Cities see increace in homelessness

Capt. Martin Cooper of the Salvation Army has been handing out free sandwiches and soup near the Civic Center in San Francisco for the last year and a half. Lately he's noticed some troubling changes.(Full Article)

Homeless Portlanders set to sue to block anti-camping ordinance

The nonprofit Oregon Law Center plans to file a class-action lawsuit Friday in federal court challenging the constitutionality of Portland’s anti-camping ordinance. (Full Article)

Stop human rights abuses on skid row

2 Years
18,000* arrests
No new housing

Stop the city's crackdown on poverty, homelessness and mental illness from entering its third year.

Join us Sept. 25th. at 10:00a.m.on the corner of 5th. And Main Streets to tell the mayor we want housing and services, not jails.


• 750 arrests each month in a community that’s home to 13,000 people. These arrests have had no affect on violent crime in the area, but they’ve had a devastating and lasting affect on poor, homeless and mentally ill people living downtown.
• 1,000 misdemeanor citations each month for “crimes” such as crossing the street against a flashing red hand. When a poor or homeless Skid Row resident can’t pay the fine, the citation turns to warrant and leads to arrest.
• Thousands shut out of federally-funded housing and food programs. When people return from jail, their criminal record forces them to live on the street, where they cost taxpayers $100,000 each year as they circulate through emergency rooms and jails.
• $6 million each year for 50 additional uniformed officers and as many undercover officers to police a 50-square block area. That’s about equal to the amount the city “invests” in homeless services for the entire year. Over two years, that money could have been used to get 750 people off the streets and into housing with support services.
• Thousands of cases in an overburdened court system. Drug cases involving no more than $5 in crack cocaine are clogging up a court system that has a difficult time finding space and resources for murder and rape trials.

We cannot police out way out of homelessness. It’s inhumane, expensive, and completely ineffective.
On Sept. 25, we will demand an end to the discriminatory policing and call for housing and services for the poor, homeless and disabled residents of Skid Row.

DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT AGAINST SAN FRANCISCO FOR HOMELESS SHELTER PROGRAM THAT EXCLUDES DISABLED PEOPLE

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 27, 2008

Contacts:
Disability Rights Advocates:
Sid Wolinsky (510) 665-8644
Julia Pinover (510) 665-8644
Western Regional Advocacy Project:
Paul Boden (415) 621-2533
Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason & Gette LLP:
Daniel Mason (415) 693-0700

DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT AGAINST SAN FRANCISCO FOR HOMELESS SHELTER PROGRAM THAT EXCLUDES DISABLED PEOPLE

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — A landmark suit filed in federal court in San Francisco today charges that San Francisco’s homeless shelter program “blatantly discriminates” against disabled homeless people. Although the majority of all homeless people are men, women, and children with disabilities, the suit is the first in the country to broadly challenge the homeless shelter program of a city as a violation of civil rights statutes that protect people with disabilities.

The suit alleges that the cornerstone of San Francisco’s approach to homelessness — the embattled “Care Not Cash” program that is the brain child of Mayor Gavin Newsom systematically excludes homeless men and women with disabilities.

Care Not Cash gives participants priority shelter reservations and case management services. Homeless disabled persons who receive social security or veterans benefits cannot participate in the program, even if they desperately need shelter. People with disabilities are thus denied any opportunity to use a major portion of the resources in the shelter system and are denied access to the hundreds of reserved Care Not Cash beds.

Disabled persons are also denied any opportunity to make a 45-day shelter bed reservation, a privilege that Care Not Cash gives to eligible participants. In addition, these disabled men and women must compete with thousands of others each night for a chance to occupy one of the scarce shelter beds available. As a result, homeless people who need shelter the most are the ones who are least able to gain access to the services they so desperately need.

