In February of this year, San Francisco’s State Assemblywoman Carol Migden introduced legislation in the State Assembly to fund a new court that will experiment with your rights. The bill is entitled AB2899 — the “Homeless Court Pilot Project.”

Originally, the bill was modeled on a program operating in San Diego for several years. The San Diego homeless court runs out of the shelter system. Once a month a state judge holds hearings for shelter residents with criminal warrants for minor offences.

Defendants that go to the homeless court must be prepared to plead guilty but, according to sources that support the court, the sentences imposed have been progressive and non-punitive.

Initially, Migden’s Homeless Court bill was patterned on the San Diego Court but did not include specific guarantees concerning people’s rights in front of the court. Worse yet, the bill was going to put the State Attorney General (the head prosecutor for the state) in charge of the program.

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On Thursday, August 7, the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee will hold a hearing on the impending closure of Marian Residence for Women, currently run by St. Anthony Foundation and located at 1183-1185 Mission Street. The meeting, to be held in Room 263, will begin at 1:00 p.m., but the hearing closure is item nine.

The closure of Marian Residence would mean the loss of sixty more beds for women from the shelter system—a loss which a shelter system that already has a disproportionately low number of women’s beds can ill afford. At the same time, the City has no plans for a late-night drop-in center for women, thus leaving one of our society’s more vulnerable elements completely unprotected.

Please come, if you can, to testify with San Francisco’s homeless women. Both spoken and written testimony help.

In June 2005, the Housing First for Families campaign fought for a rental subsidy program. This program was designed to help families who were homeless and living in shelters, or in SROs (single-room occupancy hotels), or doubled-up conditions to receive a $500 rental subsidy: The families would be able to find an apartment and the City and Human Services Agency would pay up to $500 rent for the apartment.

The Coalition on Homelessness along with the SRO Families United Collaborative presented the Housing First campaign. After days, weeks, months, and years of hard work and consistency, the families did not stop until the campaign had reached its goals.

I thought we told you that we wouldn’t stop until the recommendations were signed and agreed upon by the City. (more…)

On May 12 of this year, a Federal judge ruled that by immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of the city’s homeless residents, the City of Fresno, California violated the Constitutional right of every person to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Fresno and Department of Transportation officials had violated the rights of homeless people by “cleaning up” tent cities and destroying personal belongings. US District Judge Oliver W. Wagner also gave preliminary approval for $2.35 million to be awarded to hundreds of Fresno residents involved in the class action lawsuit Kincaid v. Fresno on June 12. That decision was finalized on Friday, July 25. The homeless plaintiffs were represented by a team of attorneys from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the law firm Heller Ehrman LLP.

ACLU-NC staff attorney Michael Risher warned, “The court’s ruling and the settlement should send a strong message to other cities throughout our country that if they violate the rights of their most vulnerable residents, they will be held accountable.” He continued, “The ruling makes it clear that our constitution protects the rights of everybody, rich or poor.”

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Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin, Chris Daly, and Jake McGoldrick have submitted legislation and garnered enough votes to put a Treatment on Demand initiative on the November 2008 ballot. The initiative would do what many politicians have promised but have failed to deliver.

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Imagine a place where you can go and be provided with connections to job opportunities, mental health services, substance abuse treatment, and social services of various types. Public Defender Jeff Adachi says of the proposed Community Justice Center, “If you have something of quality to offer, people will come.” Only two tiny catches sit within this mirage: in order to “come” you must get arrested, and the services you have “come” to receive have all been cut in Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ruthless budget.

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Mayor Newsom released a budget today that will terminate critical health and human services, while pumping up salaries for police by 25% and adding many new high paid patronage positions into his own administration.

Some highlights of the devastating impact of the budget include:

1. Closure of Ella Hill Hutch Shelter, which serves up to 100 people every night in the Western Addition.
2. Closure of Caduceus Outreach Services, a mental health treatment and wrap-around support program for severely disabled homeless adults with co-existing addictive disorders.
3. Almost total elimination of SRO Families United program (66% cut) for families with dependent children living in hotels.
4. Cut of 22% to residential substance abuse and mental health treatment programs budgets.
1. Removal of support from Conard supportive housing program for severe psychiatric disabilities.
2. Closure of Cortland Acute Diversion Unit for individuals in psychiatric crisis.
3. Loss of 12 out of 24 community-based medically-supported detox beds.
4. Many more residential cuts yet to be determined.
5. Cut of 30% to all outpatient substance abuse and mental health treatment.
6. Almost total elimination of STOP treatment program.
7. 1,600 people will lose psychiatric treatment through Private Provider Network.
8. Closure of Tenderloin Health, homeless multi-service center in the Tenderloin serving over 300 people a day, 16,000 unduplicated people a year. This program provides health services, HIV case management, HIV prevention, mental health services, harm reduction work, improving quality of life by getting people out of rain, hygiene kits, bathrooms, snacks, crisis intervention, and 30,000 shelter reservations a year.

What Can We Do?

Protest Newsom’s proposed budget!

Where:

The Bellaire Tower building—home of Mayor Gavin Newsom (1101 Green Street, at Leavenworth Street)

Bus 45 (Leavenworth/Union stop), Bus 27 (Leavenworth/Jackson stop), Bus 12 (Pacific/Leavenworth stop).

When:

Wednesday, June 11, 6:00 p.m.

The current hot trend in addressing homelessness in the United States’ cities is, once again, to remove panhandlers from downtown corridors. Lately the Bush administration—through its Interagency Council on Homelessness—has lauded Denver, Colorado and its ten-year planning process for coming up with one of the 20 “Major Innovations” this year. This major innovation that President Bush is so enamored with? Have people put change in old parking meters that the City then collects for the United Way, rather than giving alms directly to people who are panhandling.

Clearly another case of “Mission Accomplished!”

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In March, an article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle with the headline “3 public housing complexes to be rebuilt with more units.”

With the excuse that the projects are decrepit, and claiming that they will be “refashioned” into denser neighborhoods, the powers that be have slated countless tenants of Westside Courts in the Western Addition, Potrero Terrace in Potrero Hill, and Sunnydale Projects in Visitacion Valley for evictions.

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Try saying this without laughing: “Homeless parking meters.”

Thought you couldn’t.

Images of dispossessed meters, probably jumping on freight trains and living in hobo encampments like a scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou? are easily conjured. Actually, these meters, donated by San Francisco’s parking department and painted orange, are the latest instruments the city wants to use to dissuade people from donating spare change directly to the unhoused—and keep panhandlers out of sight.

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