One of San Francisco’s principal shelters is gambling on a new lottery system, operational as of today, that it says will more effectively allocate available beds for homeless people. The plan by Multi-Service Center-South, a 300-bed shelter at Fifth and Bryant streets, is aimed at ending competition among shelter seekers, who line up daily during the early morning hours in the hopes of obtaining one of 60 single-night bed reservations available across the city.
Category: City Hall
Posted inCity Hall, Neighborhoods, Public Safety
Sex, drugs and filth plague city-sponsored public restrooms
Second of two articles about hygiene options for San Francisco’s homeless
San Francisco’s 25 freestanding, so-called “self-cleaning” public restrooms scattered across the city are magnets for prostitution and drug use. They are so filthy that even after automatic cleanings, they require one to five manual scrub-downs a day. The Department of Public Works, which contracted with JCDecaux more than a decade ago to install and maintain the units, blames the company. The company blames the police. And the police say they don’t have time to babysit city toilets 24 hours a day. The homeless are often shut out of the facilities, which constitute the only public restrooms where they are welcome. Meanwhile, San Francisco takes a cut of the company’s profits from billboards that envelope the toilets.
Posted inCity Hall, Homelessness
Computer system shutdown hurts homeless at city shelters
A computer failure forced San Francisco homeless shelter residents to wait hours in the cold to gain admittance as staffers turned to pen and paper to register those who needed assistance.
The system, known as Coordinated Homeless Assistance through Guidance and Effective Services went offline on March 12 as the city’s Human Services Agency underwent seismic upgrades at its building on Otis Street.
Posted inCity Hall, Media, News
University of San Francisco aims to move transmitter quickly following KUSF sale
Even as supporters of the University of San Francisco’s radio station race to file a petition with federal regulators to block the sale of its frequency, the school and a nonprofit group called Classical Public Radio Network are moving quickly to relocate the station’s transmitter off campus.
Dismissing critics of the recent dismantling of the student- and community-run radio station, USF and the radio network filed their own petition Monday to move the transmitter to Sausalito, requesting speedy approval.
Posted inCity Hall, Economy & Business, Utilities
City takes aim at reducing fats, oils and grease clogging sewers
The city says it spends $3.5 million annually on unclogging sewers from fats, oils and grease from food service establishments. A new ordinance that received a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors this week requires all restaurants to have a grease capturing device. The devices will be inspected by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to make sure they are working properly and are well-maintained.
Posted inCity Hall
Supervisors choose City Administrator Edwin Lee for interim mayor
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 on Friday for City Administrator Edwin Lee to fulfill the remaining term for outgoing Mayor Gavin Newsom. Lee will become the first Asian American mayor of San Francisco when the vote is ratified at next week’s board meeting on Tuesday. Sheriff Michael Hennesey, who was also considered for the position, was rejected by the board 9-2.
Posted inCity Hall, Government & Politics, News
Board struggles to choose an interim mayor
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors spent eight hours debating who to select as interim mayor to finish Gavin Newsom’s term and ended up delaying any decision until Friday.
Angry lame-duck Supervisor Chris Daly blamed Board President David Chiu for a potential deal to install City Administrator Ed Lee in the post, vowing to “politically haunt you for the biggest fumble in the history of San Francisco politics.”
He then added: “It’s on, like Donkey Kong.”
Posted inCity Hall, Environment, Utilities
Illegal dumping costing city millions of dollars
The Department of Public Works wants residents to stop dumping unwanted items such as furniture and mattresses on city streets through a campaign launched last month and by the threat of fines of up to $1,000.
The department says illegal dumping is costing the city millions of dollars to clean up the mess left behind by residents and contractors. The city is encouraging residents to take advantage of free services offered by Recology Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate.
The San Francisco Police Department and the City Attorney’s Office are also working to find those responsible for dumping construction materials in the Bayview-Hunter Point area.
Posted inCity Hall, Homelessness, News
Steering city’s homeless focus from sin to sickness
In her new book on homelessness in San Francisco, “Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders,” Teresa Gowan describes how former Mayor Frank Jordan’s framing of the issue in terms of crime and sin evolved into Willie Brown’s conflicted policies, finally emerging as Gavin Newsom’s version of “authoritarian medicalization” policies, most controversially the policy idea that got him elected in 2003, Care Not Cash. This essay condenses some of the discussion of the book (University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
San Francisco, a historical stronghold of the labor movement, civil rights activism and other social movement activity, embodies the tension between valuable public space and progressive politics to a high degree, an important reason for the central position of the “homelessness problem” in the city’s electoral politics over the last 25 years.
Posted inCity Hall, News
Board delays picking new mayor until January
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors decided to put off nominating and picking an interim mayor until early January.
On a 8-3 vote on Tuesday, the board delayed any decision to nominate Mayor Gavin Newsom’s successor until at least Jan. 4, 2011, the day after Newsom is scheduled to be sworn in as the state’s lieutenant governor.
The Jan. 4 meeting would be the last meeting of the current board before four new members take office.