As so often in the many years we've known each other, I'm dazzled by your writerly brilliance, Leah -- and above all by its remarkable blending of heart and mind. In the unending blizzard of commentary on homelessness in San Francisco, no one has pinpointed the core human and public issues as movingly as you do in this posting. The wrenching personal leaps between heartfelt empathy and edgy wariness, against the backdrop of ever-emptier pronouncements on the crisis by "civic leaders" engaged only in re-election strategies, and cops who have no idea what's expected of them on the frontline between home-owners and tent-dwellers. On this side of the Atlantic, the same bleak chemistry is at work in the migrant crisis -- the exhausted survivors of unimaginable journeys from Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa whose numbers alternately break our hearts and terrify us. The 21st century equivalent of the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" desribed by Emma Lazarus: your grandparents and mine...
I am so touched, Frank. It is one of the most troubling issues in the constant struggle to lead a decent life. My grandmother — and I have thought about this — would have given those people a meal, and then told them to get the hell away. With no guilt over the juxtaposition of those actions
For my money, Leah, you're the master of sweetly expressing the contradictions we endure, the internal conflicts we have to suppress to get on with our oxymoronic lives. I'm the better for reading your story.
If everyone had thought about this as deeply and as eloquently, and a lot earlier, maybe we would have small houses or communes or something we could ALL live with by now.
This is the program I created a few years ago and gave to the hells angels. I was glad
it was made into something workable.
The problem with the majority of homeless is they might have a criminal record that prevents them from being accepted into housing choice vouchers section 8. In mountain view the city turned an office building into studios for the homeless and my sister lived there and did the photo op with Gavin Newsom when he came to visit to see what Palo Alto was doing with homeless. I think it was a great idea. Though it should be structured housing where there is a manager and people have to clean their space everyday and have chores to keep them active in community living otherwise the places get ruined really fast. I think section 8 people should have this style of managed living too.
I think about the homeless issue all the time and came up with a plan to give people that house a homeless person a tax break, and section 8 housing for people that are homeless.
They initiated the plan here in Contra Costa but it isn't connecting homeless people with the housing choice vouchers.
Last year's budget bill in Congress the Republicans blocked contained 85 billion dollars in housing choice section 8 vouchers to be given only to new illegal immigrants Joe Biden not only let in but brought over to the US at a time with high inflation and overspending.
Dear Leah, You've touched a deep chord: how to live as a compassionate and conscious being? Difficult because our mind/heart so often want to do, or know what to do, but in fact, have legitimate reasons/inhibitions for not doing. Developers can't afford to build low-rent buildings. HUD has scaled back dramatically in the past 2 decades. I just heard the stats for CALIF: wages have risen 2% and rent 21% in 20 years. We can enact moments of kindness with food or money or clothing. But as everyone knows, and all these comments iterate, individuals and even non-profits cannot solve this problem. And it only grows, especially here where rents are exorbitant and houses unaffordable. What we can do is pressure candidates to commit to 'real' solutions. I don't like the Nimby vs. Yimby binary, which reduces the complex balance of housing, open space, climate concerns, liveability, transportation options, et al. to a sound byte. But I do think that thoughtful housing solutions are the only real solution. Here's a link to HUD where they boast of a 20-year record of housing 120K persons (that's VERY few people relative to need, but it does reveal how lax federal govt has been for 2 decades): https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/hud_no_23_283
No, but local candidates spew a lot of BS...including some very bad housing mandates coming out of Sacramento. Thinking of your Scott W. I say 'bad' because there's no teeth in these mandates that require large % of cheap-affordable units. It's all mostly high-end housing. In Berkeley a builder could opt out of even a tiny % of affordable units by $$ pay-offs to the City. That may have changed (I have to check). Vienna has beautiful models of mixed housing (which also alters perceptions re: class), funded with public-private partnerships. Developers need govt incentives to do the right thing, something SAC has conveniently overlooked.
With San Francisco poised to take on more and more homeless from across the globe, whether from migration or attracted here by ‘incentives’ many die daily on the streets from drugs/alcohol poison or a disregard for their personal health and sanitation or worst succumb to death by their own hand. Yet, You have managed to make their plight and suffering all about you and manage to push “tolerance” out to the rest if us as the theme to your piece. Congratulations you are indeed a San Francisco liberal.
Leah, that was a great description of all the emotions that we feel when we encounter homeless people. Unfortunately, they are now in every major town and city. I can not help but empathize with them, because "there but for the grace of God .........." But, of course most people also feel NIMBY (not in my back yard). It is a tough problem.
Beautiful piece that reveals the mixed feelings so many of us have about the unhoused. As compassionate humans we want to help, we don’t want to make their lives more miserable…yet, yet.
