Gavin Newsom As "Punishing Parent" Of Homeless People

Scott Bravmann is a San Francisco Citizen who helped house a wheelchair bound homeless woman named Carolin Jack who saves stray cats. He did this as a concerned friend. This April 2002 he found her an apartment near Market Street, co-signed, and helped her pay her initial deposit and rent. He also gives ongoing financial and emotional support to his formerly homeless friend.

Following is the text of a letter he wrote to Gavin Newsom about Care Not Cash. Scott gave me permission to send his letter to Indymedia. - Carol Harvey

"Supervisor Newsom and other irrational anti-homeless folk should consider this:

I spent most of April (and $2,000) getting a disabled homeless friend a place to live. My friend's Social Security income is more than twice the current General Assistance grant and she had a middle-class employed white man with a long rental history, flawless credit, and a Ph.D. as her cosigner. Yet still it took almost two weeks for the landlord (reluctantly) to accept her application. After rent, she is left with $104 per month and is ineligible for food stamps.

Of course, "solutions" like this are impossible ways to create safe and stable living environments. One might hope that any serious candidate for mayor of San Francisco would show substantially more skill in crafting social policy than a punishing parent who cuts a child's already meager allowance because that child cannot afford to house, feed, and clothe herself.

Scott Bravmann"