The class action suit, seeking relief on behalf of disabled homeless persons in San Francisco, was filed by Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), a Berkeley-based nonprofit law center, and Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason & Gette LLP, a major national litigation law firm. The suit seeks to end discrimination against disabled people and does not request money damages.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), a non profit coalition protecting the interests of homeless people, and an individual with disabilities who is homeless in San Francisco.

Sid Wolinsky, Litigation Director for Disability Rights Advocates, commented:
“San Francisco’s homeless ‘program’ is a bureaucratic mess. Under Mayor Newsom’s system, disabled people are more likely to be forced onto the streets and alleys of San Francisco. No amount of smooth talking can hide the fact that there are only 1,300 shelter beds for some 3,800 single adult homeless people. No wonder the last report of the National Coalition for the Homeless named San Francisco the ‘eleventh meanest city in the United States.’ The City has created a cruel shell game in which everyone is a loser.”

San Francisco has a very serious shortage of shelter beds. The City guarantees to anyone enrolled in Care Not Cash that they can obtain one of over three hundred beds specifically set aside for them. Because disabled men and women cannot participate in Care Not Cash, however, men and women in wheelchairs or with mental disabilities must attempt on their own to locate some other available bed, travel to that location carrying everything they have, endure lengthy waits until late at night, and often be told that no bed is available. Even if they find a bed, they cannot keep it. They are forced to repeat the process each day. Because homeless persons with disabilities often lack the mental and physical fortitude to overcome the obstacles which San Francisco imposes, they are often left unsheltered.

Dan Mason, an attorney with Zelle Hofmann commented: “It is shameful for a city with the civil rights history of San Francisco to treat people with disabilities so unfairly. People denied shelter beds are the most fragile shelter seekers — those with disabilities.”

People with disabilities, both mental and physical, make up a very high percentage of the homeless population in San Francisco. In a 2007 survey conducted by the Coalition on Homelessness, 50% of individuals in the shelter system self-identified as having a disability. Homeless advocates estimate that a far larger percentage of homeless people are disabled.


Paul Boden, Director of WRAP added, “Homelessness is an emergency. It is a crisis. For San Francisco to programmatically discriminate and to make this vital life sustaining service unavailable to people with mental health disabilities is unconscionable.”

The full text of the complaint is posted at the Disability Rights Advocates website: www.dralegal.org.

Foot Patrols to Discourage Homeless in Berkeley

BERKELEY, Calif. (KCBS) -- The problem of homeless street people has plagued Berkeley, but officials are hopeful that a new program will help. In September outreach workers known as “hosts” will troll Shattuck and Telegraph Avenues.

”We want to make sure that they get their needs met, but also allow visitors to enjoy their experience when they’re downtown,” said Deborah Badhia, executive director of the Downtown Berkeley Association.

The idea for foot patrols was hatched about a year ago, around the time Cody’s Books closed. Some theories are that the bookstore was forced to closed, in part, because Telegraph Avenue had deteriorated to a point that no one wanted to come to shop.

The foot patrol will give the homeless housing referrals and lists of city services.

Stand Up for Justice: Witness Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Trial this Tuesday!!

Help us deliver the verdict afterwards!
Tuesday, June 24th from 1pm to 3:30

In the People's Court, this Tuesday, homeless New Yorkers will present our evidence to a panel of judges and a jury of his peers. The people will show that Mayor Bloomberg's disastrous Five Year Plan to Reduce Homelessness is not only failing to reduce homelessness, it is turning a blind eye to the causes of homelessness, and in many ways, promoting policies that perpetuate homelessness through gentrification, warehousing of vacant apartments and poverty maintanence.

Evidence gathered from the experience of homeless New Yorkers and from the Department of Homeless Services own statistics, <http://www.picturethehomeless.org/blog/node/38> the people will show the failure of this Administration to solve the housing crisis is a failure measured in wasted money, damaged lives and damaged communities.

Join us after the trial to loudly deliver the Verdict to Mayor Bloomberg!


