How San Francisco Should Help Hurricane Victims

After the 1991 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, America spent a few weeks contemplating the intersection of poverty and race. After fourteen years, Hurricane Katrina has brought renewed focus to this problem, and this time activists should do everything possible to ensure that society doesn’t get off the hook with quick, short-term remedies.

The best way to accomplish this is for San Francisco to take the lead in offering comprehensive assistance to former New Orleans residents. This means making a public, binding commitment of funds and/or services and then calling upon other cities, states and the national government to make a proportionate investment in the longterm eradication of urban poverty.

When Supervisor Chris Daly asked his colleagues for $1 million to aid tsunami relief, he was attacked in the media for foolish spending priorities. But the cost of permanently housing and finding jobs and income support for 300 New Orleans relocates will easily exceed $1 million, and the racial dynamics of this crisis will likely have the Mayor and Board of Supervisors clamoring to spend whatever is necessary.

San Franciscans often question their potential influence over national politics, but in this case the city is well positioned to provide national leadership. Once Mayor Newsom and the Board of Supervisors come out for a multimillion dollar economic assistance package for relocates from an area thousands of miles away, it will prove very difficult for other major city and state governments across America to avoid making proportional contributions.

As public pressure pushes mayors and governors to match San Francisco’s generosity, these officials will call on Washington DC to take the lead in providing billions in new federal urban action funds. With Republican efforts to woo black voters having been demolished by Katrina, the Party’s only hope in regaining their footing is by supporting urban programs that they never would have considered only two weeks ago.

There is already some local unrest over assistance planned for those coming from New Orleans. I heard from someone yesterday who is among the top 120 on the Housing Authority waiting list---they wanted to know how it was legal for people from outside San Francisco to get ahead of them in the line.

Others have asked me why if San Francisco had 200-300 public housing units available, they were not being occupied by families who are homeless and/or living in SRO’s.

These concerns are understandable. The only way to avoid the perception that New Orleans victims are simply taking resources from other deserving poor people is to expand the size of the pie---and that means getting the Bush Administration to increase funding on urban development programs it has spent years working to slash.

Is such a scenario possible under the reactionary President Bush ? Yes. Here’s why.

Unlike Iraq and other issues, Republican politicians and right-wing media figures expressed anger from the start at the lack of federal response to Katrina. The hurricane powerfully revealed the human cost of Republican-led tax breaks for the wealthy and cuts to programs for the poor, and nothing angers Republicans more than to be exposed as selfish and uncaring.

Although the Bush Administration is now offering $50 billion for hurricane relief, none of these funds address the race and poverty issues uncovered by the flood. Once this critical fact gets highlighted---and San Francisco officials can help lead the way-- the President and Republican congressional leaders will have to support some funding program that at least appears to be attacking urban poverty.

Oakland Congressmember Barbara Lee understands that the moment of opportunity has opened up for a federal anti-poverty initiative, and is scheduled to introduce legislation today requiring the federal government to develop a plan to end poverty in America by 2020. Few, however, will ever hear about Lee’s measure, and the same will hold true by proposals coming from other progressive Congressmembers.

That’s why it is so critical for big city mayors and local legislative bodies to make their own financial commitments as a spur to state and federal action. They can garner local media attention that is taken seriously by federal officials, and harness ongoing media coverage in a way Congressmembers---even San Francisco’s Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi---cannot.

It’s called putting our money where our mouth is. Once San Francisco allocates millions of its own dollars, nobody in the Bush Administration or Fox News Network will be able to credibly challenge San Francisco’s pushing other government entities to follow suit.

As an alternative, San Francisco can keep a low profile and avoid pressing others to do more. We can then wait a decade or more for another crisis to spotlight race and poverty, all the while bemoaning the missed opportunities of the past.