Toward a More Civil Society The real travesty of Prop. N (Danielle Steele-author-BARF alert!)

I am immensely distressed by the misfiring of justice of the naive though perhaps well-intentioned Proposition N, promising "Care not Cash" to San Francisco's homeless.

After the court ruling last week, what remains of Prop. N will, in effect, reduce funds to the elderly and disabled homeless, as well as those in job training, to $59 a month -- while those homeless refusing job training will receive about $320 a month. In effect, we have reduced those in most dire need to even more disastrous straits, while rewarding those who do nothing to extricate themselves from life on the streets.

At its best, Proposition N was simplistic, promising to redirect the funds previously given to the homeless to provide shelters and programs. If you do the math, it was a total impossibility to come up with enough money to provide those programs and shelters by taking away those payments to the homeless.

And what we do is not only inadequate, but ineffective. Homeless men and women are terrified to enter the shelters, for fear of being robbed, raped and abused. Among the strict rules for entering some of the shelters is "not exhibiting bizarre behavior," yet conditions remain dangerous, which leaves a huge homeless population wandering the streets, physically and mentally ill, cold, desperate and hungry, with nowhere to go, and no one to help them.

It has become politically and socially "interesting" to talk about how unattractive they are lingering in doorways and sleeping in storefronts. Politicians across the nation imitate each other, or claim to, in pretending to care about them, while trying to shove them across state borders, hoping they will become someone else's problem.

They are our problem, collectively. Our cities are beginning to look like Calcutta; we do far too little to help these people. In fact, we do nothing, other than shake our heads, complain or look embarrassed.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Department of Public Works continues sweeping drives, taking away their meager possessions, destroying their camps, and leaving them barefoot, without clothes and the few things they had gathered for their precarious survival. We are told that helping them is a bad thing, on the assumption that giving them a sleeping bag or a tea bag or a pair of warm socks will only encourage them to stay on the streets. No one is going to stay on the streets for the thrill of a new sleeping bag, or the comfort of a warm jacket. These people have no alternatives, none they find acceptable, none that are easily accessible. We do not reach out to them, or help them. We ignore them.

What can be done? Both city and state governments should take the following steps:

-- Shelters need to be made genuinely accessible, not reserved for any particular population.

-- The state must uphold laws that will enable us to hospitalize the mentally ill, not to take money from them, and the counties need to provide decent services for them.

We have driven these people into the streets, and we keep them there by providing so little for them. We need to feed, house and help the homeless, give them the medical and psychiatric help they so desperately need, the job training that some are capable of, the opportunities they deserve and many long for. We dangle hope at them like a carrot they cannot reach, and then punish them when they cannot reach it.

Too many of us sit self-satisfied at home, complaining about a scourge that devours too many. Out there among the homeless are young people who have fallen through the cracks, old people in despair, barefoot pregnant women who are literally starving and people who deserve a chance. It is time to rouse ourselves from our deep sleep, shake ourselves out of denial, find some compassion, reach out a truly helpful hand to our fellow man, and put our money where our mouths are.

Danielle Steel, an author and San Francisco resident, was honored earlier this month for her work with Larkin Street Youth Services.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/05/19/BA92628.DTL

Theology head-butts politics in 'Care Not Cash' exchange

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

San Francisco -- Rough and gruff state Sen. John Burton and glitter author Danielle Steel couldn't be further apart when it comes to style -- but this past week they both came out swinging against San Francisco's new attitude toward the homeless.

Burton -- who for a year has been biting his tongue over the rise of "Care Not Cash" -- came out the gate first with a series of campaign-style signs on telephone poles across the city that read, "Jesus gave money to poor people on the streets of Galilee."

Steel -- who last made ink for having 26 residential parking passes assigned to her Pacific Heights mansion -- wrote an op-ed piece in The Chronicle calling "Care Not Cash" at best a "simplistic" attempt to solve a complex problem. (Read the Op-Ed piece here: www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/15/ED250853.DTL)

"Care Not Cash" -- the plan to cut general assistance payments to $59 a month from the current maximum of $395 and give the money to homeless programs -- was the brainchild of Supervisor (and mayoral hopeful) Gavin Newsom. That's the same Newsom who's a good friend and frequent dinner guest at Steel's house.

