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A PLAN FOR ACTION
TO END HOMELESSNESS IN SAN FRANCISCO
1-18-2000
Introduction
San Francisco has failed to solve the problem of
homelessness. While the number of homeless individuals and families
in San Francisco and across the U.S. has continued to rise at an
alarming rate,we have witnessed an alarming increase in police-based
responses to the presence of homeless people in public spaces. But
homelessness is an economic issue, not a nuisance issue.
There has been precious little public discussion of the
reality that homelessness, like most other social problems, can, in
fact, be alleviated. The Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco
submits the following Plan For Action to all concerned residents of
the City and County of San Francisco, and urge all who are concerned
about the homeless problem to take action for change.
Guiding Principles
- We must ensure that homeless people can actively participate
in the development and implementation of programs and policies that
directly or indirectly impact homeless people.
- The City must stop sinking money into temporary Band-Aid solutions.
- The City must stop creating and continuing policies that
criminalize people for life sustaining acts that they must do in
public because they are homeless.
- The City must ensure that all services in San Francisco must
be provided with dignity and respect.
Action Steps
The City must have a commitment to provide dignified, decent housing
to meet the needs of homeless and very low-income people in San
Francisco. Central to this commitment is the responsibility to
develop new funding sources dedicated to the creation of truly
affordable housing.
Housing
-
Create a Housing Trust Fund from general fund money that is
dedicated to the preservation and creation of low income housing.
Trust fund would be used for homeless people, and models would
include limited equity cooperatives and community land trusts.
-
Create housing for undocumented families and individuals with
a bilingual staff that include language and skill training workshops.
- Make existing housing available at the Presidio for homeless people.
- Pass legislation that mandates that 20% of all surplus public
lands be dedicated to housing homeless people.
- The City must ensure that housing affordable to very
low-income people will conform to health and building standards.
- Fund a citywide eviction prevention program, combining legal
services with grants for back payment of rent.
- Provide one to one replacement of all HUD housing units
demolished through HOPE VI or other programs.
- Close loopholes that currently allow landlords to evict low
income people in order either to raise rents or avoid tenants rights.
- Create housing subsidies for families and individuals.
- Implement "vacancy control", where rents are maintined
through periods of vacancy regardless of the length of stay of former
occupant.
- Use existing regulations to create rather than destroy low
income housing.
Health Care
-
Health care must be made accessible and available to all, appropriate
to the needs of patients or clients, integrated in its approach and
compassionate in its application.
- Provide bilingual and culturally sensitive programs for women
that come from domestic violence.
- 24 hour access to bathrooms throughout the City.
- Commit to full funding of treatment on demand to build a
community based treatment system that fully serves the diversity of
San Francisco. This includes spending $20,000,000 over five years,
implementing the recommendations of the San Francisco Treatment on
Demand Planning Council. This must include bilingual and culturally
appropriate substace abuse tretment for Latinos.
- Rebuild the mental health care system to address both the
acute and chronic mental health care needs of homeless San
Franciscans, including culturally appropriate and bilingual mental
health care for Latinos.
- Expand residential treatment programs, both in number and
length of stay. This should include different program options such
as coops.
- Guaranteed access to latest medications and therapies,
including but not limited to the latest psychotropic medications.
- The City must make all efforts to make health care facilities
welcome and available to homeless people. This means having well
trained staff, as well as not prohibiting homeless people from being
on clinic properties after hours.
- Increase availability of mobile medical vans to increase
access to health care to people who are unable to access the clinics
and hospitals.
Economic Justice
-
People must have adequate access to humane employment, and economic
opportunities in order to acquire and maintain housing.
- Actively support a living wage bill in San Francisco that
will allow working families and individuals to be self-sufficient.
- Create more language and training programs for non-English
speakers (documented and undocumented) with more appropriate
schedules that allow for those that work or have children may attend.
- Provide worker rights training to day laborers.
- Provide job retention services to ensure that there are
necessary support services for homeless people placed in jobs.
- Ensure full implementation of First Source Legislation by
pressuring businesses to hire homeless people and public assistance
recipients, as well as have training programs that lead people into
jobs.
- Award workfare workers the rights of other union employees,
including paying prevailing wages, work place protections and allow
for other benefits.
- Establish citywide jobs program, making 200 full-time and
100 part-time jobs available to workfare workers at prevailing wages
for a period of 2 years.
- Make quality, affordable childcare available to working parents.
- Make the CalWORKS program one infused with dignity for
recipients, that keeps them informed of their status, reduce
paperwork, and provide ongoing, adequate training for workers.
- Expedite reciprocity agreement with adjoining counties that
allow families forced to leave San Francisco to continue their
training, education, childcare and other CalWORKS related programs in
San Francisco while they receive their benefits in their new county
of residence.
Civil and Human Rights
-
The human and civil rights of all people must be respected,
regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability or
economic status. People forced to live on the streets and in
shelters should not face additional discrimination as a result.
- Always separate the criminal justice system from service
providers and the provision of benefits.
- Take affirmative steps to end hate crimes directed against
homeless and very poor people.
- Prohibit all private taxation "benefit zones," like BIDs,
that privatize public spaces and act to further criminalize
homelessness.
