A Study Conducted by Religious Witness

“To Determine the Extent and Cost of the Enforcement of ‘ Quality of Life’ Ordinances

Against Homeless Individuals in San Francisco during the Newsom Administration (January 2004-March 2008).”

INTRODUCTION TO OUR ANALYSIS OF SAN FRANCISCO'S "POLICE APPROACH" TO HOMELESSNESS

By Sister Bernie Galvin, cdp

Dear Friends,

San Franciscans have a common aspiration: to witness that day when no one among us must live on our harsh and dangerous streets. And as a people of this City of St. Francis, we just as surely want our City Policy on Homelessness to be comprehensively just and compassionate.

We religious leaders remain deeply troubled that such is not now the case. This concern was the foundation of our study of the extent and cost of the issuance of quality of life citations to homeless people. Our latest study was released in June, 2008.

I want you to be aware that there has never been a study that so thoroughly reviewed the scope and cumulative cost of the enforcement of ‘quality of life’ ordinances against homeless people. These results are detailed on this site.

Before you explore the rest of our campaign materials, I want to emphasize our position that any person, homeless or otherwise, whose behavior poses a genuine threat to the health and/or safety of other individuals or the general public should be dealt with appropriately.

Whereas the behavior of some homeless people may pose such a threat, the behavior of the vast majority of homeless people does not cause any such threat, and they should not be criminalized for their condition of extreme poverty. There was a quote in an August issue of The San Francisco Chronicle by a police officer who knows the situation well. He stated that “ ...90% of the homeless don’t cause any problems.” That is our experience also.

These are the Facts:

San Francisco’s overall policy on homelessness consists of two major parts.

They stand in direct contradiction to each other.

I. One Part of The City’s Policy on Homelessness is genuinely just and compassionate.

II. But the other part of The City’s Policy on Homelessness is simply cruel and unjust

To this very day San Francisco continues its shameful, immoral, and reprehensible 16-year-long history of criminalizing homeless people through the aggressive enforcement of “quality of life” ordinances. Every year thousands of the homeless members of our community are cited, arrested, dragged through the courts, and jailed for such “crimes” as sleeping or camping on the sidewalks or in the parks… and even in their own vehicles.

We had hoped that Mayor Newsom’s firm resolve to solve homelessness through the provision of supportive housing would be concomitant with his backing away from the City’s Matrix legacy. Sadly, such is not the case.

This policy of enforcement of ‘quality of life’ ordinances against homeless people is politically popular, in spite of the fact that it has proven over the past 16 years to be absolutely futile, terribly expensive and downright inhumane. It is as if this city is addicted to this “Matrix legacy” which drags poor and homeless individuals into the criminal justice system.

We religious leaders are deeply disturbed by the mean-spiritedness of this punitive part of our current Policy on Homelessness. We have come together, compelled to speak out once again about this injustice and the subsequent suffering and pain our homeless sisters and brothers endure.

Thank you for your interest in this important issue.

-Sister Bernie