Solutions are there. We, as a Nation, need to be smarter, kinder and put our vast wealth in the right places.
You've so wonderfully articulated our strange relationship with what's happening on the street--so amazingly and complexly felt, thank you dear Leah, for your thoughtfulness and humaneness!! xx Sandy
Eloquently written my friend. You represent the situation we all feel who are housed but live close to the “rough” sleepers. I too think of ways to help but I’m afraid this is one for the federal government to fix. It’s too big and it’s everyone’s responsibility.
What an eloquently written and painfully personal piece, Leah. It reminds of the article you wrote years ago when a homeless man camped in the open alley between your house and the building just North of you. Times have changed and the encroachment is more visible and frequent, even semi-permanent. And clearly more
dangerous. A few months ago The NY Times did an article on Portugal's attempts to address the same issue disabling their entire country, which appears to be succeeding, but here we go comparing our cities to smaller countries with more homogeneous populations and, perhaps, a far less cumbersome government. Portugal's approach involves a strategic and systematic program based on lots of money to provide better and safer housing options, plenty of support services for addiction-bound people and the mentally ill, and long-term rehabilitation services. Perhaps we are simply not willing to do the same in an organized, effective manner, or more likely, our governments are reluctant to spend the money. It astonishes me that some of our citizens can pay tens of thousands of dollars to see the Super Bowl in person, or $40,000 a month for an apartment in my own home town, New York City. Trump didn't help by reducing taxes for the rich who can afford these luxuries, and I don't believe that middle class people should feel guilty for objecting to the nearness of the trouble that is created by the lack of an effective approach and the money needed to truly solve the problem. If our lawmakers spent more time addressing real issues instead of harassing and criticizing each other, perhaps they could work together to effect true changes, from town councils all the way up through our federal representatives.
As so often in the many years we've known each other, I'm dazzled by your writerly brilliance, Leah -- and above all by its remarkable blending of heart and mind. In the unending blizzard of commentary on homelessness in San Francisco, no one has pinpointed the core human and public issues as movingly as you do in this posting. The wrenching personal leaps between heartfelt empathy and edgy wariness, against the backdrop of ever-emptier pronouncements on the crisis by "civic leaders" engaged only in re-election strategies, and cops who have no idea what's expected of them on the frontline between home-owners and tent-dwellers. On this side of the Atlantic, the same bleak chemistry is at work in the migrant crisis -- the exhausted survivors of unimaginable journeys from Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa whose numbers alternately break our hearts and terrify us. The 21st century equivalent of the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" desribed by Emma Lazarus: your grandparents and mine...
I am so touched, Frank. It is one of the most troubling issues in the constant struggle to lead a decent life. My grandmother — and I have thought about this — would have given those people a meal, and then told them to get the hell away. With no guilt over the juxtaposition of those actions
Beautiful report, Leah. Thank you.
Thank YOU. XX
Wanted to comment, but others so very eloquent. I feel you.
For my money, Leah, you're the master of sweetly expressing the contradictions we endure, the internal conflicts we have to suppress to get on with our oxymoronic lives. I'm the better for reading your story.
Thanks so very much
If everyone had thought about this as deeply and as eloquently, and a lot earlier, maybe we would have small houses or communes or something we could ALL live with by now.
I dunno. Thinking about it so far has done little, but to put a band-aid on our own bruises
Office space turned into studio apts with managed supervision would be great for San Francisco
https://www.newsweek.com/san-francisco-offices-empty-1812144
https://sfha.org/housing-programs/housing-choice-voucher-property-owners
This is the program I created a few years ago and gave to the hells angels. I was glad
it was made into something workable.
The problem with the majority of homeless is they might have a criminal record that prevents them from being accepted into housing choice vouchers section 8. In mountain view the city turned an office building into studios for the homeless and my sister lived there and did the photo op with Gavin Newsom when he came to visit to see what Palo Alto was doing with homeless. I think it was a great idea. Though it should be structured housing where there is a manager and people have to clean their space everyday and have chores to keep them active in community living otherwise the places get ruined really fast. I think section 8 people should have this style of managed living too.
I admire your practical idea … and that you have put your mind to solving the problem
I think about the homeless issue all the time and came up with a plan to give people that house a homeless person a tax break, and section 8 housing for people that are homeless.
They initiated the plan here in Contra Costa but it isn't connecting homeless people with the housing choice vouchers.
Last year's budget bill in Congress the Republicans blocked contained 85 billion dollars in housing choice section 8 vouchers to be given only to new illegal immigrants Joe Biden not only let in but brought over to the US at a time with high inflation and overspending.
