Posted on 09/07/2003 10:29:03 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
It was the early 1980s, and San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein was driving around the city when she happened upon something she had never seen before: Someone was eating out of a garbage can.
Around that time, Jesse Smith Jr. stood dazed on the corner of Market and Seventh streets. He was flying on cocaine and speed, disheveled, filthy and worn out from living in the back of a truck.
For San Francisco, it was the start of a painful civic journey that continues today for a city that many say has the nation's worst homeless crisis. For Smith, it was the beginning of a long and often humiliating voyage from the streets to emergency rooms to detox and back again.
Two decades have passed. Four mayors have reigned and whiplashed the city with four different homeless policies. Hundreds of millions of city dollars have been spent. Yet there are more people than ever sleeping in San Francisco's shelters, hospitals, parks, downtown sidewalks and the once-immune outer neighborhoods.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
What they didn't realize then was they faced the genesis of a generational crisis brought on by complicated social factors out of their control.
More than a decade earlier, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan had signed legislation to severely limit involuntary commitment of mental health patients. State mental hospitals emptied, but the expected funding and support for community psychiatric services and board-and-care homes shriveled, leaving many mentally ill people with fewer places to go.
I should have know it was all Reagan's fault. [/sarchasm]
Yup. Definitely the result of white racism. I say that we taxpayers need to apologize again and spend far more on social programs ...
What a load of B.S. At that time you could rent a room in a resident hotel in SF for about $80 a month. The fact is no housing is "affordable" for the unemployed and unemployable alcoholics, speedfreeks, crackheads, junkies, and psychotics who make up the bulk of the "homeless". The only way they can afford housing is if the government pays for it, which they do in SF, except they would rather sleep on the street and spend the money to get high.
The homeless advocates however make a good living promoting and running programs to solve the "homeless problem" and using it to further push their left-wing ideology.
To her credit, Feinstein made the effort as mayor to "remove signs of homelessness off the streets" and was roundly criticized by far-left liberals as being only interested in "housekeeping and prettying up the neighborhoods."
An interesting article, BL; I hope you'll post the second part manana.
Can you say "workers compensation"?
I left my last job due to "stress". It was very stressful watching all my friends being laid-off, so I took an early retirement from employment which I diligently pursued for 31 years. The company I worked for has just managed to reach break-even, delayed in no small amount by sky-rocketing worker's compensation payments.
Now, unfortunately for me, I am not entitled to any government hand-outs. I will have to live off my own savings which are sure to run out in 30 or 40 years unless the taxes to pay for San Francisco's addicts makes me "homeless" before then.
Street bums do not vote, but they are counted (agressively counted) in San Francisco's Census records. State and US representative districts are apportioned on total census population, not voter turnout. Therefore, those actually voting in S.F. (liberals) have their votes count significantly more than others in other areas.
Of further interest is the language of Article 2 of Amendment XIV of the US Constitution.
Sometimes we see "citizen" and sometimes we see "persons". This seems to indicate that illegal aliens may be increasing the representation of Kalifornia, even without them voting. Perhaps someone more familiar with this issue can explain.
It would appear that there was no consideration given at the time this amendment was written that counting illegal aliens would be an issue.
I have read estimates that there are 6 million illegals in Kalifornia out of a population of 30 million. Does that mean that Kalifornia picks up an additional 20% representation because they are not only tolerating but encouraging illegal immigration?
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Amendment XIV
Article 2
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
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