$66 million grant for Bay Area's homeless

[jamesinca]

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$66 million grant for Bay Area's homeless
Bulk of money intended to provide permanent housing

Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, December 20, 2003


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Bay Area cities and counties will receive more than $66 million in grants to help move the region's thousands of homeless people off the streets and into housing, federal officials announced Friday.

Alameda County secured the biggest chunk in the Bay Area, $21 million in competitive continuum of care grants -- about $1.4 million more than last year. San Francisco received almost $16 million, about $2.3 million more than last year.

The bulk of the money is aimed at providing permanent homes for those with nowhere to live.

Nationwide, the grants totaled $1.3 billion, an amount Bush administration officials called a record high and essential to achieve the ambitious goal the president laid out last year to end chronic homelessness within a decade.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/20/MNGR43ROAT1.DTL

What is wrong with this picture, Bush is heartless for one and two anything he says he is going to support he cuts the funding for. Maybe he will cut funding next year.

[demvoter]

1. Wait, what's going on here?

Schwarzenneger is cutting welfare programs, without legislators approval and bush is giving grants in Kalifornia for the homeless?? hello...what in the world?
Interesting!:shrug:

:kick: them out now!

[prisonerseven]

2. Bush spends record amounts to house homeless citizens

Somehow we must be able to use this against bush even if he is helping to house and feed the homeless. Does anyone have any ideas how to use this to smear bush and his cronies?

[jamesinca]

3. When he cuts the funding for it we mention it

He will cut the funding for one reason or another.

[catmandu57]

4. He'll lay the blame on congress

for not funding it. Just like he was going to fund the aids fight in the third world.

[NeoConned]

6. It was a grant

Therefore it is already funded.

[grok]

5. Maybe...

It is to drive the homeless to Liberal bastions such as SF. the 66 mill is "just enough" to house the present ones. It might attract more.

But it's a trickly problem. SF alone gives up to $400 CASH to each homless person per month. But unfortunately most(if not a huge percentage) of them wind up using up their stipend for drugs within a few days.

Grok

[prisonerseven]

8. If the $400 cash is going to drugs then give them $800 to help out

I'm sure they could use the extra $400 to buy food and other needed supplies.

[grok]

10. Sigh, I WISH it were that easy.

In case you were kidding.

At 800 bucks a month, many part-time workers would *pretend* to be homeless just to get the cash. too tempting.

The problem with drug addict is NOT food or basic staples. You can always get fed in town for free. maybe not the tastiest. plenty of places.

The problem is DRUGS,mental health. when a drug addict has a wad of cash, he blows it FAST. you double the cash, he doubles the dose.

Lessee if I WERE a heroin addict(who needs to be dosed 3 times a day) and had money to burn

10 to 20 a dose. if low on cash just 30 a day, 60 if i HAVE the cash and so can feel REAL good and "well"

50 bucks a day for a fleabag hotel(yeah its THAT high here) if i want to fix in privacy and relative safety. For ONCE.

10-20 for crack or cocaine for speedballs. Need an upper so you could at least FUNCTION after fixing...

10-15 for food/drink. Easy to get, expensive, high in sugar or fat food.

maybe anothre 5-10 for "essentials" makeup,liquor,soap (clothes you can get washed for free)

so I would expect to spend from about 100-150 per day. that 400 or 800 goes FAST. and I will be scrounging the rest of the month. Not saying it would make sense. Not saying i didn't KNOW better. But that is what is typical for a drug addict. Not to mention a bit of sharing with some of your homeless homies.

Tree

[Kathy in Cambridge]

11. Most homeless are working poor who can't afford housing

in places like San Francisco and New York.

Keep perpetuating those stereotypes. There are websites that are more accepting of your views than DU.

[Gingersnap]

13. link?

I wonder really what the ratio is? My husband worked extensively with the homeless in SF, most people he worked with were mentally ill and disabled and had turned to drugs to survive being homeless. Some were sex-workers, again, a decision made in the desperation of homelessness. I wonder how long many of the homeless working poor are able to continue working?

I oppose those stereotypes too, RR, but I think that there is a grain of sad truth that many homeless in SF are addicts. Not that that makes them any less deserving of compassion, or even is "why" they are homeless...

[haele]

7. Is it given to warehouse, or is it given to specific programs?

Warehousing is easy; you use federal funds to build "shelters", genereally based on the current transient shelter barracks type footprint where the homeless are generally sent out in the morning and have to que up for beds, food, and showers in the evening - and perhaps be able throw in a basic health clinic and storage facility for bedding, food and perhaps what few personal items the homeless have left to them.
The money, while well-intentioned basically ends up going to contractors to build the facilities rather than to addressing the situation of the homeless. The good to the homeless you might see from such funding will take a couple years to materialize.

If the grant money is earmarked for exsisting programs, such as individual housing, exsisting community health services, exsisting community care and logistical support programs for the homeless, it might actually do some immediate good in solving the exsisting problem with homeless.

You have to see where the money goes before you really can comment on the program one way or another. My guess is that there's going to be bids appearing in the local websites for new construction on shelter facilities, rather than bids for individual low cost housing units, expansion on education, employment, and community medical logistical networks and service facilities that could really help the homeless while ecomonmic recovery for the poor is still going down with all hands and no lifeboats.

Haele

[tlcandie]

9. Well, we can't have tent cities like Hoovervilles!

So, he breaks the back of the people then finds the $$$ to contain them in government housing....


Quite a twist on robbing and control. Maybe more of us will end up in this type of housing while the rich live as they want?

:shrug:

[MasonJar]

12. He isn't funding anything without a donation check..

He makes these photo-opisms and then reneges but that part gets no press.

[T Bone]

14. thats right masonjar

he will renege on this. the announcement gets all the press and spin and publicity, then the major media never reports the renege at all.

They must be paid to do this. or under some threat.