Conservative opinions needed. Please review my homeless plan for San Francisco.

Conservative opinions needed. Please review my homeless plan for San Francisco.

I am running for Mayor of San Francisco as an independent conservative. Part of my platform is to get the homeless problem under control.
Following is my plan that I will put on my website www.RogerForMayor.com

Before the homeless problem can be solved in San Francisco, the tax paying and hard working people of the City have to stand up and shout, ENOUGH! They have to give the next Mayor a mandate to get the homeless off the streets, and support the Police in the actions they take. .

The problems associated with the homeless are destroying San Francisco. Tourists do not want to deal with the homeless; shoppers think twice before coming to the City for fear of being harassed and because the City is becoming filthy; our wives, mothers, and daughters are intimidated by the aggressive panhandlers; and, disgustingly, the homeless use the City streets as their private bathroom.

San Francisco, spends almost half a billion dollars a year on the homeless and poor, and what have we to show for it? With the number of homeless going up each year, and with almost 200 of them dying every year on San Francisco streets, one has to wonder how much worse could it get if we spent NO money at all on the homeless.

Obviously, we are not going to solve the homeless problem by throwing more money at it. In fact because of the “If you give, they will come “ factor, spending more money will only exacerbate the problem.

In many ways the homeless situation can be compared to a wound to the body. Like blood running from an open wound, they take resources and if not stopped can weaken or kill the host.

One of the lessons I brought out of my four years as an Air Force Medic was how to approach and solve problems. One lesson stressed was how to tell the difference between the “cause” and the “symptom” and to treat each accordingly. Another lesson was how to deal with a large number of cases when resources are limited. To deal with a large number of problems you have to prioritize or sort problems according to their needs.

The term for prorating sorting is know as “Triage,” which is the practice of sorting people according to their need. There are those who will live no matter what happens, and those who will die no matter what happens. Emphasis is placed on those who will live only if they receive attention.

I. STOP THE BLEEDING. (Stop the increase.)
II. CLEAN THE WOUND (Further reductions in the homeless numbers.)
III. APPLY ANTISEPTICS (Discouragement of panhandling and other uncivilized behavior.)
IV. CLOSE THE WOUND (Triage the homeless.)
V. FOLLOW UP (Keeping the recidivism numbers to a minimum.)
VI. PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE (Put in place systems that will prevent the homeless situation to ever get this bad again.)

The first step is to control the number of NEW homeless, to stop the increasing numbers. Why are the number of homeless increasing every year? For this you have to look at where the homeless are coming from. Are they being created by conditions in the City of San Francisco, or are they coming from outside the city?

If the homeless were being created by economic conditions in the city, you would expect the number to go up and down with the economy. This does not appear to be the case. In fact there is nothing to indicate that San Francisco should have any more homeless than the national average of 0.3% or approximately 2,300 individuals.

However, according to the numbers used by the Board of Supervisors, there are over 12,500 homeless in San Francisco. This is SIX times the national average. So apparently the homeless are coming to San Francisco from other places.

A few years ago 60 Minutes had a segment called “Greyhound Therapy.” In the segment it talked about how a city gives up on an individual and puts them on a bus with a one-way ticket to some other city. They ended by saying that eventually all of the problem cases ended up in San Francisco. This was nothing more than an announcement to the country that San Francisco was a dumping ground for the nations homeless problem.

Greyhound Therapy is bad because it is nothing more than passing a problem off to someone else. It is also cruel because it further isolates a person from their family, friends, and support group. It sends helpless individuals away from what is familiar to what is foreign, making recovery that much harder.

1. The Mayor of San Francisco announcing to the country on 60 Minutes or by other means, that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. San Francisco will no longer accept being a dumping ground. To add teeth to this statement announce that for every city we find sending homeless to San Francisco, we will send 1,000 back.
2. Step two is to give the US Congress notice that they have 30 days to pass laws to stop Greyhound Therapy, or we will flood the neighborhoods where they live with homeless. This will have the effect of making Congress responsible for what is a national issue.

