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Open Letter to the Mayor of San Francisco
If each of these readers tells two friends or family members of your horrible, egregious treatment of your homeless CITIZENS, that will be more than 1 million possible tourists lost!
Open Letter to the Mayor of San Francisco
August 1, 2001
Willie L. Brown, Jr., Mayor
City Hall, Room 200
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102
Dear Mayor Willie Brown,
My name is Joie Finley. I recently visited San Francisco for the conference of the North American Street Newspaper Association. I represented the Community of Meeting Ground and it’s paper, Loaves & Fishes, from Maryland.
Upon my return I was trying to write a story for our paper about the conference, I was constantly led astray by horrifying visions of your city. On the morning of July 30th, I walked one square block of your city counting the homeless. I saw 42 people cast to the streets and these were only the visible ones. Many more were uncounted in tents, vans and boxes. This was only 1 square block!
You must begin a plan of action to rectify your wrongs. These folks deserve to be treated with dignity and afforded the same rights as the housed.
When 3rd world countries commit heinous crimes, we, as a nation, stand firm with sanctions and boycotts. Until you make a concerted and believable effort to correct your crimes against humanity, I will not return to your city. I will inform my friends and relatives of what sadness I witnessed on my visit and discourage them from any future visits they may have planned.
I have also sent this letter to more than 65 street papers across the US and Canada with a request that they print it, or a letter of a similar sentiment. This will reach more than 344,000 readers in one month. If each of these readers tells two friends or family members of your horrible, egregious treatment of your homeless CITIZENS, that will be more than 1 million possible tourists lost! This reaction is exponential and will inevitably reach far beyond 1 million. The homeless of your city are living in a war zone, and yes, this is a boycott of your war torn land. Your inaction and poor policies are criminal and you are to be held accountable for the lives and souls lost on your streets. Mayor Brown, take notice-the people of your city are dying.
Until you take action and appropriate measures to provide affordable housing, living wage jobs, decent and accessible health care, mental health services and substance-use treatment for EVERY resident of your city, as well as compassion training for your police department, I will continue to support and advocate for a boycott of your city.
With Sincere Regret,
Joie Finley,
Loaves & Fishes
August 1, 2001
Willie L. Brown, Jr., Mayor
City Hall, Room 200
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102
Dear Mayor Willie Brown,
My name is Joie Finley. I recently visited San Francisco for the conference of the North American Street Newspaper Association. I represented the Community of Meeting Ground and it’s paper, Loaves & Fishes, from Maryland.
Upon my return I was trying to write a story for our paper about the conference, I was constantly led astray by horrifying visions of your city. On the morning of July 30th, I walked one square block of your city counting the homeless. I saw 42 people cast to the streets and these were only the visible ones. Many more were uncounted in tents, vans and boxes. This was only 1 square block!
You must begin a plan of action to rectify your wrongs. These folks deserve to be treated with dignity and afforded the same rights as the housed.
When 3rd world countries commit heinous crimes, we, as a nation, stand firm with sanctions and boycotts. Until you make a concerted and believable effort to correct your crimes against humanity, I will not return to your city. I will inform my friends and relatives of what sadness I witnessed on my visit and discourage them from any future visits they may have planned.
I have also sent this letter to more than 65 street papers across the US and Canada with a request that they print it, or a letter of a similar sentiment. This will reach more than 344,000 readers in one month. If each of these readers tells two friends or family members of your horrible, egregious treatment of your homeless CITIZENS, that will be more than 1 million possible tourists lost! This reaction is exponential and will inevitably reach far beyond 1 million. The homeless of your city are living in a war zone, and yes, this is a boycott of your war torn land. Your inaction and poor policies are criminal and you are to be held accountable for the lives and souls lost on your streets. Mayor Brown, take notice-the people of your city are dying.
Until you take action and appropriate measures to provide affordable housing, living wage jobs, decent and accessible health care, mental health services and substance-use treatment for EVERY resident of your city, as well as compassion training for your police department, I will continue to support and advocate for a boycott of your city.
With Sincere Regret,
Joie Finley,
Loaves & Fishes
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Nice try, but letters of indignation go unnoticed. Even protest is scorned by him and his staff. It's time to put our muscle behind his opponents and stop complaining to someone who is deaf to our issue.
Also, reading your letter, it seems too focused on getting people off the streets. Let me reiterate that the streets belong to the people. Fuck jaywalking laws! Fuck vagrancy laws! Fuck "blocking the sidewalk" laws! It's time to flip a switch on these motherfuckers and reclaim public places for everyone!
Willie Brown is a vicious, arrogant, organized hoodlum who has utter contempt for the workingclass and will simply file your letter in the circular file. He might have a recycle basket by his desk, but that is certainly not his style either. He wastes everything, especially taxpayer dollars. He stole $500,000 from our city art fund to put gold leave on the City Hall dome; that is there was no vote from the Board of Supervisors or the voters; he just took it and spent it while City Hall was undergoing seismic retrofit. Putting gold leaf on the dome has absolutely nothing to do with earthquake proofing, and certainly was not budgeted. That is just one small example of the horror at City Hall.
We all certainly do appreciate your concern and suggestions. I, for one, would love to see all the tourists leave town for good. We get a lot of foreign tourists, especially from Germany, so you might notify them too. Of course, the world capitalist economy is collapsing, so they might not be coming here anymore.
Meanwhile, I hope you will join the world's workingclass in fighting for socialism. Then, we will all have loaves and fishes, and we will share those loaves and fishes equitably with everyone.
Since San Francisco is still a union town, we say:
Solidarity forever!