Homeless for a night: Berkeley mayor sleeps with city's down-and-out

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/24/03 | Charles Burress

[MikalM]

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates' night with the homeless Tuesday was an eye- opener -- in more ways than one.

He not only saw the suffering of those without a home, but he also had his eyes opened by a police officer.

[NEWwoman]

LOL! All you need is a liberal Democrat in the White House and all our social problems, by magic, just go away!

[Conspiracy Guy]

You said, "They don't sell blood by the pint anymore either. They sell the plasma, 2X a week."

I guess the demand for those TVs is higher than I thought. I'm just so out of touch. I think I'll offer to spend the night with some rich people and offer an alternative viewpoint.

[Yo-Yo]

He was awakened again at 4 a.m. by TV crews converging on the makeshift campout of about two dozen homeless people and their advocates.

Mayor Bates' first remark to the gathering reporters was "What took you guys so long? My publicist is going to be homeless tomorrow."

[MPB]

"It's exhilarating to see the kinds of things volunteers are doing in our community," he said. "On the other side, it saddens me because we're spending all this money in the Middle East, and we're not taking care of people here."

Well maybe Berkeley should stop sending all that money to the Middle East. Oh wait, they don't? What? You mean taking care of the homeless is a local issue, and the military spending is a federal issue? Oh... never mind. :)

[telebob]

Bates is the same guy who was busted for stealing about 2000 copies of the Daily Cal newspaper and throwing them in dumpsters during the campaign. The rag didn't endorse him and even said a few snotty things about his style.
This was a typical example of freedom of speech, leftwing style. The Berkeley idiots elected him anyway...

[NEWwoman]

The CEO of Krispy Creme Donuts saw the news and is donating a KK franchise to the homeless people featured in the article.

I missed that news. Again, I wonder if that will really help the homeless. Poverty is not just the lack of money. It's a state of the spirit, the state of the mind...

[heleny]

Didn't this Berkeley Mayor get in some trouble last fall for discarding stacks of newspapers from the UC Berkeley campus (in Sproul Plaza?) that were critical of him? Or was it some other Berkeley area candidate?

[MPB]

They don't sell blood by the pint anymore either. They sell the plasma, 2X a week.

Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it. I donated my plasma twice weekly while in college. Yeah, lots of street folks, but donating plasma requires NO (as in ZERO) alcoholic beverages in the past 24 hours at least, so hey, at least those folks were dry for a day and actually contributing something useful to society instead of asking for handouts. :)

Plus, hey good way to earn a few extra bucks each week for a poor college student, and having an uninterrupted hour to just sit and read some textbooks, do a bit of studying. :)

[TroutStalker]

Bates won cheers by his stopping and talking with many of those he met, his sleeping outside on the ground and other gestures like using the truly foul public toilet in the park behind City Hall.

He said later he intended also to have the toilet fixed

So he was the one responsible for the toilet not being fixed before this? Why did he wait until he had to use it before fixing it? Maybe the homeless should go crap on his doorstep.

[MikalM]

Another thing. I noticed that the people that really helped the homeless in the article where Christian churches - free breakfast at Berkeley's Trinity Methodist Church, lunch at McGee Avenue Baptist Church, etc.

Yup. And the Catholics and the student evangelical groups bring food to the homeless in People's Park, etc., etc.

And do you think any of this stops Berkeley's liberal elite from bashing Christianity at every chance they get, then retreating to their million-dollar hillside homes to wring their hands raw about the poor homeless people? Not a freakin' chance.

[12B]

DEAL WITH IT AND MOVE ON LIKE FRICKING EVERYONE ELSE

Have you been through it?

[MPB]

And do you think any of this stops Berkeley's liberal elite from bashing Christianity at every chance they get, then retreating to their million-dollar hillside homes to wring their hands raw about the poor homeless people? Not a freakin' chance.

Most folks figure "I pay my taxes, my conscience is clear". What's sad is, for every gov't program to help people out, maybe 20-30 cents on the dollar actually gets to the people it's intended to help. Compare that to religious based charities who rely solely on donations from individuals and corporations who "miraculously" manage to get about 80-90 cents per dollar to the people in need.

And for our charitable contributions, the gov't is nice enough to let us deduct the taxes we would have paid on those donations... Well forget that, let people deduct the total charitable contributions from their taxes paid, and you'll see charitable contributions go through the roof.

People will be helped out like never before (well actually, that's how it used to work before gov't decided to try their hand at being nice) and the only ones who lose are the paper-pushers in the state/local/federal government whose sole purpose is to absorb money that should be going to people who need it.

Just my 2 cents worth (1 cent after taxes).

[laurav]

Boy, of all the indignities of being homeless, being condescended to by a do-gooder mayor has got to be right up there with a lack of toilet facilities.

[NEWwoman]

Excellent points.

What comes to my mind are the many people of faith working quietly to really help others, while this mayor is out there tooting his own horn.

Jesus had many things to say about that kind of thing. I believe it was not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing, performing acts of real charity secretly. Contrast that to those that call attention to their "charity" - to be seen of men/women - well, that's all the reward they are going to get.

[Charlie OK]

how long before Martini Sheen is doing this on the Left Wing?

[GoreIsLove]

Next week, Tom Bates will be donning black shoe polish on his face and spending the night in a tenament just off Ashby Avenue to demonstrate the plight of African-Americans.

[dljordan]

Oh! The humanity!

[honeygrl]

"Who's the guy wearing the silk tie? Not bad for a bum, err...hobo, err...homeless person, err...downtrodden victim of capitalism. "

Probably one of the journalists following him around.