If you give, they will come. Like someone looking for a pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow, people are drawn to San Francisco’s generous welfare state and its loose requirements. The City has gotten the reputation as being free and easy with its money, and accepting of any and all lifestyles. To change this reputation the Police have to become stricter with enforcement of existing law, and the welfare department has to become stricter with who gets money. To say that San Francisco needs more laws to fight panhandling is ludicrous. The city has thousands of laws already on the books that could be used. If politicians have been redefining words in laws to get the results they want, why can’t the same methods be used to clear the streets of homeless.

In addition, welfare funds for non-citizens has to end for it is not the job of San Francisco to support illegal aliens, who have no right to even be here.

Currently San Francisco pays benefits to anyone who claims to be a resident for two weeks. Because verification is so worthless fraud is rampant. There are reports of people from surrounding counties seen taking BART to San Francisco to pick up their check. In addition, San Francisco gives aid to approximately 1,500 "Non-Citizens."

Checking for criminal status and out standing warrants, citizenship status, and strengthening residency requirements can achieve further reductions in the homeless numbers. Anyone who has not been a legal resident of San Francisco for at least one year should be treated as a transient and given no more than a bus ticket home.

III APPLY ANTISEPTICS (Discouragement of panhandling and other uncivilized behavior.)

There is a Yiddish saying, "It is no crime to be poor, but it is no honor either." Due to liberal policies the "indigent community," has been elevated to a special empowered group with special rights. This has to be stopped!!!

The Police need to maintain a strong presence and enforcement of current rules against common homeless practices such as public defection and urination, sleeping on the street, blocking doorways and aggressive panhandling. Shopping carts need to be outlawed on city streets. Raids on homeless campouts have to be performed as soon as they are discovered.

In general, the homeless have to be confronted on a regular basis and told that they are unwelcome on the streets of San Francisco.

Further, any benefits they do get should be difficult, and time consuming to obtain. We do not need departments that rush payments to homeless, while making ordinary citizens wait in long lines at Government Agencies like the DMV.

The aforementioned policies are meant to weed out those who are taking advantage of the system. At this point the need to triage the remaining homeless has to take place. When possible, homeless need to be reunited with family members.

Homeless can be sorted into three categories with a different treatment for each.

1. Those with physical or mental problems. This group has to be treated medically or placed in hospitals. Some may need long-term care. 2. Addicts. Have an addiction to drugs, alcohol, or gambling. The addict can stop their own addiction only when the urge to stop destructive behavior becomes stronger that the urge to continue. To help an addict you need tough love with very limited help. The addict needs to be encouraged to get into treatment programs. 3. Recent homeless. Those on the streets for less than a few months. Best chance of recovery. Need the most help to prevent them from getting used to homeless lifestyle or from finding an addiction to blame.

When a drug addict was asked why he went back on drugs, he said it was because he had a support group while on drugs. It was the only time he had people caring about him; when he was straight, he was on his own.

The major flaw with most programs is that they end before the patient has established a new support group. People sometimes slip back temporarily; any good program has to take this into consideration. The former homeless person needs to have access to the same counseling and support groups as they did while homeless. Counselors need to aggressively keep limited contact with past clients to make sure they do not slip back to the homeless state.

IV. PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE (Put in place systems that will prevent the homeless situation to ever get this bad again.)

San Francisco needs: 1. An ad campaign to discourage giving money to homeless. 2. Make street median strips difficult to beg from by fences or making the area difficult to stand on. 3. Treat homelessness as a temporary problem. No more than 6 months worth of help. 4. Immediately close homeless encampments when found. 5. Punish non-sociable behavior, like sleeping in doorways, defecating on the street, panhandling. 6. Support the police, especially when they deal with minor crime issues. 7. Change the goal and attitude of the welfare office to that of keeping people off welfare, rather than aggressively seeking to add to the welfare roles. http://www.sfgov.org/site/dhs_index.asp?id=12796 We should not have government agencies boast that they are increasing Food Stamp and Medi-Cal caseloads by aggressive tactics. Or, that they are have made it faster and easier to get welfare. What they are really saying is that they are aggressively seeking ways to give away your money and making it easier to get it.
THIS IS THE WRONG ATTITUDE, FOR IT WORKS TOWARD MAKING PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON GOVERNMENT HELP.

