FReeper for San Francisco Mayor ping! : )
I grew up in San Francisco. It was a place where a ten-year old could get on a bus and go anywhere in town. Playland at the Beach, the Presidio, Stern Grove, the Exploratorium, the Maritime Museum, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor were my favorites.
I would never raise a child there now. :-(
from www.rogerformayor.com
P O L I C Y B R I E F on HOMELESSNESS
The will to conquer is the first condition of victory. -- Ferdinand Foch
Before the homeless problem can be solved in San Francisco, the hard working, tax paying, 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 their actions. . The problems associated with the homeless are destroying San Francisco. “For the first time in six years, Travel and Leisure magazine has dropped San Francisco as its favorite U.S. city.” 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. No sane society can allow this. 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. Here is my plan. 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. San Francisco is a compassionate city, but it should not be stupid about it. One of the lessons I brought out of my four years as an Air Force Medic 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 with limited resources. 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 known as “Triage,” which is the practice of sorting injured 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.) I. STOP THE BLEEDING. (Stop the increase.) 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. Greyhound Therapy –The 60 Minutes factor. 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. To stop the sending of problem cases to San Francisco will take two actions: 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. 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. Field of Dreams Factor 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. II. CLEAN THE WOUND. (Further reductions in the homeless numbers.) 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." http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dhs/statistics/tanfahh4.htm 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!!! Homelessness should be treated as a personal choice and discouraged. Social pressure should be used to shame these bums off the streets. 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. IV CLOSE THE WOUND (Triage the homeless.) 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 and taken off the streets. 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. With random drug testing before getting benefits. The addict needs to be encouraged to get into treatment programs, and shamed for allowing themselves to become homeless. 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. V. FOLLOW UP (Keeping the recidivism numbers to a minimum.) 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: To stop giving welfare without requiring some kind of work in exchange. An ad campaign to discourage giving money to homeless. Make street median strips difficult to beg from by fences or making the area difficult to stand on. Treat homelessness as a temporary problem. No more than 6 months worth of help. Immediately close homeless encampments when found. Punish non-sociable behavior, like sleeping in doorways, defecating on the street, panhandling. Support the police, especially when they deal with minor crime issues. 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. To seek welfare cases is 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, AND WILL NEVER GET THEM OFF THE WELFARE MERRY-GO-ROUND
But we'll pull for ya, Roger. Go get 'em!