Ammiano’s Homeless Bill of Rights Act Moves Forward Despite Wiener’s & Opponents Vocal Opposition

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Waiyde Palmer

SF’s State Assembleyperson, former Castro Supe and one time Mayoral candidate, Tom Ammiano, Homeless Bill of Rights cleared a major hurdle on Tues. the 23rd when it passed through a key committee with a vote of 7-3. The bill now moves to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations, next up the Assembly, Senate, and finally-if all goes according to Ammiano’s plan-the desk of Governor Jerry Brown for signature into law.

SF Assemblyperson Tom Ammiano

The bill is officially known as AB5: The Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act. It establishes a string of legal protections for homeless people. Topping the list-drastically limiting local municipalities ability to enforce laws like SF’s No Sit/No Lie ordinance.

“It cannot be criminal to be homeless.” Ammiano has said in multiple interviews.

He’s been a champion of the homeless since he first started to climb the political ladder in the City. Now, as he terms out in Sacramento as SF’s Assembly rep, he sees the Homeless Bill of Rights Act as one his political bucket list items that must be crossed off before time runs out.

He and AB5 aren’t without opponents including sometime ally and heir apparent of the coveted SF, Dist. Eight, Board of Supervisors seat, Scott Wiener. Wiener has said bluntly that he is ‘very opposed’ to AB5.

Wiener also labeled it as ‘inhumane’ to the homeless community. He believes the Acts passage will help perpetuate at risk individuals to stay out on the street rather than transition through the shelter and City service system and eventually back into productive members of society.

District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener

Wiener is a firm proponent of the No Sit/No Lie provision and it’s cousin, the Care Not Cash Law created by former SF Sup./Mayor now Lt. Gov., Gavin Newsom limiting General Assistance cash assistance to homeless in favor of services only.

In the last year Wiener supported the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District (CBD) decision to remove the public benches from Harvey Milk Plaza in an attempt to curtail their use by the homeless. More recently he advised the CBD to limit the number of chairs and tables put out each day at Jane Warner Plaza in order to suppress homeless from congregating disturbing locals and visitors to the Castro.

Removal of street furniture however hasn’t solved the Castro’s homeless issue. Our less fortunate San Francisco citizens remain displaced and gather at a variety of other locals throughout the neighborhood.

Ammiano’s bill establishes a number of rights for homeless people, including: the ability to use public spaces, sleep in legally parked automobiles, and reject admittance to shelters/social service treatment.

It would also require SF and other California communities to put together health and hygiene centers that would be open 24 hours a day. And finally Sit/Lie ordinances would be contingent upon the homeless needing medical assistance and housing. Opponents believe this is an end run around the intent of No Sit/No Lie leaving the laws essentially useless.

AB5 is supported by a variety of Homeless advocate groups including SF’s Coalition on Homelessness (COH )and is co-sponsored by Western Regional Advocacy Program. According to figures from the COH, SF spends $12 million bucks a year on arresting, citing, prosecuting, and harassing people whose only crime is being too poor to find a place to live. Why not shift that money to solution versus prosecution?

Opponents see the Act in a completely different light. They believe Ammiano’s bill goes in the wrong direction. In a recent editorial the SF Chronicle said,

“San Francisco spends more than $200 million per year to house, treat and feed homeless people, who number between 5,000 and 10,000. In return, people living on the street get services, not welfare cash. Panhandling is restricted and homeless people are not permitted to sleep on sidewalks, although those laws remain a low priority for police.

San Francisco has employed a balanced approach – blending relatively plentiful services with reasonable restraints on behavior that intrudes on others. True, those quality-of-life laws do not address the underlying causes of homelessness – poverty, mental illness, drug abuse – but they signal a commitment to maintain a livable city for all while offering food and shelter to those without homes.”

Homeless sitting in the Castro

Ammiano admits the approval road ahead of the Act is a tough one. Municipalities in the state with current No Sit/No Lie laws and variations on that theme are lining up to fight it.

Ammiano is undeterred. He’s altered the bill from its original form, made compromises and tried his best to work with those across the aisle from his way of thinking. He is willing to continue to find solutions that work best for all, but, on one thing he will not yield: his commitment on seeing this emotionally charged issue have some sort of new path offered besides the current one it’s running down.

