Prop N's end? …He had a million dollar media campaign, we had people.

by Tiny, Clive Whistle and Dee/PoorNewsNetwork

Gavin Newsome had a million dollar media campaign, we had people. He had the power and glory of the Getty’s… we had poor folks that are fighting the slings and arrows of our constant struggles to survive, thrive and stay alive. He had most of the mainstream media, We had the independent media and its grassroots base He had the power of a board supervisor. We had advocates who dedicate their lives to the struggles of civil and human rights. And finally, we had truth and he had the hand over fist lies of a well-funded impending mayors race.

So what happened? Well, two brave women, Nora Roman and Linda Pettye represented by attorneys from The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights brought on a lawsuit to enforce the general assistance standards of aid and care established by The SF Board of Supervisors and to refrain from implementing the challenged provisions of Proposition N

Specifically, the changes that would reduce the cash assistance given to houseless San Franciscans from the already meager $320.00 to $59.00 per month, with the alleged proviso that those monies would go to pay for food and shelter beds. Now anyone who is a reader of PNN and The SF Bayview knows there was no guarantee that there would be a shelter bed for these recipients in part because there aren’t enough shelter beds in existence now and the ones that there are are already being fought for by the several thousand houseless folks in the City, so the root of this “law” was based on lies and mistruths. (See Economic and racial cleansing #101 by PNN)

The dispute is based on the fact that although the measure was approved by voters – the “care and aid” standards for houseless San Franciscans are “clear and unambiguous” in that they are in fact set by The SF board of Supervisors and a very similar legislation was presented to the Board in 2002 and was struck down.

The proponents of Prop N argued that in fact the law was not that clear and could be established by the local legislative process. There were several other cases and issues cited in this landmark case (please see The Prop N Case)

Finally, Honorable Judge Quidachay (California Superior Court) ruled in favor of the petitioners (Roman and Pettye) that they were on point and that the standards for care were delegated by The SF Board of Supervisors.

But the scariest reality is while The Federal Government spends16 billion on “faux emergencies” in Seattle aka Homeland Security’s new project causing endless budget shortfalls in local and state governments across the nation; the corporate media, the power, the money and the alleged caregivers of the poor themselves, SF Department of Human Services(DHS) are still frenetically figuring out how to get around this ruling and target the poor as was proudly reported Tuesday to the SF Chronicle by DHS representatives.

“They are still implementing prop N before there’s a prop N as we speak” , Shelter correspondent, Clive Whistle reported to me today, “ Sendin’ folks all over town to get fingerprinted and photographed and telling all of us disabled folks and any seniors in the shelters that this ruling does not protect us and we’re still gonna lose our beds”

After hearing from Clive, we contacted Oren Sellstrom, one of the attorneys who worked on the case to ask him how exactly the ruling would protect folks, “ We are not totally clear yet how it will affect other residents of the shelters – but the first thing it does is to not let DHS take the cost of a shelter, food and services out of people’s GA checks”

The day ended for PNN reporters when we went to the pro-Newsom rally that proceeded the City Council meeting, which was eloquently referred to by PNN reporter Joseph Bolden as “a 1930’s like fascist mob” . We all became very scared not so much because we were surrounded by hundreds of people believing the words of this privileged politician without questioning any of his facts, but because they were so utterly clueless. “I voted for Prop N cause something has to be done about the homeless problem” ,stated a Mr. Wyn Johnson loudly when I asked this Newsom supporter how he felt about the fact that this “didn’t solve the homeless problem, but in fact made it worse by evicting seniors and disabled folks from shelter beds and onto the street – he replied, “ Well, I don’t believe that” and looked away from me and toward the glistening Mr. Newsom for more vague statements.

I think I completely tuned out when Newsom said to the salivating crowd, “ this is only the first step…..”

The City Council meeting that followed the rally was filled with the scholarship of several advocates like Steve Williams (POWER) and Paul Boden (Coalition on Homelessness) as well as the proposal of three “homeless” legislations from three different Board Supervisors- stay tuned for next weeks PNN report on where we go from here