|
by Scott Clark
"You have no right to be here, who are you people?",
said Will Lightbourne, director of San Francisco
Department of Human Services. This statement was
his first attempt to dislodge a small group of
protesting mothers and their advocates from his
office.
The recent passing of Mother's Day seemed to add
considerable weight to an action against the
Department of Human Services (DHS). On May 15,
2000, at 1:30pm, a group of about twenty
demonstrators met in the small office of POWER
(People Organized to Win Employment Rights), 126
Hyde St. in San Francisco. The protestors consisted
of Mothers on TANF (Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families), working poor Mothers, former
TANF recipients, Foodstamps recipients, and family
welfare advocates.
The reason for the meeting was to plan an action in
response to the implementation of a rigorous
fingerprinting system for recipients of CalWorks
(TANF) and Foodstamps, which was announced by
DHS to be taking place this very same day. The main
concern with the new fingerprinting system is that
DHS will share fingerprint data with other
government agencies, such as the INS (Immigration
and Naturalization Service) and CPS (Child
Protective Services).
The meeting proceeded with a roundtable of
introductions in English and Spanish, followed by a
few minutes of strategizing and answering questions
in the same bilingual fashion. By 2:15pm the group
had split into two factions. The groups were about
equally sized, one headed off to the office of Will
Lightbourne at 170 Otis St., the other to sit in on the
regular Monday 2pm Board of Supervisors meeting
at City Hall.
The conference with Will Lightbourne was brought
about with some argument from Will himself. To his
understanding, he had done the right thing in an
expedient fashion, putting his new fingerprint system
to work as quickly and substantially as possible,
justifying the departmental outlay of the money it
took to purchase the system. In doing this, he was in
accordance with state law, which allows counties to
implement fingerprinting and share the information
with other counties in order to prevent fraud. So,
when this collection of families and advocates
showed up without an appointment and demanded to
meet with him, he did his best to shoo them back out
of his personal offices.
They, however, refused to leave. It was unlikely that
Mr. Lightbourne would have showed up for an
appointment....... even if they had had one. He had a
reputation for not showing up when anyone had any
complaint at all. And they had come to do some
serious complaining.
The mere process of getting to his offices and then
getting him to acknowledge their presence had caused
the group to expend considerable creative effort.
They had bypassed the front desk security by coming
in through the parking lot elevators. Up to the eighth
floor went the bulk of the procession; the drivers of
the three cars they had come in were still parking. By
the time that the last two members of the group,
Steve Williams and another member of POWER, had
arrived upstairs, Mr. Lightbourne had made the
escape from his own front office, and was attempting
to hide (or maybe just take a deep breath) in the hall
bathroom. He might better have picked one with a
lock on the door, because Steve found him soon
enough. Steve calmly told him "Look, we're here
because we need to talk to you, and we're not going
away."
So the two of them headed back to the front office. Once
there, Will totally ignored the group, and again attempted
avoidance via the connected employees’ offices. The group
followed him, asking what the problem was, and why
wouldn’t he talk to them. He mumbled something about not
having an appointment and having to get back to work.
They came back around full circle again to the front area,
which included his personal office. He slipped in there and
attempted to close the door on them, but instead
encountered someone's foot, which kept the door from
closing.
Rebecca Vilkommerson of the Homeless Prenatal Program
(HPP) responded; "We have every right to be here, and
you need to find time right now to talk to us, because we’re
not leaving until you do." The group had brought signs
denouncing Mr. Lightbourne’s methods in respect to
making changes in DHS, not only as regards
fingerprinting. They were there to argue with his self-will;
he had paid no attention thus far to requests by this same
group of people to apply for a waiver from the state. This
waiver would allow for delaying fingerprint requirements
for up to two years. He had also ignored the waivers that
had been granted or were being requested by a number of
surrounding counties in Northern California.
These failings were pointed out to him again after he had
led his opponents into the building auditorium to proceed
with their griefs. They hung their signs on the walls and
took to the front of the room, while he took a front and
center seat, a wary or weary-looking audience of one. He
listened to them mostly in silence. At one point in the
discourse he started to try to respond to some things being
said by a mother with her toddler-aged daughter; he got as
far as "But, but, but...", before the mom resumed
speaking; then she was cut off by her baby repeating, "buh,
buh, buh". Everybody but Will thought this was pretty
funny.
To follow up on the action at 170 Otis St., this group was
to rendezvous with its other half, the complainants who
were to present these same problems to City Hall. The
Supervisors meeting had been dragging along on some land
use issues, and had not yet come to the portion of the
agenda allowing for public comment. This situation turned
the day’s momentum to an advantage.
The protestors who had just arrived from Otis St., when
they got to the City Hall building, went first to the office of
Tom Ammiano, who has been the City’s #1 responsive ally
when it comes to issues of family and immigrant rights.
There, they found Brad Benson, Tom’s assistant. They
explained their situation, and what had happened at DHS.
Brad agreed to work with them to write up a resolution for
presentation to the Board of Supervisors. They gathered the
rest of their consort from the Board conference room, and
Brad seated everybody comfortably in Tom’s spacious
office. He addressed the group briefly, letting them know
he was out to help them get this situation dealt with today in
an agreeable fashion. There were two lawyers present
within the group; Julia Greenfield from the Lawyer’s
Committee, and Eve Stotland from Bay Area Legal Aid.
They, together with a CalWorks mom (and member of
POWER) and Brad, collaborated to get the resolution typed
in legal language for presentation to the Board. When it
was typed and printed, the group in Tom’s office listened
to it read, and voted, approving it unanimously. The
resolution was for the Board to order the DHS to delay
fingerprinting, and to apply for a waiver from the state until
such a time as controls could be implemented, disallowing
the DHS from sharing such information with other
unapproved agencies, either Federal or State.
The lateness of the afternoon, however, did not allow for it
to be brought before the Board on that day so a promise
was garnered from Brad, and in Tom Ammiano’s name, to
present it to the Board at the next regular meeting of the
board. The group left the scene happily, looking as if
Mother's Day had been extended an extra day.
For more information call POWER at (415)776-9379 or
HPP at 546-6756. |