Tables and Chairs Go Missing from Jane Warner Plaza

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Roy McKenzie

Missing Chairs from Jane Warner Plaza (credit: Castro Biscuit)

Facebook tipsters Tiger and Richard let us know that there were some missing red tables and chairs from Jane Warner Plaza (17th and Castro in front of Twin Peaks) yesterday. We headed out there to confirm and lo and behold there were only four red tables with three chairs each as opposed to the 8-10 sets of tables and chairs that are usually out there.

We gave the Castro Community Benefit District, the organization that maintains the tables and chairs, a call to find out what was going on. We spoke with Executive Director, Andrea Aiello, who said that they have temporarily removed the other tables and chairs at the suggestion of the San Francisco Police Department as an “experiment” after issuing citations to the seemingly homeless youth who have camped out there regularly for the past couple of weeks. The idea is that if there are fewer places to sit, they would not congregate in large groups and take over groups of chairs and tables. When we went out to Jane Warner Plaza, there were, indeed, no homeless, but Aiello said the amount of calls she has received from people who are upset about the tables and chairs being removed indicated that the experiment is probably not in the best interest of the many community members and visitors that enjoy soaking in the sun and the sights of the Castro.

Homeless at Jane Warner Plaza (photo: Ken Mauldin)

Homeless camping out at Jane Warner Plaza (photo: Ken Mauldin)

Though removing benches from Harvey Milk Plaza (across the street from Jane Warner Plaza) back in November seems to have “fixed” the problem of the homeless hanging out there, the idea was not very popular and the homeless have just migrated to JWP across the street. The removal of all the tables and chairs from Jane Warner Plaza would be a very unfortunate solution to this recurring issue, so the CBD will be meeting tonight with District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener to discuss alternative solutions.

Aiello said that one possible way they can curb homeless from dominating the plaza is to add additional community events to the plaza’s schedule. Every summer the CBD hosts “Live in the Castro” which is an event held in Jane Warner Plaza several Sundays a month featuring live music, Litquake readings, and other activities. Aiello said the CBD may receive a grant to help expand this and other kinds of entertainment in Jane Warner Plaza, but details on the amount of the grant and what additional programs will be brought in will not be known for sure until the grant is finalized.

The CBD did not mention when the chairs would be brought back, but we will know more by tomorrow afternoon and will let you know how the CBD decides to act.

Activist Protest Removal of Public Benches from Harvey Milk Plaza

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Waiyde Palmer

BEFORE

AFTER

About fifty activist gathered at Harvey Milk Plaza this afternoon to voice their anger and objections of the unilateral decision removing public bench seating from Milk Plaza by Community Benefit District (CBD) with the hearty support of the Merchants of Upper Market Castro (MUMC) and Supervisor Scott Weiner.

The November 2nd removal was a response to what some in the community deemed, ‘an undesirable, vagrant, homeless element’, who often used the open to the public benches. The decision to pull the seating was never brought to the greater community for input. No open to all, town hall, styled meetings were held to look for alternative solutions or broached to our knowledge. Neither were local groups who work with many of the affected communities, many of which endorsed todays action, consulted.

Proportionally a large number of the homeless are LGBTQ youth who often sought refuge within the confines of the Castro after getting less than hospitable welcomes in other parts of the City. The benches are public space, open to all, and their removal without the consultation of that public had led to the call for today’s protest to take back the space and return it to ‘all the public no matter who they were, how much money they had, with a home or without’ as one protestor commented.

In a direct action of civil disobedience protestors produced a hand made bench and installed it where the others had been. They also challenged the much hated and failed, ‘No Sit/No Lie’ San Francisco ordinance by sitting on the ground and in chairs they’d brought with them. Symbolically they drew a ‘speaker’s box’ on the bricked plaza and asked people to testify as to why they were opposed to the benches removal. Slain Sup. Harvey Milk, for whom the plaza is dedicated to, often would bring a box to the same location, clamber atop it and make speeches about Queer rights, building bridges with other communities and standing up for the downtrodden to the passing crowds when he was known as ‘The Mayor of Castro Street’.

Today’s demonstration had a diverse, multi-generational participants from members of organized labor, local organizations, affinity groups, non-profits, as well members of the local homeless community. A wide variety of these and other groups/organizations endorsed the action including: LYRIC, Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, Idriss Stelley Foundation, Interesting Times Gang, LAGAI-Queer Insurrection, Saint James Infirmary, Senior & Disability Action, ACT UP/SF, and Queers Undermining Israeli Terror (QUIT), Occupy Bernal and Occupy the Auctions. Several radio stations, journalists and ABC 7 were on hand to document the peaceful event.

More actions are in the works according to organizers. Stay tuned for developments.