You've written a serious proposal.

I'll TRY and give a serious response. God knows well and good the problem needs serious help.

1) I'd like to first say, it IS better to err on the side of TOO MUCH COMPASSION vs too much sternness. God will always tend to side with compassion vs sternness.

2) I'd be quick to add that what has passed for compassion in SF and a lot of other places has been nothing more admirable than a manipulative design to keep 'em pregnant and down on the farm.' That is, to keep them dependent and adding to the voter rolls on the side of the commies et al.

3) It was somewhat of an admirable goal to take people out of mental hospitals who had poor socialization skills; were more than a hair batty; were nonviolent etc. But the result was, basically, to dump them on the street where they have remained.

4) I do NOT think the mental health profession; NOR political/governmental bodies NOR the average citizen or citizen's groups have made anything close to a rational response to the results.

5) Given that we get in to "individual rights" real fast and conservatives wisely want to come down on the side of individual rights ALMOST first, last and always--we have to be cautious and careful about this issue.

6) But to me, that MOSTLY means insuring that there is a strong, authentic measure of CHOICE on the part of the individual that still remains.

7) NOW, MANY OF THOSE FORMER HOSPITALIZED/STREET RESIDENTS ARE P*SS POOR AT BASIC, VERY BASIC CHOICES. Expecting them to make growthful, even self-protective choices about today, much less next week, month or year--is about as loopy as most of them are.

8) It may be that we need to actuarially do some solid research on this element of choice regardless of mental illness diagnosis or perhaps in concert with mental illness diagnosis--and then determine the range of choices that are practical for each level of impairment.

9) Those with too much 'choice-impairment' would be assigned guardians. Guardians could be church bodies/members; Salvation Army; welfare case workers--whatever worked and was available.

10) Guardians could insure that the individual received their fair share of benefits appropriate for their impairment AND that the benefits were metered out daily or however could best be handled.

11) Perhaps "a group of peers of such care givers" who were retired or some such would serve as inspectors/auditors to periodically (every 6 mo?) examine records and interview to be sure no one was taking unfitting advantage of the system.

12) Salvation Army, churches, whatever NGO's could/would or could/would be reasonably created to set up and monitor halfway houses or a graduated set of such residences would set them up; run them and insure that fitting residents at least slept and ate there and had options for recreation and suitable exercise there.

13) It would be tricky but with THE WHOLESALE COORDINATED HELP OF THE COMMUNITY--even homeless people could be TRAINED THAT they would NOT EAT anywhere else at least on average, barring a caring citizen taking them home or out for a special, personal meal.

14) Outlawing shopping carts? I don't know that that's going to go over but it's a laudible intent. I suspect if homeless people had what meager goods they had in their cubicle area of a group home and/or available for check-out one or suitable items at a time--it might be a way to help anchor them to the group home as well as diminish the compulsion to carry what meager 'security' and identity they have around the streets in a shopping cart.

15) I love the idea of sending 1,000 to the towns that send one to SF. As well as the one of flooding congress critters home areas with homeless unles sthey rise sensibly to the occasion. Making that happen would likely be as monumental a task as the whole problem is.

16) This is part of a much bigger problem. The Commies et al have succeeded in reducing life to--as BF Skinner said it was--nothing more than a rat, a pidgeon or a raddish. When life is construed to be nothing more than chance plus time [as idiotic as that rationale is], then one can do with bits of protoplasm more or less as one, with the power, wishes to do.

