Honoring Our Covenant of Compassion with Homeless People

Houzless chyle….
sky iz r roof
keepin us lookin up.
windowz r tha eye’z of r people
showin us socitiez
justice iz just.ice.
capitalizm has no human worth
Excerpt from the poem :Houzless Chyle by Jewnbug, Po’ Poetz ProjecK of, POOR Magazine


"We are here today to hear the truth of homelessness and to remind people that there are homeless people who have died on our streets….we have to find a more compassionate way to solve homelessness and to be compassionate really means to suffer with people and through the identification with people, to relieve their suffering," I watched the warm brown eyes of Reverend Dorsey Blake from the Church of the Fellowship of all
Peoples as he prepared to participate in the multi-denominational, and truly inspiring Covenant of Compassion ceremony held last Sunday in San Francisco’s City Hall plaza. As he spoke, I clutched a handmade wooden cross, one of 100 crosses created by the ceremonies organizers; Religious Witness with Homeless People covered with the name of a houseless San Franciscan who had passed, unnoticed, uncounted, unnamed and unremembered, until now, on the ice-like streets of San Francisco in 2004.

As a formerly houseless, member of POOR Magazine’s Po Poets Project, I, too was preparing to participate by spitting spoken Wordz and poverty scholarship with my fellow po’ poets Jewnbug and, A. Faye Hicks, in a day focused not only on honoring the houseless who have passed but also to hear, recognize and act compassionately on the real story behind the racist, classist, anti-homeless people legislation known as Care Not Cash(CNC) launched as the mayoral platform for Gavin Newsom

"We live in very violent times when the current (presidential) administration is more outraged at a breast shown at a football game than the systematic abuse and torture of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay" The day began by hearing from Assemblyman Mark Leno who along with SF supervisors Chris Daly and Bevan Dufty sponsored a legislation that would force the City to start counting and naming the City’s homeless who died on the streets, a process which used to happen every year but was ended in 2001, Mark continued, "when violence is so glorified, humanity and the value of humans is debased –we need to put a name and a face on the people that have died on the streets"

SF Supervisor Chris Daly followed him,"Its not just about the fact that people who have died on our streets should not go unmarked and un-mourned but its also about analyzing how we’re doing as a city and a society on one of our most difficult and confusing issues, homelessness"., With his support of this and other issues Chris continues to be one of the few consistently progressive voices on the board for economic justice in San Francisco

"Allaaaaaaah Aloo Akebah" After the triumphant news that we had won back the right to recognize the passing of San Francisco's’ homeless, the diminutive and powerful Sister Bernie, Executive Director of Religious Witness with Homeless People launched the days cross denominational "Solemn Opening of Service" which included a Buddhist bell sounding, a Jewish horn, a song about homelessness and a haunting Muslim chant by Souleiman Ghali. As he sung/chant I was transported to the multiple targets of Bush/Cheny Inc.'s Krusades/kolinazation efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and mused at the similar ways in which the corporate media promoted international abuses and local abuses of marginalized and unheard peoples.

"We come here today because our sisters and brothers with no homes have asked us to listen to them in their time of suffering despite the rosy picture created by the media" After the Solemn service Reverend Jana Drakka described the focus of the covenant of compassion, "Throughout the past eight months that the legislation Care not Cash has been in effect the media has repeatedly reported on its wonderful results and indeed over 628 homeless adults have been placed in rooms. And we rejoice as members of religious witness in that fact as we have been advocating for housing with supportive services for the last eleven years. Sadly, however, the way Care Not Cash has been implemented has resulted in the suffering of many other homeless people- by both the 1000 people targeted by Care Not Cash as well as the over 13,000 San Franciscans not targeted by Care Not Cash - a study released in November conducted by homeless people confirmed what we have been told.

She concluded with a grace that only a religious leader could muster, "Let us be clear we are not here to question the commitment of Mayor Newsom and his administration to, and I quote, 'end homelessness as we know it' but we Leaders, friends and members of religious witness are committed to listening to the voices of our poor and homeless brothers and sisters to stand compassionately with them in their suffering and to join them in their struggle for justice."


"We think its wrong for a shelter to be considered "housing" which is how it is worded in the CNC legislation," Shelly Roder from St Boniface Shelter was one of the first advocates to address the gathering, "to consider a mat or cot cramped in with a lot of other people which often ends up being a mat on the floor, housing, is not right- and then making a shelter mat part of a (welfare) benefit package displaces many of the homeless who don't receive city funds (i.e., Welfare/ General Assistance/GA ) cause the beds are reserved for people on GA"

"I just wanted to start by thanking Mark Leno cause Food stamps were restored to felons who were convicted for drug offenses thanks to his tireless efforts" Next we heard from Bill Hart, the formerly houseless, executive director of General Assistance Advocacy Project /GAAP

He continued,"Before Care Not Cash there were 2,497 homeless people receiving welfare benefits-its now down to 852 - but where did the 1090 people go?- most of them dropped off the program cause its too hard to do all the hoops just to get $29.00 every two weeks, including a new rigorous form of job search and they don't even give you a bus pass, so people just said forget it I can’t to do all that"

"We are starting this new year tragically for poor and homeless people. One of the saddest examples of this is when I meet previously homeless people who are now incarcerated telling me that they are better off in prison (where they are now) in San Quentin- they only thing they lost was their freedom but that was better than how they felt on the streets of San Francisco under care not cash living on $59 a month." With tears of horror in my eyes at Bill’s last comment, I wondered if the "paupers prisons" my poor Irish Grandmother used to tell me about could be far behind. But of course who needs them, they are already here…

"Hi, I am Ken Sanders, I am 55 years old and I am a diabetic residing at Hospitality House - I have lived in SF all of my life- only homeless for the last four years - homelessness is a hard job-and cause of Care Not Cash, its even harder" The most important part of the day, the testimonies of folk struggling with this CNC mess, was launched with the tragic voices of African Descendent, Latino and White folks like long-term SF resident, Mr. Sanders and the next speaker, the eloquent David Hawkins-Bey

"I am from Detroit Michigan, I came to the Bay Area in July of 2004 I came here to work in the hotels and come to find out they were on strike. I eventually started to receive the $29.00 CNC benefit but my whole purpose of being here was to work and it seemed like I was being penalized for working part-time and receiving $200-300 a month which I was going to use to move in to an apartment. Instead my food stamps were cut and I still haven't found any housing, I thought if I proved myself to be a productive citizen that the GA program would work for me. In Michigan there is no general Assistance program, no welfare, no nothing- I came here in the hopes of providing a better life for myself and in the end I know that the only savior is love and to believe in love and the love of God - it is all you can take with you"

We then heard a bi-lingual plea for economic justice from the Lorenzo Cruz, a homeless, immigrant day laborer, "The life for day laborers is very hard- in the past, day laborers like me could stay in shelters for a place to sleep but now because of Care not Cash the shelters are no longer a place to sleep for us- and with little work immigrant workers have no money to rent a room- why is this city making the lives of poor people so difficult?"

The day was filled with the poverty scholarship of many more homeless folks trying to express the unbelievably difficult position of poor people living under this corporate poverty pimpin program called Care not Cash sponsored by the city government including one man who spoke of spending all night just to get one bed only to be told at 11:00pm, that his struggle was futile as there was in fact, no room at the Inn.

The powerful and tragic day closed with a Dance of compassion, response "to the testimonies" by Reverend Jane Schlager and Reverend Nobu Hanaoka and closing hymn called The Lord hears the Cry of the Poor……

For more poverty scholarship, poetry and journalism on issues of poverty and racism by the folks who experience it first-hand go on-line to http://www.poormagazine.org