Judges: Episcopal Archdeacon Michael Kendall
Brenda Stokely, Coalition to Save Harlem, NY Solidarity Coalition with Katrina/Rita Survivors; Former President of Local 215, Social Service Employees and President of DC 1707, AFSCME.
Owen Rogers, Picture the Homeless leader, President of the Council of Black Catholics for Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens.



Testifyers: Leaders of Picture the Homeless, members of the New York City Council, faith leaders, and members of Community Voices Heard, and New York City Aids Housing Network (list still in formation!), and anonymous testimony submitted by Department of Homeless services staff.


St Bartholomew's Church
In the Chapel
Park Ave and 51st St
1:30 to 3pm

Call 646 314 6423 for more information or to volunteer!

Sisters Of The Road & Street Roots deliver postcards asking for the repeal of the camping and sit-lie lie ordinances

Activists deliver 2,000 signatures protesting city’s ‘abhorrent laws’
By Joanne Zuhl
Staff writer

Advocates for people on the streets filled City Council Chambers June 11, unfurling nearly 2,000 postcards signed by residents calling for the repeal of the city’s sit-lie and anti-camping ordinances. The campaign to repeal the laws was organized by Sisters of the Road and Street roots. Patrick Nolen, community organizer with Sisters, addressed the council, including new commissioner Nick Fish, and called for the city to end what he called "these abhorrent laws."

The so-called sit-lie law draws its name from barring people from sitting or lying on downtown sidewalks between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. The camping ordinance prohibits people from sleeping outdoors on public property.
"Between these two laws, sit-lie and anti-camping, it is effectively illegal to be homeless in Portland’s downtown core," Nolen told the council. "The sit-lie law has been in effect since August 2007: Not once has a person who was not homeless been cited. Not once."

Nolen said the city’s own leadership admits that the city lacks enough low-income housing units and shelter beds to house everyone who is homeless in Portland, but persists in punishing people for "meeting basic needs: sleep and rest."
Sisters of the Road recently withdrew it’s membership from the Street Access for Everyone, or SAFE oversight committee, citing the continued enforcement of the sit-lie law, which the original SAFE committee recommended. The committee was established to address street disorders, such as aggressive panhandling, public intoxication and low-level crimes. In the process it re-instated a sit-lie ban, with the promise of establishing a day access center for people on the streets, and installing benches and bathrooms. Nolen, along with Sisters Associate Director Michael Buonocore resigned from the committee in May, saying the city has failed to deliver on those promises, while continuing to enforce the sit-lie law, which they say, targets homeless people. Buonocore said at the time that Sisters would like to have the committee vote to recommend a repeal of the law, but that there were not enough votes to support such a motion.

Soon after Sisters resignation, it partnered with Street Roots to launch the postcard campaign.


"These postcards come from all over, business owners, people living without housing, local politicians and citizens from every economic background,” Nolen said. “Each person that took the time to write is a murmur, a part of a louder voice, a louder voice demanding our rights."

Nolen said that similar laws are being challenged all along the West Coast.

"Each city, whether it is Fresno, Seattle, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, are all fighting to repeal laws that criminalize people for doing nothing more than trying to exist. Portland has a chance to be at the forefront of this march towards civil rights for all, because Portland belongs to all of us."
The Council made no comments on the presentation.

“We were amazed when doing outreach what a broad base of neighborhood activists, business owners and residents agreed with the idea that the sit-lie law and camping ordinance are human rights violations because they target a specific population in our society,” said Street Roots Director Israel Bayer.

Mission Accomplished, American Style

The current hot trend in addressing homelessness in America’s cities is, once again, to remove panhandlers from downtown corridors. Lately the Bush administration – through their Interagency Council on Homelessness – has lauded Denver, Colorado and its 10-year planning process for coming up with one of the 20 Major Innovations this year. This major innovation that President Bush is so enamored with? Have people put change in old parking meters that the City then collects for United Way, rather than giving alms directly to people who are panhandling.