17) There is, now, therefore, a dearth of caring--not to mention responsible caring. Individuals don't care because their parents didn't communicate their caring effectively enough to the individual the first 1-6 years of life--

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BTW ONE AND ALL--IF YOU OR THOSE YOU KNOW HAVE PERSISTENT RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS--THE FOLLOWING HAS VERY PRACTICAL STEP-BY-STEP WAYS TO GROW OUT OF THEM--PARTICULARLY, ALSO, LEARNING TO HANDLE AND COMMUNICAT EMOTIONS MORE CONSTRUCTIVELY AS WELL AS TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY MORE APPROPRIATELY: ATTACHMENTS by Drs Tim Clinton [I know, I think I'd change my name, too] and Gary Sibcy is an EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT BOOK ON THE ABOVE AND RELATED ISSUES. I don't know of any better.

I'd suggest: IF YOU CAN'T GET THE NEEDY PEOPLE TO READ IT, then excerpt it and feed it to them one paragraph at a time. If that doesn't work, disgest it, learn it yourself and teach it to them over however long a time it takes.

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17 CONTINUED): The lack of real caring individual to individual; family to family; group to group; neighborhood to neighborhood; community to community is a huge underlying problem. And it's logical that when we fail to love Almighty God, we'll do p*ss poorly at loving each other. That problem is not likely to be solved short of massive prayer and better behavior on the part of those calling themselves Believers.

18) How to legislate caring and caring substitutes? Dream on. Can you imagine legislating it that her unroyal lowness, her hideous heinous--Bwitch Shrillery would comply out of the dark, absolute zero-stone-cold regions of the vacuum where she should have a heart--could you imagine legislating Bwitch Shrillery to care [for something other than power, greed, maybe sex with Janet R and the like]???

19) But there are some of us authentic believers around. And there are others who are not or no longer Believers but who have enough of the cultural substrate of a Believer's values left in them to be at least noticeably caring. Such people could rise to the occasion to help monitor viable homeless group homes; take them into their churches and clubs in practical ways [though this would take a lot more training and effort] and generally work to keep them off the streets.

20) Harsh sternness in and of itself would likely fail. I don't think it would have God's blessing. I don't think a lot of the population would support it. Whatever solution there is must have VIABLE, FUNCTIONAL, PRACTICAL ALTERNATIVES. And those alternatives to being on the street MUST BE MADE TO WORK--not given half-hearted stabs at then deserted, with the homeless.

21) We can logically call them as Dr Murray Banks did in WHAT TO DO UNTIL THE PSYCHIATRIST COMES "bits of human garbage." They are certainly the refuse from our culture of greed and things first, foremost and before people. But when we RELATE TO THEM PERSONALLY AS HUMAN GARBAGE, WE JOIN THE GARBAGE ASPECT IN THE SECRET HOLLOWS OF OUR HEARTS. Haughtily judging them from a lofty place of arrogance is not a good survival habit and certainly not a position from which to reach out in helpfulness.

22) Another thing all parents can do is BE GOOD PARENTS. STOP CREATING PEOPLE WHO FIND MORE CARING IN DRUG CRAZED, PERVERTED, FREAKED-OUT, FLAKED-OUT ROBOTS TO EMOTIONS; PLEASURE-OF-THE-MOMENT-SEEKING QUASI GROUP/PSEUDO-FAMILIES.

23) When your loved ones--especially children--ask for time--95% OF THE TIME--GIVE AT LEAST SOMETHING AUTHENTICALLY LOVING. Kids who FEEL LOVED stay off the street, off drugs and out of prison. I did NOT say kids who ARE loved. I said kids who FEEL loved. And kids spell LOVE: T I M E.

24) I also think that homeless people given options for group home residency and measureable progress in fitting ways and levels in each case . . . should be allowed 3 strikes before they're rubbed out of the community. They have been practicing dysfunction for decades. Instant sanity will not happen. Instant socialization will not happen. Whatever bits can be achieved will be step-by step at best with plenty of steps backward.

25) So called 'sane' people need to humbly consider the bad habits they have taken decades to overcome--and still not overcome.

Good effort and I wish you the best.

I wish I felt you have a great chance of success.

Most of me feels that God will have to deal with SF. And that His solution will not be overly comfortable or wonderful from the perspective of plenty in mansions, not just street people.

Blessings,

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