San Francisco, after 10 or 15 years of a somewhat abusive, violent and generally undesirable living conditions, our City's Shelter System is finally reversing years of suffering and lack of moral and incentives, the good shelter residents and staff are ready to pass the country's first City Shelter 'Minimumm Standards of Care'.
On February 20, 2008, There is a Noon Rally on the steps, in front of San Francisco City Hall and a Hearing before the SF Supervisor's Budget & Finance Committee, at 1 PM - In the Meeting Room 200.
PUBLIC IS INVITED TO SUPPORT THIS VALUABLE AND COST EFFECTIVE LEGISLATION.
Something that all sheleters should have been doing a long time ago, but lapses in consistent and 'escalating' enforcement of City Shelter Contracts by some City departments and staff (and shelter management themselves, at times for not being more proactive in setting standards.) every day shelter residents suffer harm, losses, lack of sleep and appropriate respect and dignity by our tax funded shelter managers and staff.
When homeless shelter residents and staff are overworked, stressed out, tired, undernourished (clients, not staff - they eat very well on food meant to the homeless in many SF Shelters), treated abusively, denied adequate services to 'get out' of being homeless, they all tend to fail and we have to 'recycle' them back into the same system, filled with non-compliance with all kinds of human rights, contracts, local and state health and safety codes and lack of well trained staff.
It's an expensive revolving door when we do not make standards into law, to insure that positive compliance is not optional, year after year, but required.
Protecting our homeless is necessary to defray all other costs to the community and it saves lives and resources.
And after the harm, losses and trauma of being denied basic services, to improve the quality of their lives , it becomes much more expensive to correct failures caused by the shelter facilities and personnel, than to have a universal set of standards, in place.
I surmise that in many case, due to unanticipated need, shelters were often 'thrown together' rapidly, without consideration of what happens when large
and small numbers of staff, work against the best interests of the residents they serve and the staff, become part of the violence, corruption and drug dealing that we supposed to be helping to protect all of our City's residents from, homeless or not.
[ re-posted with permission via email to The SFHomeless Yahoo! Group, San Francisco, California ]
Tags: San Francisco | Life | shelter | Strange | Toilet
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The great hope for this legislation is to enable us all to see the day when the the staffing and overall living and working conditions of our City's shelter system -- can be transparently measured to show steep reductions in waste, inefficiency, abuse, theft and waste of tax dollars and private donations because of these Standards of Care.
HSA and other agencies tried to falsely (in bad faith) argue that their policies are already in force at all or most all of our shelters.
That is simply not true.
HSA stated misnomers to the Budget Analyst Office (who report to the Budget & Finance Committee, under the Board of Supervisors) and the LCHB (Local Homeless Coordinating Board) was under the same false impression, that HSA's policies have been in effect at the shelters,and started to conclude, 'so why have Standards, at all'.
Luckily, a homeless member of the SMC's Standard of Care Work Group spoke up at the LHCB Meeting this past Monday (Feb. 4, 2008) when the LHCB was voting on Endorsment of the SMC's SOC legislation (pending before the Budget & Finance Comm. of the Board of Supervisors Hearing on February 20, 2008 - City Hall, Room #200 at 1PM. With a Rally on City Hall Steps at Noon).
The SOC member gave personal accounts from his homeless experience at shelters to help convince (and undo the lies told by HSA Reports and Staff) the LHCB Members, why this legislation is so important to the residents, staff AND MANAGEMENT of our Shelters. They are looking for guidance, and some would argue they have found that in the work of the Shelter Monitoring Committee and its 9 month old fledling Standards of Care Work Group.
And, we were pleasantly surprised to hear Ms. Linzie Coleman, Director for ECS (her office is at Next Door Shelter) spoke up and was described as being tearful, as she pleaded with the LHCB to endorse the Shelter Standards of Care, because her and her staff feel they are NEEDED to improve shelter conditions.
This is most significant for her to speak up at the LHCB Meeting the way that she did.
Next Door Shelter, is a tax funded shelter where a significantly high number of complaints have arisen over several years, back to when Next Door was called 'MSC-North, run by St. Vincent DePaul, now run by ECS (Episcopal Community Services).
WE APPLAUD HER (Ms. Linzie Coleman) FOR STANDING UP AND SPEAKING OUT ON BEHALF OF HER OWN PERSONAL WITNESS - ATTESTING THAT THESE STANDARDS ARE NEEDED.
Most all of the shelter conditions have been documented well but not everyone in town (including city staff and members of the LHCB and perhaps some Board Supervisors have not even taken the time to read the well 'documented' reports on the past and current shelter conditions.
IF THEY HAD, NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD BE AGAINST ENDORSING THE STANDARDS.
EVERYONE MAY HAVE A BONE OR TWO TO PICK ON SPECIFICS.
BUT, OVERALL - ANYONE THAT HAS BEEN HOMELESS OR TAKEN THE TIME TO READ THE SMC'S QUARTERLY REPORTS WOULD BE OBLIGATED, FOR HUMANITY'S SAKE, TO ENDORSE THESE STANDARDS.
All of these Quarterly Board of Supervisor Reports are available online.
The shelter resident and staff complaints, summaries and other data are are all contained in the Shelter Monitoring Committee Quarterly Reports to the Board of Supervisors - to get copies email: shelter.monitoring@sfgov.org or go to: http://www.sfgov.org/site/sheltermonitoring_index.asp
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So, be sure to come out to the front steps of our San Francisco City Hall at 12 Noon, on February 20, 2008, to learn about and share support for the passage of these vital standards of care.
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