Clearly another case of “Mission Accomplished!!”

These panhandling meters are to homelessness what weapons of mass destruction were to the invasion of Iraq: a public relations ploy to achieve a government policy objective. Just as the Iraq invasion was really about oil for multinational corporations, these dumbass meters are really about removing poor people from downtown commercial areas. Denver officials told the SF Chronicle that the meter program there has not been lucrative, but panhandlers have seemed to disappear where they went up. Not to be deterred by facts, Team Bush has declared amazing results in Denver: $15,000 raised and a 92% reduction in panhandling. Plans are to get “more businesses to adopt meters” (at $1,000 a pop) and to hire local artists to spiff them up and make them more “visible and attractive,” which – when you think about it – raises an interesting question. If the initial crop of meters got rid off 92% of the panhandlers, why do a nicer, prettier version? Wouldn’t a pit bull design be more appropriate for that hard core 8% with the audacity to still be in public space?

Not concerned with contradictions and illogical facts, other cities are following suit. Baltimore installed some panhandling meters with similar “no money but damn, those immobile inanimate objects sure do scare away panhandlers!” results. And now San Francisco has announced plans to launch yet another in a long line of anti-panhandling campaigns, following this “innovative model.”

Cities and people are vexed with the realities of increasing income disparities and homelessness, but has the Bush administration developed any meaningful or substantive policy plans to address either income disparity or homelessness? Besides spending the past 7 years requiring local communities to write 10-Year Plans to End Homelessness while gutting funding for affordable housing and treatment services, what the fuck have these guys done?

They write blank checks to the military-industrial complex, putting us all in massive, never-before-seen levels of debt. They dole out Corporate Welfare that would require all of us spending 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year putting all our money into panhandling meters to match even a fraction of it. They are currently working in Congress to redefine the federal definition of who is homeless, so as to reduce the US population of homeless people DOWN to the 700,000 people they claim it to be (the 900,000 children listed as homeless in our Public Schools by the Department of Education will disappear quicker than the panhandlers in Denver), and they bail out the bankers while millions of middle- and low-income people are losing their homes to foreclosure.

Team Bush praises spare change panhandling meters as an “Innovative Solution” to homelessness, and they spend millions of dollars flying their henchman around the country to promote this and other “Innovative” ideas like using Police Officers as Outreach workers. It’s ironic. The feds created homelessness with draconian cuts to subsidized housing, and now it’s the local governments that are panhandling with meters and arresting homeless people for sleeping outdoors.
San Francisco is faced with a $300 million deficit, and has told service and treatment providers to anticipate a 20 to 30 percent reduction in the number of clients they will be able to serve next year. Many public health and homeless programs that have been serving thousands of poor people every year will be forced to close. Yet 6 months ago the Mayor found $200,000 to invest in a Homeless Coordinator who needed to do something or risk being seen as irrelevant in the face of these serious budget cuts. Presto, an innovative new idea “to see if we can save some lives out there.” Panhandling Parking Meters!! Now the Mayor’s office wants another $500,000 for 2 holding cells (ie, jail cells) in a new “Community Justice Center” to detain people arrested for minor nonviolent offenses (ie, panhandling).

Don’t believe for a second poor people just suddenly “disappear” with these seemingly innocuous little anti-sleeping, anti-panhandling, anti-loitering programs. Local jail cells are overflowing with them.

“Mission Accomplished,” my ass.

Panhandling VS. Panhandlers

San Francisco is panhandling to put panhandlers out of business (Full Article)

Other Cities doing same game (Full Article)

A plea for tolerance

One man's experience and realization!

(Page One)
(Page Two)

Seattle areas new panhandling law

Issaquah still misses the root cause of homelessness.(Full Article)

Dying For Dollars

Panhandling can be hazardous to health! (Full Article)

Montana's 5 county shelter

Shelter providing for down and out. (Full Article)

Filmmakers Document Homelessness In Austin

As the Austin City Council reviews a measure to ban panhandling, some local moviemakers are looking into the issue of homelessness and solicitation in their documentary.

