Health Department Moves To Kill SRO Collaboratives

by Randy Shaw, Beyond Chron (reposted)

Tue, Apr 17, 2007 7:26AM

After ruling that Ruby Rippey-Tourk’s alcohol problem represented a “catastrophic illness,” San Francisco Health Director Mitch Katz now seeks to kill the city’s most effective program for addressing the needs of formerly homeless single adults living in SRO’s. After initially seeking to cut the funding for SRO Collaboratives by $100,000, Katz will ask the Health Commission today to approve a budget that would eliminate funding for the $850,000 program entirely. Neither Katz nor any member of DPH bothered to inform the many SRO Collaborative staff about the proposed cuts. Meanwhile, on the same agenda the Health Department seeks to award a multimillion dollar sole source contract to the Tides Foundation---in clear conflict with Mayor Newsom’s edict against such sole sourcing.

Something very odd is going on in the Health Department these days. After Mitch Katz’s bizarre and unprecendented ruling that Ruby Rippey-Tourk’s alcoholism was a “catastrophic illness, the Director now seeks to eliminate the most effective program dealing with formerly homeless single adults---the SRO Collaboratives.

The Mission, Tenderloin and Chinatown SRO Collaboratives provide fire prevention workshops and a long list of services ranging from writing workshops to meditation sessions to SRO tenants. The programs are widely credited with encouraging tenant stability, particularly in hotels housing formerly homeless tenants through Mayor Newsom’s Care not Care program and DPH’s Direct Access to Housing program.

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