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Posted on 02/15/2005 6:10:09 AM PST by Citizen James
San Francisco's homeless population plummeted by more than a quarter in the past two years, the city reported Monday, a dramatic change Mayor Gavin Newsom says is a credit to his policies of cutting cash assistance to street people and aggressively moving them into housing with counseling services.
San Francisco's new figures are based on a one-night homeless count, taken between 8 p.m. Jan. 26 and about 8 a.m. the next morning. It showed the city now has 6,248 homeless people living on the streets or in jails, shelters, rehabilitation centers or other emergency facilities -- a 28 percent decline compared to 8,640 in October 2002, the last time such a count was conducted.
"There are still a lot of homeless people out there, and I'm still seeing some of the same people I've seen for the past 10 years," Newsom said at a news conference to announce the numbers. "But it's time to start focusing on the good things that are happening."
The new figures were met with disbelief from homeless advocates who say they don't square with reality on the streets. And they come at a time when most other counties in the Bay Area expect to report an increase in their homeless populations, leading to speculation that perhaps some homeless people are being driven out of the city by its welfare-slashing Care Not Cash program.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Proper title should be..non workers...rather than homeless.
Bush's fault.
If you pay someone to be a nuisance, they will be a nuisance. If you stop paying them to be a nuisance, some of them will stop.
Homeless fall into 3 major categories... Drug Addicts... Mentally Ill (who should be in homes, but thanks to the ACLU and poor government policies aren't... and finally just out and out Bums.
These libs are just clueless. In NJ 10 years ago, the only good thing Christie Todd Whitless did was cutting benefits for those on welfare who decided to have another bast-rd. Amazing things happened, the illegitimacy rate declined. What's a lib to do?
I was in SF for a couple of days when I went to CA for the ’02 Monterey Historics. SF was choked, (choked!) with homeless. It cast a grimy pall over an otherwise beautiful city.
Only if you don't consider "panhandlers" as workers.
Shouldn't that guy be wearing roller blades, a speedo, have a little goatee, and a cut off wife beater T-shirt?
Impossible. Everyone knows the moment GWB was inaugurated, over 75 bazillion people immediately became homeless.
In a related story, 50% more dumpsters are being emptied weekly. :)
I remember the skid row bums in SF from the 40s and 50s. Mostly winos. There was no enlightenment needed, they were not "victims", they were people that wanted to drink rather than work. In these days of victim hood, the rest of us are somehow at fault.
lol
Taken, in part, from the chapter "On the Price of Corn & Management of the Poor".
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"This operates, then, as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. A very good thing you say. But I ask, Why, a partial tax? why laid on the farmers only? If it be a good thing, pray, Messieurs the Public, take your share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury. In doing a good thing, there is both honour and pleasure; you are welcome to your share of both."
"For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good for the poor , but I differ in opinion about the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is, not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth , I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many almshouses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful? And do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm, that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness."
"In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder, that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty. Repeal that law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. Saint Monday and Saint Tuesday will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shall thou labour, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them."
I know, I watched that show for years and never saw that many homeless people...
DUHHHHH!!!!!!!
I remember them too. Blind men selling pencils and men without legs on wooden platforms with wheels propelling themselves with there hands. I don't think there was much work for either back in those days.
lol!!! Let's see... how would you define "homeless". Someone who rents? And I'm sure Gavin's people know where all the homeless hang out at nights. They shone the searchlight into every ally, right? P-shaw. If they did that, they might have to, uh, account or be responsible for criminal activity happening in those corridors. Shhh.. don't look!
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