EVERYONE INTERESTED IN SEEING HOW SAN FRANCISCO HOMELESS SHELTERS HAVE BEEN OPERATING (ABUSING OUR RESIDENTS) FOR THE PAST 10 TO 15 YEARS, NEED TO WATCH THIS VIDEO CLOSELY. (it's long but worth watching)
It's the official video taping of the Wednesday Feb. 20, 2008 Meeting of the SF Budget & Finance Committee, under the SF Board of Supervisors.
[ SF Budget Process Note: Before a piece of pending legislation goes before the full Board of Supervisors, it has to be presented and passed by the Budget & Finance Committee.]
The City Hall chambers were packed with homeless people, advocates, community groups, Shelter Monitoring Committee Members, the Director of Tom Waddell Clinic (Dr. Deborah Borne, DPH), Linzie Coleman (Director of Next Door Shelter-Episcopal Community Services) that ALL spoke up in favor of passing these 'Minimum Standards of Care' to make dignity, respect, health, hygiene and safety practices become LAW that MUST BE ENFORCED.
A few of the Public Speakers presented photographs of conditions (torn mats, open electrical wiring boxes, racist graffiti stating 'Fuck Niggers' at one homeless resource center) which are exemplary of the same sort of material evidence that has been officially documented in the San Francisco Shelter Monitoring Committee (SMC) Quarterly Reports.
Other collaborating evidence has been uploaded by good and courageous anonymous shelter residents and staff, to the SFHomeless Yahoo! Group Site (Photo Section - Shelter Meals and Conditions).
Other photos (of empty beds while residents are turned away from long bed reservation lines) are available in the SF Bay Guardian Articles written by undercover journalists which did an excellent job of exposing the current conditions of these shelters.
February 2008 Articles From SFBG.COM: (they deserve nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for their awesome undercover work! )
1. Search for shelter: Bryan Cohen's nightly journals
2. Shelter shuffle - Inside San Francisco's confounding system of housing the homeless BY AMANDA WITHERELL3.Five Days Homeless: The Journals
4. No shelter from the budget storm Buster's Place, the city's main 24-hour homeless drop-in center, faces closure BY BRYAN COHEN
HSA Reports (under Trent Rohrer, HSA Director) to our Board Of Supervisors fraudulently attempted to misled everyone into believing that the provisions and standards being demanded by shelter residents, directors, staff and community groups are 'already HSA Policies in effect', which is a lie.
A bold faced lie, considering the fact that most of the 'policy' items in their report have not and are not now 'in effect' at nearly all of the tax funded shelters !!!
Under Oath, this would be considered Perjury.
We know this - because we've spoken with residents of nearly every shelter and they all say the same thing.
At most shelters (including the ones itemized by HSA's report to the contrary) they cannot plug in cell phones; they cannot have their laundry done for free (they have no cash to speak of, since Mayor Newsom implemented 'Care not Cash' program... how unamerican is that ! ), they do not get bus tokens for meetings and appointments, they do not get a 'blanket and a sheet', et cetera.
It's one big gross disgusting lie to 'the people of San Francisco' and one big lie to our Honorable Board of Supervisors' and one gross miscarriage of justice and human decency to our homeless San Franciscan residents.
The point of this legislation is not to ever have to use the Enforcement Mechanism.
The point is to make sure that Shelters operate in strict accordance of 'The People' , as a matter of law, instead of leaving the compliance of these standards left to City Agencies who have not really done their job properly for the past 15 years.
Had they all done their job properly to safeguard and take 'good care' of our homeless residents in shelters, by enforcing their own contract requirements (and policies) we would not have been suffering abuse and 'nasty' shelter conditions for the past 15 years.
Millions of dollars, misery and suffering of thousands of shelter residents (and staff) would have been prevented if all of our shelters were held to a 'standard'.
