In San Francisco, Mayor Newsom is making a bid to redefine what the nation thinks of “San Francisco values.” The Mayor of the City by the Bay has proposed an ordinance that would make it illegal for someone to sit or lie on sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 11pm, with offenses leading to misdemeanors and ten days in jail upon a second offense, followed by 30 days in jail after a third offense.
I was once one of those homeless people in San Francisco. Kicked out of my shelter in the early morning, before anything was open. The options were to try to muster the energy, after a night of likely very light sleep, to wander about aimlessly for a few hours, or to sit in a park and hope not to get kicked out. Even job searching locations didn’t open until hours after we were sent out onto the streets. (more…)
WASHINGTON — In rural communities and urban areas alike, one of the least expensive and most unheralded new initiatives of the stimulus bill is quietly saving hundreds of thousands of Americans from homelessness.
The Department of Veterans Affairs laid out Tuesday an ambitious five-year goal of curbing the number of homeless veterans, pledging $3.2 billion to an issue that is more rapidly affecting those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars than by any from past conflicts.
The figure on real poverty in America is far worse than the Census Bureau recently reported. It found that nearly 40 million Americans are living in official poverty ( less than $22,000 for a family of four). This is an 11 year high.
“Part of the change in attitudes that I want to see here in Washington and all across the country is a belief that it is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.” - President Barack Obama, March 24.