- Safeguards the privacy rights of homeless people.
- Embrace equal access to public spaces for homeless and non
homeless people, including the elimination of architectural barriers
to people being in such public places.
- Ban all laws, and enforcement of laws that in practice target
homeless people for their status of being homeless.
- Implement a comprehensive independent grievance process for
the entire service treatment network.
- Provide twenty four hour notice before removing homeless
people's unattended property, and stop the confiscation of any
property that is attended.
- All programs must comply with applicable local, state and
federal disability rights laws protecting the rights of persons with
disabilities and insuring access to government benefits and services.
- Policies and procedures of programs that provide shelter,
housing and treatment services to families shall not require that
families separate as a condition of obtaining these resources.
Where The Funding Will Come From
- Attach a "new construction tax" on both private and
commercial development to fund permanent housing for homeless or very
low income people. This money can then be put in the Housing Trust
Fund.
- Create a 1% wage tax on people earning over $30,000 who work
in but live outside of San Francisco to be used for housing and
programs serving homeless people.
- Set-aside 10%? of the hotel tax funds for the creation of
permanent solutions to homelessness.
Conclusion
In a City which is rapidly losing affordable housing,
the above steps should be viewed as comprehensive, if minimal, steps
toward proactively addressing homelessness. So long as public
discourse on the problem of homelessness remains mired in "Quality of
Life" rhetoric, and is not explicitly linked to the lack of
affordable housing, subsidized health care, economic equity, and
civil rights for the City's indigent residents, the problem will
continue to grow.
Although the vision we present will not be a simple one to
bring to fruition, it is an essential one. It is has been said that
so long as one person is hungry, none can eat in peace. It is in the
spirit of this truth that we must not accept that people are sleeping
on the streets in San Francisco. With hard work, we can end
homelessness once and for all.
We urge all people concerned about the future of San
Francisco to earnestly evaluate this Plan. And then to Act upon it..
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Derechos Civiles y Humanos
-
Los derechos civiles y humanos de todas personas deben ser
respetados, independientemente de su raza, genero, orientaciŪn
sexual, edad, incapacidad, o estado economico. Las personas no deben
ser perjudicados por estar forzados a vivir en la calle y en los
refugios.
- Separe siempre el sistema judicial criniminal de los que
proveen servicios y los provisiones de beneficios.
- Tome pasos afirmativos a parar crimines de odio dirigidos a
las personas desamparadas y de muy bajos ingresos.
- Prohibe todo tipo de "zonas de beneficios" con impuestos
privados, como BIDs que privatiza espacios publicos y convierte
desamparidad a ser una delincuencia.
- Asegure y protege los derechos de privacidad de las personas
desamparadas.
- Deje que personas desamparadas y no-desamparadas tengan el
mismo aceso a espacios publicos.
- Prohibe todas las leyes y la implementaciŪn de leyes que
perjudican a personas desamparadas simplemente por su estado de
desamparidad.
- Implemente un proceso independiente de queja para toda la red
de servicios de tratamiento.
- Espere 24 horas antes de quitar propiedad abandonada, y pare
completamente la confiscaciŪn de toda propiedad de la cual alguien se
est· ocupada.
- Todos programas deben cumplir con leyes locales, estadales y
federales que protegen los derechos de personas incapacitadas y
asegurando su aceso a beneficios y servicios gubermentales.
- Politicas y procedimientos de los programas que proveen
refugio, viviendas y tratamiento a familias no deben requerir que
familias esten divididas para poder obtener recursos.
De Donde Va Venir los Fondos
- Agregue un "Impuesto a la nueva construcciŪn" al desarrollo
privado y comercial para financiar viviendas permanentes para
personas desamparadas y de bajos ingresos. Este dinero se puede
ubicar en el Fondo para Vivienda.
- Cree un impuesto de 1% al salario de las personas que ganan
m·s de $30,000, y trabajan en San Francisco pero viven afuera de la
ciudad.
- Asigne 10% de los fondos que vienen de los impuestos de
hoteles para la creaciŪn de soluciones permanentes a la desamparidad.
ConclusiŪn
En una ciudad que muy rapidamente est· perdiendo viviendas
asequibles, los pasos escritos aquĢ deben ser considerados amplios,
por lo minimo, para enfrentar desamparidad en una manera positiva.
Mientras que el discurso publico sobre el problema de desamparidad se
quede en la retŪrica de "Calidad de Vida," y no se relaciona a la
falta de viviendas adequibles, de servicio de salud subvencionado, de
equidad economica y de derechos civiles para los residentes pobres de
esta ciudad, el problema continuira creciendo.
Aunque sabemos que nuestra visiŪn no ser· facĢl a realizar es
fundamental. Se ha dicho que cuando solo una persona tiene hambre,
nadie puede comer en paz. Es en el espiritu de esta verdad que
nosotros no debemos aceptar que personas duermen en las calles de San
Francisco. Con mucho trabajo, podemos acabar con la desamparidad.
Estamos pidiendo que todas las personas preocupadas por el
futuro de San Francisco evaluen seriamente este plan, y luego actuar
en lo que propone.
PNN Staff
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