Recent Achievements - Religious Witness with Homeless People

Recent Achievements*

In addition to continually initiating various actions around issues of concern to us, our involvement over the past year has often been in response to issues growing out actions taken by the local government and the corporate community. Religious Witness with Homeless People has collaborated with nonprofit organizations and homeless people in protection of the rights of various segments of our community, including seniors, disabled persons, tenants, low-income workers and homeless people. In these difficult economic times, we have fought to:

Retain demonstrably successful social programs,

Prevent unjust evictions,

Protect the City's limited stock of affordable and rent-controlled housing units,

Secure endangered social benefits, and

Generally to advocate, wherever possible, for more humane and compassionate policies that directly or indirectly affect homeless people.

In just the past year, Religious Witness has:

Played an important collaborative role in preventing the eviction of over 500 low-income Trinity Plaza Apartment tenants,

Gathered over 1,500 signatures opposing proposed MUNI service/job cuts and fare hikes,

Won amnesty (for the third time) for homeless people, and

Reinstated the Homeless Death Count practice in the City of Saint Francis.

*Please note that many of these issues which arise in our community leave no time for the involvement of our constituents by way of direct mailings. However, if you want to send your email address to us at relwithome@yahoo.com, we will be sure to keep you informed of our current involvements in a more timely manner.

Two of our most recent prominent successes are detailed below:

Amnesty for Homeless People

Working with District Attorney Kamala Harris and Assistant District Attorney Mike Menesini, Religious Witness has secured amnesty for thousands of poor and homeless individuals burdened with bench warrants resulting from "quality of life" citations issued since June 5, 2000.

Religious Witness has twice before secured amnesty for homeless people; former D.A. Terrance Hallinan honored our request on two previous occasions, January 1996 and June 2000. Through the efforts of Religious Witness over the last ten years, up to 100,000 homeless people have been relieved of the ever-pending burden of bench warrant arrest.

In May 2005, D.A. Harris presented this Certificate of Recognition (see right) to the Religious Witness Steering Committee in honor of our work in securing the Order for Amnesty for Homeless People.

Reinstatement of the Homeless Death Count

In June of 2005 Religious Witness with Homeless People succeeded in bringing about the reinstatement of San Francisco’s 14-year practice of identifying and reporting the deaths of individuals who died homeless in our community. State privacy laws had prevented the City’s continuation of this compassionate practice.

However, determined that our homeless sisters and brothers not pass from our midst unnamed and unmourned, Religious Witness leaders turned to City officials for help.

On June 14, 2005 SF Ordinance 120-05 was passed unanimously By the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and subsequently signed into law by Mayor Gavin Newsom. SF Ordinance 120-05 reinstates the City’s annual homeless death count while still honoring the State privacy laws. This Ordinance went into effect July 1, 2005.

This achievement was the result of the collaborative efforts of the members of the Board of Supervisors and representatives of the Department of Health, the Medical Examiner’s Office and the City Attorney’s Office. The effort on the Board of Supervisors was led by Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Chris Daly who co-sponsored both the Resolution and the Ordinance requiring the reinstatement of the practice.

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