What happened @ LHCB's-Homeless Shelter Committee Nominations

December 2, 2008 - San Francisco, CA

All of the Seats for the San Francisco Shelter Monitoring Committee were up for grabs this month, including four seats that were supposed to have been filled by the SF Local Homeless Coordinating Board.

The Mayor's Office and the Board of Supervisors also get to appointment their own nominees.

The Mayor we believe, has already reappointed all his people to the Shelter Monitoring Committee and later this week the Board of Supervisors will be appointing theirs.

According to the agenda and the rules for filling these seats everyone must be present to be nominated or they are not eligible to be nominated.

That's how this 'game' was played at the last nomination. Many people wanted to be on the SMC Committee but anyone that failed to do so, was out of luck.

However, this LHCB nomination was really 'special'. One of the nominees who was present could have been nominated to the 1st seat, instead of the 3rd seat he already was holding.

But, the LHCB not only passed over a very good candidate who's been there for us at nearly every meeting (his story is explained below), but was not able to even be chosen for the 1st seat because the LHCB made an exception for the 'must be present' to be nominated rule.

They decided to just break the rule and make an exception for LHCB Seat 1's nomination to he held at a later date even though other candidates for the last remaining seat were present to be nominated, in accordance wtih the rules.

That means that anyone who failed to attend this most important nomination process would miss their chance to be on the Shelter Monitoring Committee except for this one particular nomination meeting.

Talk about personal feelings and favortism surpassing the rule of law and the needs and the will of the people....

In this past year or more, many members of the SMC have left. We have spoken already to nearly all of them.

Some of them told us it was because they felt they could be much more effective (and true to the people) by NOT being on what they all refer to, as a stacked committee.

Various former appointees by all three bodies (Mayor's Office, Board of Supervisors and the LHCB) have all indicated their feelings about not enough transparency, integrity, dedication, openness, inclusiveness and honesty with respect to the way the Shelter Monitoring Committee has been framed and operating, for the past year or more.

Here is what we know about this whole mess from postings made on the group's site.

Excerpted from: SFHomeless Yahoo! Group

WOW! We were blown away by what happened yesterday, at the Local Homeless Coordinating Board meeting, held at the Born Auditorium where some of those Shelter Enhancement Meetings (remember those things that disappeared after being routed into the Mayors Office!) several months ago. There were supposed to be four seats open to be filled by the Local Homeless Coordinating Board making their appointments to the Shelter Monitoring Committee. Candidates chosen on the basis of qualifications and particpation in the homeless community.

Only one former Shelter Monitoring Committee member was able to regain her seat. We were sitting in front of City Hall yesterday and saw one SMC Member, James Leonard who had been passed over.

He was talking to some street homeless and shelter residents about the meeting. We had a chance to chat with him and we are working on our notes to be posted online later this week.

Mr. Leonard has proven himself to really care and was able to work wtih people on all sides of the table to help improve shelter conditions for clients and staff alike.

It's our understanding that the two new candidates who were chosen were not very well known and had not been seen at any shelter committee or safety meetings or other such activities in the past two years. Which leaves us really puzzled. Mr. Leonard had attended nearly all of the required SMC Meetings and done nearly all of his inspections.

He also attended many months worth of meetings for the Shelter Standard of Care Work Group and has built up fairly good relations with not only the homeless residents, but has earned some measure of respect and good relations with many shelter staff and management.

All in all, he appeared to be not only experienced but qualified and highly dedicated.

Best nominee our people could hope for. Another disturbing things about yesterdays LHCB meeting was both Mr. Picarello and Mr. Pitts, two fairly well known advocates who have been participating in all kinds of relative meetings for a year or more now, were also passed over. They have both even set up their own independent projects, without funding to provide bags, clothes and even set up a library at one of our local shelters (Next Door, run by Episcopal Community Services). They were both passed over, but may still be nominated because they applied for Board of Supervisor seats, in addition to the LHCB. So, it looks like a much different SMC than it was since last year.

The momentum and continuity and experience seems to have flown the coop with this committee. Some of us spoke to a couple former SMC members who told us why they decided it was no longer working for them.

We'll include that in our reports in the next few weeks, so you can get an inside look at what's really happening on our City Committees and Boards.

Things that make ya' go hmmmm...... We are preparing some questions for eveyrone who was passed over so we can all take a closer look at how committees like these functions and explore everyone's feedback to see if this SMC is the same as was envisioned by the late, great Hank Wilson. We invite everyone who was at the LHCB meeting yesterday to give us your feedback, especially those candidates for the SMC whom were passed over. Since Mr. Leonard is no longer on that committee, perhaps he would think about helping us to finish up our grants and business plans :). We know a couple of groups who could use his kind of help and experience. We're also a little sad, because we know how hard and honestly he worked for us all, and he put his personal differences aside (with some shelter operators) in order to take the high road to help improve conditions for staff and clients alike.

He took sides on issues but did not harbor any malice towards any particular group or shelter site.

He was reasonable and fair. One of the shelters had negligently lost over $500 worth of his things, but he put off filing a claim in order to prevent personal conflicts from interfering with service providers while they worked so many months on the shelter standards of care. WE WILL MISS HIM ON THE SMC ! WE APPRECIATE THE WORK THAT MR. LEONARD HAS DONE AND WE ARE NOW MISSING AN INDEPENDENT VOICE ON THE SMC. Let's see what the future holds for us now....

Maybe its time to do like they said at the Hank Wilson Memorial yesterday... Stop waiting for groups or the city to help you and we have to take matters unto ourselves to make sure we keep ourselves safe.

WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING AND CAN'T REALLY TRUST OTHERS TO LOOK AFTER OUR OWN BEST INTERESTS.... SFHomeless Yahoo! Group Moderators --- End forwarded message ---