Ricky Smith used to spend his Sundays on Jones Street, doing drugs and sleeping on cardboard. His three children never saw him and he spent his days working as a pimp. He was one of many chronically homeless living in San Francisco.
But after years on the streets, he finally changed his life with a big, helping hand from a San Francisco program called Care Not Cash.
For Ricky, a life that was once a mirage became a reality.
Instead of doing drugs on Sundays, he had dinner at his sister's home, where she served his favorite dessert, peach cobbler. He rebuilt his relationship with his children, and he bought a used, blue Schwinn bike.
Ricky finally started to explore a city he spent years living and seeing through a limited viewpoint.
Most importantly, he slowly began to regain his dignity and secured a place he could call home.
But now, an initiative spearheaded by a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Jane Kim, is on the November ballot, and it threatens to strip the only real chance the homeless in San Francisco have at a new life. If she and her supporters are successful, they will effectively destroy a program that has been held up as a national model for reducing chronic homelessness.
In 2002, San Francisco voters passed Proposition N, more commonly known as Care Not Cash, by almost 60 percent. The initiative was authored and championed by then-Supervisor Gavin Newsom, who was elected mayor in 2004, and is currently serving as lieutenant governor of California. (I managed his campaign for lieutenant governor.)
Care Not Cash provides something to San Francisco's homeless that many never thought was possible: the potential for a permanent solution to their housing crisis.
Permanent housing is about more than a roof over someone's head, it's about the dignity that comes with being able to call a place home. When homeless people have the opportunity for a home, they finally see the other possibilities in life. It gives them a far better chance at living a life of fulfillment rather than of disappointment.
Care Not Cash upended the previous model of the service by cutting the county (San Francisco is both a city and a county) welfare cash benefits many received and directing those funds to supportive housing services.
Participants start off by receiving a shelter bed and basic services, along with a $59 monthly stipend. Once the participant has located permanent housing (there are several housing programs run by the city), the monthly stipend goes up to $85. In the case that housing is unavailable, the participant is given $422.
To date, Care Not Cash has helped 3,400 people transition to permanent housing. As a result, the general assistance rolls of the City and County of San Francisco have been reduced by 85 percent.
The ballot initiative that Supervisor Kim introduced last week -- which four other supervisors quickly supported, thereby putting it on the November 2011 ballot -- would prevent the City and County of San Francisco from counting shelters as part of the housing solution. As a consequence, more participants would be paid the $422 stipend until they are placed in permanent housing.
Supervisor Kim introduced the initiative to, in her words, "strengthen" Care Not Cash. She asserts her changes will put the homeless on equal footing.
She claims that those not participating in Care Not Cash, which includes many who are not identified as chronically homeless, can no longer get into shelters. As a result, shelters are left with empty, unused beds. Supervisor Kim argues that we must have consideration and empathy for those who aren't ready to change. I don't disagree with her, but she is squashing a spider with an anvil. And her efforts to fix this problem are indicative of the tendency of many politicians to lean on convenient solutions rather than creating innovative ones.
Instead of attempting to directly solve the problem the general homeless population is facing, she is punishing those who are making a real attempt at changing their lives. Supervisor Kim sees some people as unwilling or not having a real need to transition into permanent housing through Care Not Cash, so she thinks that nobody should have the opportunity.
It is foolish and despicable for her, and the supervisors who are supporting her initiative, to expect someone who has been living on the streets for years, who may be battling drug/alcohol addiction and mental illness, to take a first step of finding permanent housing. Living in a shelter is the first critical step of many, and it serves as the most effective transition to a permanent solution. Her initiative will also destroy virtually any motivation the chronically homeless have to move forward, because now they have a reason not to change: $422 a month provided without any expectations.
Some in the San Francisco press corps have attempted to frame this effort by Supervisor Kim and her colleagues as an attack on Gavin Newsom's legacy. They're probably right.
It's much easier for his political opponents to attack the program because in their minds, Care not Cash is about Gavin Newsom and his agenda, not about the lives that will be limited by their actions. It's a classic example of the kind of political cowardice that's destroying our system of government.
As far as I'm concerned, this initiative has nothing to do with his legacy and everything to do with a shocking disregard for the homeless and the eradication of innovative solutions for helping them to move forward. And it's not just about what's going on in San Francisco, it's about our tendency to view the homeless as an inconvenience, rather than as human beings who need our patience, compassion, and long-term commitment to help them get on their feet.
If the November ballot initiative passes, people like Ricky Smith will once again see only a mirage of what could be, because we were too impatient to imagine what is possible for him: a life lived with dignity and a beautiful blue Schwinn.