Full Story:
"Under the Bridge"

SoMa patrols to shepherd homeless away from tourist areas

The city will send teams of outreach workers and police officers to offer social services to any homeless person caught littering, camping, trespassing, urinating, defecating, blocking sidewalks or publicly intoxicated.

If the homeless people refuse the services, they will receive a citation and will be told to appear in traffic court in 45 days. If a person is caught committing another quality-of-life crime within the same 8-hour period, he or she will be taken into custody.

Check out full story:
Robbing Peter to pay Paul, everyone else goes to jail

Brother, can you spare a dime?

LIKE VALETS AND BLACKJACK DEALERS,
panhandlers in Las Vegas are rumored to do surprisingly well. Legends abound: They live in mountain-side mansions and drive BMWs;

Full article:
Recently released study busts some myths about panhandling in Las Vegas

The Canadians Have Caught On

I've found a new hero in Canadian "street nurse" Cathy Crowe. This longtime health professional and homeless advocate worries that Philip Mangano has been spending too much time in Canada spreading the gospel of Housing First for the "chronic homeless" and public/private partnerships such as Project Connect.

Crowe totally has Mangano's number. Which doesn't mean Canadian politicians and human service bureaucrats won't be just as enamored of the corporate-friendly Ten Year Plan strategy to end homelessness as their technocratic brethren to the South. It just means that Canada still has homeless advocates who are willing to question the government.

And if our government isn't questionable, I don't know whose is.

Crowe describes Mangano's Canadian Ten Year Plan road show as promoting a punitive approach to homelessness that is hostile to emergency services and focused on victim-blaming approaches that offer cosmetic change while doing nothing to address root causes of homelessness.

Michael Shapcott and I had a chance to hear Mr Mangano in Calgary earlier in May. He really is a remarkable speaker — you could almost say evangelical — preaching the issues of health, economics and the social evils of homelessness. The trouble is that the American approach is obviously not working. It's a game of smoke and mirrors. So why on earth are our municipal and national leaders looking to the United States for solutions on homelessness?

As Michael Shapcott explains: "So, what's wrong with this picture? While Mangano has been piling up frequent flier points visiting every part of the US to convince state and local governments that they need to take up the responsibility for a "housing first" policy for the homeless, his political boss — President Bush — has been gutting the US federal government's funding for housing. This year alone, there are massive cuts to seniors' supportive housing and disabled housing funding. The US federal housing program for people with AIDS will help about 67,000 people this year — yet an estimated 500,000 people living with HIV / AIDS desperately need housing help.

The problem is so bad that even the rather staid Joint Centre for Housing Studies at Harvard University has proclaimed in its latest annual State of the Nation's Housing that affordable housing and homelessness have reached their worst levels ever, and funding cuts by the federal government are the chief culprit.

Crowe points out that homeless people in cities across America are under attack from law enforcement approaches that target sitting and sleeping in public, feeding people, using parks, panhandling, and other public activities to create an urban environment that is hostile to the visible poor, and says that Canada is beginning to catch America's cold.

In Canada it's the same thing. We are witnessing an almost fetishized emphasis on research, including street counts and investigations into panhandlers' needs, new by-laws against panhandling and by-laws restricting where homeless people can sleep, reduction of funding to programs that do outreach to people who are homeless, and a withdrawal of funding for emergency day and night shelters. Toronto alone has lost over 300 shelter beds just this past winter and it continues to rely on its Streets to Homes program as an answer to visible street homelessness. There are many reports that people who are housed through this program suffer greatly from hunger and isolation and remain at great risk of becoming or do become homeless again.

As we struggle to come to grips with homeless policy in America and break the USICH's growing hegemony over the issue of homelessness, maybe we need to keep a better eye on Canada. They're certainly looking out for us.