Homeless are disappearing from San Francisco streets

[nebula]

Mayor Newsom's housing programs for the homeless are showing dramatic results in San Francisco.




A daily walk finds fewer homeless

SFGate.com
Associated Press
-----------------

...Dick, 51, has been homeless on and off again in San Francisco since 1984 and most recently since 2003. Making his living recycling cans and bottles, he has seen a lot change in the landscape of homelessness since Mayor Gavin Newsom took office in 2004 and pushed through his signature Care Not Cash welfare reform.

"It's easier than it used to be," Dick said of his garbage picking. He stroked his bushy gray beard. "More cans. Less homeless. A lot emptier than it was, I'll tell you that."

There are indeed fewer homeless people on the street today than there could be -- at least 4,200 fewer, according to city data on people who have left the general assistance rolls, accepted bus tickets out of town, or moved into addiction recovery centers or one of the city's growing number of supportive housing complexes.


....Security guard Anthony Hooker, who watches the historic Monadnock Building at Market and Geary streets, said the population dip is evident to him. "A couple of years ago, it was about eight, I'd say. That guy there," he said, pointing at Dick, whose head was in a trash can, "he's about the last regular left from those days."














www.sfgate.com

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10...

[Auggie]

1. This is such great news

I remember (former) Mayor Willie Brown saying there wasn't any cure to San Francisco's homeless problem.

There is always a solution!

[Cascadian]

7. At first I thought Newsom was going to be a heartless corporate shill....

I thought he was going to be some slick, yuppie boy who was going to sell out San Francisco to corporate interests. From what I have heard and seen, he is not as bad as appeared. San Franciscans should be proud of having him as a mayor.







John

[EFerrari]

11. Sorry to burst the bubble but Newsom regularly has

the homeless rousted and when asked, his office denies it.

His numbers are from the air, not from any effective policy of his.

[upi402]

22. That's so sad

I have family there and he is loved and admired by my liberal-as-hell relations.
I'll make a call, one of them just talked to him at a fundraiser. Maybe his staff will have an answer.

In Seattle they passed a law to disallow sitting on the sidewalk. It's been enforced too!
Seattle is kinda "new Democrat" though, not really liberal in the main.

[EFerrari]

23. Gavin's staff is very slick and not all that user friendly.

To them, homelessness was a campaign issue, period.

Gavin himself is very personable. I met him at Comedy Day one of these years. His body guards are all goodlooking young guys in nice suits and expensive sunglasses. lol

Homelessness is not an issue that will get you good press with anyone unless you promise to disappear homeless people so I'm not surprised at the way it's been handled. But, there are good people in the neighborhoods and other groups working on it here as well. We just keep working, we'll get there.

[upi402]

25. good people give me hope n/t

no answer to a call I made anyway.

[Warpy]

2. What a concept

Feed and house people and allow them to pick themselves up from the depths of addiction and despair.

Calvinists criminalize them, imprison them, and erect barriers to feeding and housing them.

Clinton said it best, "Their way doesn't WORK!" This is just another example of it.

[Turbineguy]

4. Calvinists????

[Warpy]

5. Right wing religious nuts

They've managed to eliminate Christ completely and substitute Calvin. They're determinists who adore the favored rich and despise the accursed poor.

[sui generis]

3. ze "Eat Ze Poor" programs are vorking.

(was half expecting a republican article to that effect)



Seriously though, that's good news. Unfortunately "homeless" doesn't always equate to rational enough to make use of assistance.

There are always going to be hard case homeless people that we can't fix OR help, without intruding on their constitutional rights. I lived in New York city at the time that Reagan's deinstitutationalization took effect and it was a nightmare, truly disheartening.

[murielm99]

6. San Francisco values!

Goddam those San Francisco values.

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. They are destroying America, I tell you!

[KharmaTrain]

9. A Big Contrast...LA vs. SF

I've been in both cities in the past year and I noticed a major difference between the two cities. One can walk down Hollywood Blvd. and see homelss in the doorways all over the place. While in San Francisco, while I did see people who appeared to be homeless, you didn't see them in anywhere near the numbers.

Now some can say the reason is the money and the weather. San Francisco is an expensive city, even for those without money. Ironically, the city I saw the largest number of homeless were in the Tuscon area...the weather making it more accomodating than in a northern city.

[sweetheart]

19. LA is the future

SF is a tiny city by comparison and the LA gangs, education system,
immigration, and homeless problems are all the future urban nightmare
as more and more the human race lives in urban ghettos.. that by sheer
demographic tug, we are culturally ensconced to shooting each other
on 6 lane freeways, or being homeless on skid row, its so postmodern
to rot in warm weather in the cesspool breeding ground of propaganda
hollywood.

[jwirr]

10. This idea has one huge flaw! The old give them a ticket out to

town sham has been around for decades. It is just a way to move the homeless/vagrant from one site to another. It does not cure the problem. It was kind of a joke when Iowa welfare offices would offer help to move their poor across the boarder into a neighboring state. When they moved they were not any better off just out of sight out of mind. I actually used that method to get where I am living now. Knowing about the practice I promised that if they helped me move I would not come back. Only in my case I was smart enough to be moving to family not just to another town.

[nebula]

13. What the hell are you talking about?

Did you even read the article?

Mayor Gavin's program provides the homeless with permanent shelter in a hotel or an apartment within city limits. It has nothing to do with what you're describing (sending them off to another city).

[The2ndWheel]

18. "accepted bus tickets out of town", nt

[jwirr]

20. Accepted a ticket out of town. Read further.

[Cleita]

14. When I lived in Southern California, I lived in Santa Monica.

Since Los Angeles county is a big maze of smaller incorporated cities within the big city of Los Angeles, the police of each city were notorious for removing the homeless to the border of the next city. One old guy ended up in Pomona, starting off in Santa Monica. He was drunk most of the time so couldn't remember how he got there. A journalist who was investigating homelessness was able to piece his story together from the various police precincts involved.

[nebula]

17. Well, this is San Francisco we're talking about

I lived in this city for 12 years.

To my knowledge, it has never been a policy or practice in San Francisco to deal with the problem by forcibly relocating the homeless outside of city limits.

[jwirr]

21. Who said anything about force? Usually the homeless person

was convinced that if he/she just went to the next state/town that things would be better. I am not saying that this is what SF is doing but someone should follow these people up and see if they found better situations in their new addresses before it is declared a success.

[nebula]

12. Pic of Mayor Gavin and a woman at a Giants game

The mayor with one of the formerly homeless people his program has helped.

A truly amazing story!






The cost of a life redeemed

[paparush]

15. Soilent Green?

[951-Riverside]

16. Less cans?

Is he referring to cans the homeless recycle?

[Blackthorn]

24. I thought this story was about "unlawful enemy combatants" being disappeared

to beautify SF streets.

[upi402]

26. Mayor Newsom's "Care Not Cash" program to help homeless

The ranks of homeless people on welfare in San Francisco shrank 84 percent over the last 18 months through the city's Care Not Cash program, and by next May, there should be no homeless people left on the rolls at all, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday in his second annual State of Homelessness address.

The best news about that development, he told a cheering crowd of city workers, homeless people and social service providers, is that about half of the 2,106 homeless people who left welfare -- 1,101 of them to be precise -- are now living in newly created housing, Newsom said.

And at a time when crucial federal funding for housing and other social programs is either being cut or put in danger of cuts, that's "not bad," he said.

"I remember my critics saying there is no way there will be a decline in (welfare) rolls with Care Not Cash," Newsom said. "Well, now that's 84 percent. ... We've done a very good job with that program."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/1...