Posted on 12/02/2005 2:10:35 PM PST by walkerk
Saying the number of homeless people being cited for camping has nearly tripled under Mayor Gavin Newsom, a group of religious leaders called on The City to suspend such “quality of life” citations Thursday.
Religious Witness with Homeless People said quality of life citations, which also include public drinking, urination and trespassing, criminalize people for not being able to afford housing and cost The City at least $342,000 a year to issue.
The group delivered an ordinance to Newsom’s office on Thursday in the hopes that he would introduce it before the Board of Supervisors. The ordinance would bar city officials from issuing quality of life citations until adequate housing and critical services are available to the homeless.
Trent Rhorer, executive director of the Department of Human Services, said the Newsom administration has made housing homeless people a top priority.
“We’ve placed well over 1,500 people in permanent supportive housing,” Rhorer said. “It would be nice to compare how many permanent housing units came online during the Brown and Newsom administrations. You would probably see a quadrupling.”
He said The City averages about 100 vacant beds in its shelters every night, so there is no reason people should be camping in The City. In addition, Rhorer said The City has an obligation to break up encampments since they can be a public health hazard. Rhorer said public defecation, rodent infestations and needles often accompany camping sites.
We were thinking about visiting San Francisco and Yosemite, etc. next year. Should we re-think the San Francisco part?
"We’ve placed well over 1,500 people in permanent supportive housing,”
Lessee... suppose a studio apartment rents for $1000 per month in San Fran.
1500 bums x $1000 per month = $1.5 million per month in rent
I say get them out of San Francisco to the nice clean air of the Imperial Valley and let them pick lettuce at $8.25/hour. The welfare state is strangling this nation.
"Whoopie? Is that you?"
LOL
You could always hire a coyote to take the bums with him on his return trip to Mexico.
I know what some of them did with the $100 that is why it was stopped.
I think they should delineate out camp sites on the sidewalks, number them, and put shower and bathroom facility buildings on every other block. Then put a pond every so often, man made of course, stock it with fish, etc.
They should be able to get the support for this in S.F. Then make it one of America's best campgrounds.
How can S.F. be so insensitive to the homeless! These poor people have absolutely nothing and now they're not even allowed to camp out. Tsk, tsk, tsk!
Yeah, really. Seems like we have a solution to that other thread. Or could it be that it's more lucrative to stand at an intersection collecting dollars with a cup in hand!
Hmmm....
What it would cost
Estimated funding required to create enough supportive housing to serve 3, 000 hard-core homeless people in San Francisco:
$450 million to build or lease an additional 3,000 units
$150 million of that would probably have to come from city funds
$300 million of that would probably have to come from state and federal funds
$30 million a year needed to maintain the units with services .Sources: Corporation for Supportive Housing, San Francisco Department of Human Service
money well spent in my opinion.
In fact, if it were up to me i'd throw every bum I saw with a stolen shopping cart in jail for theft.
When I was a young adult (about thirty years ago), I enjoyed occasional tourist-for-a-day visits to San Francisco. But over the years, I simply got tired of the increasing number of crazy, stinky, bums.
The last time I was walking on a sidewalk near Union Square, I ignored a filthy bum who was begging for spare change. Apparently he didn't like it when strangers didn't give him money; he followed me a short distance to the next intersection, where I waited for the traffic light, and he started to put his hands on me. I probably violated several Penal Code sections as I convinced him that it was time for him to go away.
The last time I was at Fisherman's Wharf, I saw a crazy bum walking through the municipal parking lot, shouting that he wanted to get an AK-47 and start shooting people.
Scenes like this made it hard for me to relax and have fun, and I eventually quit going to S.F. My lingering memory of today's San Francisco is that the sidewalks smell like stale urine.
San Francisco is just getting what it paid for.
The liberal mindset being what it is, San Francisco will try to fix the problem by shoveling even more money at it. With a "plan" like this, I foresee there being a reasonable chance that my fervent hope will be realized: that every dead beat con artist in the country will eventually end up in San Francisco.
New Orleans used to have exactly the same problem. At least until God pulled the "flush" lever....
Despite the "homeless" problems, I still think it is the best city in the U.S. and I think you would have a very enjoyable visit. Plus it is surrounded by incredible countryside from the wine country up north to the redwoods and the ocean to the Monterey Bay and Carmel to the south. If you haven't been here before, you've missed seeing a magnificent part of the country. By all means come!
Thank you. I would like to start in SF, see the wine country, Yosemite, Carmel, Monterrey. What do you recommend in SF?
Depends on the City's charter and definition. The basic program centers around "homeless" with mental or physical disabilities. That's the starting point. One City focuses on permanent "low-income housing", another City does Rehab, and the SF "PERMANENT supportive housing" involves a pdf file.
The SF Definition of permanent supportive housing
including but not limited to ... "emancipated foster youth"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.