These shelters were basically 'thrown together' with very little input and planning by including residents and staff in the process, which resulted in a shelter system that has been wholly neglectful, uncaring and hazardous to our homeless residenst and the entire San Francisco Community.
The $700,000 or $2,000,000 that this legislation is supposed to cost are pennies on the dollar, in terms of being an investment in our homeless people to restore 'law and order' into the shelters and enable our shelter residents to be provided with the 'basic' conditions and tools needed to get to 'their next step'.
We must do this so they can move on from the shelters rapidly -- instead of being what has been 'a captive shelter system' where most shelter residents were abused, barred from using plugs for their cell phones, ripped off and suffered losses by negligent and often 'criminal' staff and supervisors.
Their food and clothing stocks (paid for with tax dollars and charitable donations) were routinely stolen by Supervisors and staff at most of the shelters.
Contrary to what the SF Human Services Agency stated in their highly fraudulent and inaccurate, misleading report to the Board of Supervisors about all of these 'policies' most shelters refused to provide access to plugs, bus tokens to get to interviews and appointments, denied access to free laundry services because HSA failed to enforce most of their policies.
We find their conduct and report to the Board of Supervisors to be close to being criminally negligent because they failed in their duty to protect us for 15 years and they failed to REQUIRE and ENFORCE their own multi-million dollar contracts and policies inside our shelters.
People suffered, property was lost, people became sick and ill from unsanitary conditions and inadequate meals and likely many died preventable and predictable deaths -- due to the joint negligence of City Agencies and many of these tax funded and donation funded Shelter Directors, Supervisors and Staff.
Those are the facts as is born out by the testimony you will see and hear for yourself by watching this video carefully and by simple review of all of the Shelter Monitoring Committee Quarterly Reports and the recent newspaper reports by undercover journalists and in the SF Coalition on Homelessness' Shelter Shock Report .Or, just ask any homeless shelter resident on the street. They ALL CONFIRM these horrific realities of 'homeless shelter' life in San Francisco, in 2008.
And remember folks, what happens here in San Francisco doesn't stay in San Francisco. It happens all across the country.
So, it is the responsibilty of every American Resident to send undercover journalists into Your City's Homeless Shelter and Housing systems.
Trust in and Verify stories and reports from your City's poor, elderly, homeless people and veterans about abuses and fraud operating in Your Cities.
Organize and support your homeless populations.
If not for their sake, do it for the sake of the fact that Your Tax Dollars and Community Donations are being stolen and ripped off by all kinds of organizations, agencies and even 'church affiliated' non-profits that 'hide' their criminal activity by preying on and intimidating the most vulnerable members of our society in shelters, food banks, missions and housing programs In Your Town, Every Day !!!
Check it out and email us with your tips, stories, photos and evidenc eof what's happening where you live. We will forward your information to federal and state authorities, homeless coalitions, legal suport groups and the general public in order to stop this massive loss of money and wasting of good people's lives.
Remember. You have been lied to. We have all been lied to...
Based on all that we have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears, MOST homeless people are not the problem in our communities because they do not even get the bare minimum of 'what they need' to 'move on' from homelessness. NO.
It has been and is being stolen by abusive, untrained, unqualified service providers across the country.
Most of the anger and 'bad conduct' of our nation's homeless is a direct result of being abused, beaten, underfed and mistreated by bad people that make their living off of our tax dollars and charitable donations and they blame the homeless to misdirect attention away from their horrendous crimes.
This is what RICO (Racketeering) and the False Claims Act are all about. Investigation and Enforcement tools to stop the abuse and theft of tax funded programs and services. Put them all in jail !
People are making money by submitting false claims for goods and services that are NOT being delivered properly to our nation's homeless.
And you can readily see that even Government Agencies, like HSA in San Francisco, will and do falsify reports to assist in the covering up of unlawful, immoral and criminally negligent acts committed by non-profit management and staff.
Totally Un-American and totally unacceptable by any standard of human decency.
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