But you wouldn't have known that from Steel's op-ed piece, which blasts politicians for "pretending to care" about the homeless "while trying to shove them across state borders."

The idea of society writer Steel playing homeless advocate could trigger a number of zinging comebacks, but not from Newsom.

"Look, Danielle and I have had some very good conversations about mental health and drug rehabilitation, and to her credit her interest is on a very real and personal level," Newsom said.

"I respect most of what she wrote, but I don't agree with it."

How's that for walking the tightrope?

He's a bit looser when it comes to the "Jesus gave money" signs his mentor Burton is plastering around town.

"As a good Irish Catholic boy, I'm not sure the senator has got his theology right," Newsom said.

"My understanding is that Jesus was talking about giving alms, which is material services rendered -- not coins. And I think Christ had it right."

Burton appears to have been set on the warpath by those hard-hitting, anti- panhandling billboards recently put up by the San Francisco Hotel Council.

The council's ad campaign featured good Samaritan tourists making such comments as, "Today we rode a cable car, visited Alcatraz and supported a drug habit."

Burton dipped into his own election funds for his counter-campaign. Look for more signs soon -- "I gave money to a woman in the streets . . . and she bought food for her children," might be one.

Or, "I gave money to a Vietnam vet . . . and he bought a blanket."

Burton says there's no politics involved. "I'm just offended at people picking on the poor. It doesn't make me feel good about the city and humanity."

For the record, Burton does put his money where his mouth is -- regularly dropping bills into the cups of panhandlers he passes on the street.

"See that guy," Burton once said of a disabled panhandler on Fifth Street. "I used to give him a dollar every time I saw him. Then one night I saw him with a hooker."

He shook his head. Then, with a wink of the eye, he added: "Now I give him a fiver."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/05/17/ED30095.DTL

Editor -- I almost choked on my morning coffee when I read "barefoot pregnant women who are literally starving." Is this what Danielle Steel's novels are like?

Seriously, Steel needs to come out of her Washington Street mansion and hang out around 16th and Mission for a while. She will see where the $359 monthly stipend to the "homeless" goes. It is that real vision of street life that passed Prop. N by a large percentage, not Steel's "oh, the poor sad homeless."

Just because someone moves to San Francisco and plops their butt down on the street, why is it incumbent on the citizenry to support them? Having lived in the Haight and the Mission, I am way over the homeless. I sincerely hope the Board of Supervisors recognizes the voters want Prop. N enacted.

WAYNE DAVIS

San Francisco .

Editor -- Danielle Steel's commentary has some very good points that we need to consider regarding the homeless issue in San Francisco. Her four action statements make sense. However, the cost to the city for dealing with the homeless and paying them is $100 million, plus related services are estimated to be almost another $100 million. Therefore, why not take this money to use for carrying out her four points to clean up and monitor the shelters? In fact, hire the homeless to do the work under strict supervision and responsible actions.

This leads to the second point. Steel uses the word "we" more than 15 times,

referring to what is our fault and what "we" need to do. Not once does she make any reference to what the homeless should do. She treats them all like small children and as if they were born homeless on San Francisco's streets. Let's follow up on some of her ideas, but let's have some quid pro quo by the homeless.

JOHN E. HIRTEN

San Francisco .

Editor -- I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I read the following in Danielle Steel's column attacking Prop. N, aka "Care Not Cash." "It has become politically and socially 'interesting' to talk about how unattractive they [homeless] are lingering in doorways and sleeping in storefronts," wrote Steel.

What makes me think that if a "homeless" person were urinating or defecating in front of Steel's mansion that half the SFPD would respond and arrest the offender?

What Steel really means is that its OK to let the bums trash our city as long as they are confined to SoMa or North Beach, etc., anywhere but Pacific Heights.

WILLIAM BAKER

San Francisco .

Let's forget how deluded she is for a minute. The question is: Am I my brother's keeper? Was I put here to tend to the needs of the incompetent? Or even those who are temporarily down on their luck. That's the christian position. But is it beyond debate? What if you're not, by nature, compassionate? What if something in you finds compassion....disagreeable. Must you be forced to ante up to finance the compassion agenda? Don't most people, when safety nets are removed, miraculously find the resources in themselves to keep from going under? I'm not a philosopher and I don't have a program. But I do question the sincerity behind compassion and the effectiveness of acting with compassion (even if it is sincere).

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