Dear Leah, You've touched a deep chord: how to live as a compassionate and conscious being? Difficult because our mind/heart so often want to do, or know what to do, but in fact, have legitimate reasons/inhibitions for not doing. Developers can't afford to build low-rent buildings. HUD has scaled back dramatically in the past 2 decades. I just heard the stats for CALIF: wages have risen 2% and rent 21% in 20 years. We can enact moments of kindness with food or money or clothing. But as everyone knows, and all these comments iterate, individuals and even non-profits cannot solve this problem. And it only grows, especially here where rents are exorbitant and houses unaffordable. What we can do is pressure candidates to commit to 'real' solutions. I don't like the Nimby vs. Yimby binary, which reduces the complex balance of housing, open space, climate concerns, liveability, transportation options, et al. to a sound byte. But I do think that thoughtful housing solutions are the only real solution. Here's a link to HUD where they boast of a 20-year record of housing 120K persons (that's VERY few people relative to need, but it does reveal how lax federal govt has been for 2 decades): https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/hud_no_23_283
Amen, sister. Have you ever heard a candidate for national office say anything about this?
No, but local candidates spew a lot of BS...including some very bad housing mandates coming out of Sacramento. Thinking of your Scott W. I say 'bad' because there's no teeth in these mandates that require large % of cheap-affordable units. It's all mostly high-end housing. In Berkeley a builder could opt out of even a tiny % of affordable units by $$ pay-offs to the City. That may have changed (I have to check). Vienna has beautiful models of mixed housing (which also alters perceptions re: class), funded with public-private partnerships. Developers need govt incentives to do the right thing, something SAC has conveniently overlooked.
With San Francisco poised to take on more and more homeless from across the globe, whether from migration or attracted here by ‘incentives’ many die daily on the streets from drugs/alcohol poison or a disregard for their personal health and sanitation or worst succumb to death by their own hand. Yet, You have managed to make their plight and suffering all about you and manage to push “tolerance” out to the rest if us as the theme to your piece. Congratulations you are indeed a San Francisco liberal.
Leah, that was a great description of all the emotions that we feel when we encounter homeless people. Unfortunately, they are now in every major town and city. I can not help but empathize with them, because "there but for the grace of God .........." But, of course most people also feel NIMBY (not in my back yard). It is a tough problem.
Interesting that no one running
For office ever mentions it, either as a National disgrace or problem that could be fixable
Beautiful piece that reveals the mixed feelings so many of us have about the unhoused. As compassionate humans we want to help, we don’t want to make their lives more miserable…yet, yet.
Solutions are there. We, as a Nation, need to be smarter, kinder and put our vast wealth in the right places.
I agree. But have you ever heard a presidential candidate, or a president, make any reference to the problem?
No. This is definitely a great point.
You've so wonderfully articulated our strange relationship with what's happening on the street--so amazingly and complexly felt, thank you dear Leah, for your thoughtfulness and humaneness!! xx Sandy
Thanks, sandy. We who walk are faced with soul-shattering dilemmas during nearly every stroll
Eloquently written my friend. You represent the situation we all feel who are housed but live close to the “rough” sleepers. I too think of ways to help but I’m afraid this is one for the federal government to fix. It’s too big and it’s everyone’s responsibility.
That’s exactly the problem. “Everyone’s responsibility “ includes you and me. Xx
You had me wrapt , Leah.
As you will, keep those eyes and peds alive, well, feeling and reporting!
Thanks so much, Stephen. What a complicated world this is, hard for even a well-meaning geezer to navigate. Xx
What an eloquently written and painfully personal piece, Leah. It reminds of the article you wrote years ago when a homeless man camped in the open alley between your house and the building just North of you. Times have changed and the encroachment is more visible and frequent, even semi-permanent. And clearly more
dangerous. A few months ago The NY Times did an article on Portugal's attempts to address the same issue disabling their entire country, which appears to be succeeding, but here we go comparing our cities to smaller countries with more homogeneous populations and, perhaps, a far less cumbersome government. Portugal's approach involves a strategic and systematic program based on lots of money to provide better and safer housing options, plenty of support services for addiction-bound people and the mentally ill, and long-term rehabilitation services. Perhaps we are simply not willing to do the same in an organized, effective manner, or more likely, our governments are reluctant to spend the money. It astonishes me that some of our citizens can pay tens of thousands of dollars to see the Super Bowl in person, or $40,000 a month for an apartment in my own home town, New York City. Trump didn't help by reducing taxes for the rich who can afford these luxuries, and I don't believe that middle class people should feel guilty for objecting to the nearness of the trouble that is created by the lack of an effective approach and the money needed to truly solve the problem. If our lawmakers spent more time addressing real issues instead of harassing and criticizing each other, perhaps they could work together to effect true changes, from town councils all the way up through our federal representatives.