A Mouse In A Cookie Jar - Must Eat

A Mouse In A Cookie Jar...Must Eat!

Crime rate will skyrocket! Prop N will dry up the tourism industry as we know it. A homeless man or woman in San Francisco without a biweekly GA check is a wicked creature. The choice will be one of reckless havoc or jail time. We would have frequent instances of police brutality.

The working poor, disabled people, elderly people, stranded women, their children, and homeless men, veterans, and poor people of color will severely be socially and economically hurt by the passage of proposition N-widely known as Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash program.

Roughly 25% of the city's homeless population receive some form of general assistance. Prop. N will fail to cure homelessness as its proponent claims. There are nearly 15.000 homeless people roaming the mean streets of San Francisco. Some 3,000 homeless adults receive general assistance; the city and county jails would be over populated-if Prop N ever sees the light of day.

Prop N merely cuts off stipends to the poorest and homeless people of San Francisco, charging them for services they have gotten used to receiving. Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano introduced Prop O, or Exit Homelessness initiative, to counterbalance Prop N, with no guarantee that more than a thousand market rate, affordable housing units will require the city to provide for thousands of destitute residents.

Budget cuts savings if Prop N were voted into legislation diverted to homeless people's drug treatment, medical care, decent housing, and job training, would fall far short of the amount needed to pay for what is promised by this initiative. The cheapest affordable residential housing the city can provide, through Master Lease programs, cost more than $ 600 per month per person.

Alameda and San Mateo counties have experienced increases in their homeless populations since implementing their care programs. Influxes of homeless residents from these cities have been migrating into San Francisco, or gone to do jail times for petty crimes they must commit as a necessary habit of homelessness. Cities such as Seattle, Chicago, and New York, have all instituted similar forms of the Prop N, with little or no impact on quality of life for their homeless populations. What Newsom's Care Not Cash initiative would is pay for building many more affordable jail houses in the county and city of San Francisco.

A new study, soon published in the American Journal of Public Health, finds no ties between illegal drug consumption and cash receipts of general assistance. Nor is there any clear evidence that homeless deaths to the receipt of cash assistance, according to the most recent study in 1999, resulted in more homeless deaths.

People who receive general assistance must work 8 hours per week; if Prop N passes, they will be working for less than $2.00 per hour or 27% below minimum wage. In a March 2002 Department of Human Services report-2,895 homeless adults who receive general assistance: 72% are people of color, 50% are disabled, 40% are women in their first two semester of pregnancy; 60% are people of gender, 36% are people receiving aid over age 55, 25% are employed homeless men, and 18% are over 65-in the city and county of San Francisco.

In 1993, the city adopted the Matrix, also known as-the police approach-as its response to dealing with homelessness. Nine years later, with more than 135 street citations and arrests, the problem is far worse than before. Millions of taxpayer's money was wasted on a destructive approach that lacks human compassion.

Based on stereotypes that all homeless residents are alcoholics and addicts, Prop N will be no " compassionate solution" It is fraught with double-talk and empty legal loopholes as Care Not Cash will fail to ensure that the 60% of San Francisco's homeless do not abuse substances. Nor will its passage bring relieve to anxious 1,100 homeless residents on waiting lists every day to receive treatment on demand.