..”… creating affordable housing opportunities for low-income Americans.” So let’s start there. We’ll use the 2001 timeline that is referenced in the press release since that is when Bush took office:

1. Since 2001 HUD has spent $0 dollars on the development of new public housing units while 100,000 units of public housing were lost to demolition, sale or other removal between 1996 and 2006.
2. While many readers will think that this report means that homelessness has decreased by 12%, in reality HUD is only talking about people considered “chronically” homeless—a subpopulation the Department estimates to comprise 10% of the entire homeless population—meaning that we’re really talking about a 1.2-2.7% change.
3. While HUD maintains that 754,000 people total are homeless on any given day the Department of Education documents that 904,000 children alone attend public school everyday that do not have housing. While HUD’s number is based on a point-in-time count, wherein volunteers scramble to count all the people they see and think might be homeless, the DOE’s number comes from actual documentation of names and Social Security numbers. When HUD’s numbers are so far off, an apparent decrease of 1-3% means more or less jack.
4. 22 of the continua of care that applied for funding from HUD this year got no assistance whatsoever, meaning that all new chronic homelessness programs came at the expense of these communities.
5. No amount of data shuffling and reprioritizing of the homeless populations will ever change the fact that we need to restore the $52 billion a year we were spending on affordable housing before HUD become so damn proud of how great it was doing in ending chronic homelessness. We didn’t have any such thing as chronic homelessness… we had housing.

After decades of slashing voluntary mental health treatment, the state passed bill (AB 1421) that would allow the government to lock up people with mental health issues for not complying with their treatment plans. Counties now have an option to implement this law if they choose. As health professionals and people living with mental illnesses we oppose this law in SF.

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One person is lit on fire while he sleeps, another is shot for panhandling, two older men are attacked by three teenagers who smash one in the face with a cinderblock, and another person wakes up in a coma after being beaten (also while sleeping) with a baseball bat. While these crimes are all recent, a 2006 National Coalition report on violent, random, hate-filled attacks on homeless people shows a 65% increase from 2005, including five rapes, six people set on fire, and 20 murders. In all, 142 reported attacks. Everyone at the front lines of homelessness is scared shitless of what the next set of numbers is going to show. Sleeping, eating, panhandling, loitering and trespassing have been the focus of local government efforts to eliminate homelessness, and local press have shown their support of this focus with absolutely horrid depictions of who homeless people are. As a result, local animosity and loathing have gotten steadily more brazen, racist and, unfortunately, acceptable.

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With regard to the past year’s increased police presence in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, a recent report out of UCLA informed us that: “…the policing effort has… had consequences that, while perhaps unintended, have actually served to make it harder for many homeless people to find and maintain shelter off the streets of Skid Row. The 1,000 monthly citations, most of which will result in arrest warrants, do not seem to be having the desired affect on pedestrian violations, but will lead some people who are housed to lose their housing, and homeless people who have some protection from the elements to lose that protection.” (Blasi, Gary. Policing Our Way Out of Homelessness?: The First Year of the Safer Cities Initiative on Skid Row. 2007. p. 51)

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“They want to kick you out so they can build housing they know you can’t afford and allow rich San Franciscans to enjoy it. They don’t feel that poor Blacks or other people of color deserve to have a view like that.”

—Appolonia Jordan, SF Bayview

Alan Goodspeed was a Black man from Marshall, Texas who was my neighbor on the south side of Ocean Avenue in the 1970s. He had moved to San Francisco during WWII, worked as a machinist in the shipyards of Hunter’s Point, bought a home, and raised a family. When Alan passed away a few years ago, there were fewer than 40,000 Black people left in the city. Back in the day when Alan and I changed the oil in our cars in adjoining driveways, there were almost 100,000 Black people in San Francisco.

The ethnic cleansing of the Black population in the city “where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars” is more than halfway to completion.

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State Law (AB 2745, Dave Jones) was created to deal with the practice known as patient dumping of homeless people onto the streets or into places like homeless shelters that can not provide the medical care they require. This happens all the time here in SF and elsewhere. AB 2745 explicitly mandates that a regional meeting comprised of “key stakeholders” including “nonprofit social service providers and regional advocates for the homeless” be held to “establish and support effective communications between hospitals and stakeholders regarding this transition.” It doesn’t require that homeless people attend!

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Mark Damron, Homeless Viet Nam Veteran, interviewed Friday, October 5, 2007 under the Japantown Bridge.

I was born and raised in Spain. My father was a Foreign Service Officer. He is 90 years old, living near Truckee, Nevada. My mother was born in South America.

I am going to be 55 this month.

I am a self-taught cabinetmaker since 1978.

From 1972 to 1976 I was in a very secretive part of the U.S. Navy, honorably discharged as a Veteran.

For many years I [lived] here, in San Francisco near the Ocean, on 25th in the Sunset District.

You have to forgive me because on the 25th of April [2007], I had brain surgery. I was hospitalized at Santa Rosa General Hospital. I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. No way. It is horrible. It has taken me so long to recover.

Normally, I look a person in the eyes, but I have double vision. The brain wants to right itself. In doing so, it works overtime, and [it is painful].

I was not conscious for two months. The third month, I became fully aware of my circumstances.

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On October 15, the three largest City-funded single adult shelters in the city implemented a policy requiring all residents to pass through metal detectors upon entry. Though metal detectors are degrading and only attempt to band-aid the larger issues that cause a lack of safety in shelters, if the City is determined to implement this policy, there are multiple issues that should be addressed.

This may seem to create safer shelters on the surface, but the intricacies contained within the wording of this policy actually allow for arbitrary confiscation of the valuables of shelter residents. The language contained on the banned items list states: “Shelter staff and security personnel are fully authorized to make determinations regarding such items on a case-by-case basis.”

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