San Fran Chronicle writer CW Nevius has responded to yesterday’s letter from Patrick Nolen of Sisters of the Road. He’s written back to Patrick and to Paul Boden of the Western Regional Advocacy Project simultaneously:

Hi Patrick (and hello again to Paul)

I am writing both of you because I imagine Paul sent along my contact info to Portland. Which is fine. As I recently said to Paul, I am all for dialogue. The Homeless Coalition here has decided not to talk to me any more, which seems like a bad choice to me. They really want to take their voice out of this debate and leave the largest newspaper in Northern California to their opponents?

I agree. Bad choice. They should talk to him in two or three word sentences.

I would also say that this response from you, Patrick, is very much of the type I have gotten down here. While glad to hear from opponents, the tone is often the same. What I wrote is full of inacurracies, mis-statements, and outright falsehoods, when what I often see is a disagreement with my opinions or the statements of others. It puts any journalist on the defensive — those are absolutely the worst charges that can be leveled against a professional — and it begins an us vs. them battle that only gets more and more bitter.

You think that’s BITTER, CW? It hasn’t even started, mate.

When I try to respond (as I will to yours) and it begins a cycle charges and counter-charges that goes round and round and doesn’t get us anywhere. (That’s my opinion anyhow.)

I am new to this and certainly don’t have the experience of either of you. But if you wouldn’t mind, I would make one suggestion. We’re getting to the point where the advocates are seen as just saying no. No to everything, every proposal, suggestion, or idea. Whether your groups appreciate their point of view or not, some good people (not the nitwit haters who post comments that have to be removed from the web site) are genuinely concerned about this. They’re pained too, and feel for the homeless, and want to do something to make it better for everyone.

No to policies that treat homeless people like litter to be swept off the streets. No to journalists who make a living whipping up fear and resentment. No to people like CW Nevius. The list goes on and on and on.

I often hear about how we are criminalizing the homeless. But I also think there is a demonizing of the people who are looking for answers. They’re not evil just because they disagree and they can be spoken to, and reasoned with.

No, CW. Nor is it beyond the realm of possibility that reading your copy would make me want to get somewhat angry. But I said that already.

Now, as for the complaints:

1.) Never said everyone agreed. That would be a miracle, eh? Just that there was concensus.
2.) Mike is indeed VP. I have a card on my desk right now that says that. You got me there.
3.) As stated, those are Mike’s numbers. You’ll have to ask him.
4.) Don’t believe anyone, anywhere, implied that the shortfall was being completely addressed by private funds. Business chipped in and I assume (maybe not?) you are pleased to see their money going to to services for the homeless.
5.) See number 3.
6.) You are certainly free to disagree with Neils, but that isn’t an inaccuracy on my part.
7.) You are right, if in the city of SF there was one letter of complaint a month that would be pretty good. However, not only is Sean’s district not in an area of high impact, he is only one of 11 supes. I know I get two or three like that a month and they are not “oh gosh downtown is such a mess.” They are, “We were hassled and harrassed and I felt in danger.” Pretty serious in my humble opinion.
8.) Portland is, indeed, only “mini” in population. My son goes to school near there and we are big fans of the cosmopolitan Portland area.
Thanks for writing. And Paul, I’ll be checking in with you later today.

CWN

I have no idea what he just said. All I heard was “blah blah blah…don’t demonize me for it…”

Sorry for getting carried away there, but I’m about to leave the country. Hopefully I’ll recover some sense of dignity and professional respect for this [person], and maybe even feel like apologizing, by the time I return. In the meantime, you might like to read another article on homelessness by Paul Boden of WRAP, after the jump. “Just because you can no longer see something, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” writes Boden. Too bad that trick won’t work on San Franciscan journalists. Merry Christmas.

Peek-a-Boo Just Won’t Do in Facing Challenges of Homelessness

By Paul Boden, executive director of the San Francisco-based Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP).

The current insatiable appetite to see homeless people disappear from our parks, streets, business districts, and tourist areas requires us all to go back to one of the very first lessons we were taught as infants.

Just because you can no longer see something, that doesn’t mean it no longer exists. Think of this the next time you play peek-a-boo with a toddler. Now you see the homeless. Now you don’t. But either way, they’re still there. Peek-a-boo!
When city government talks about closing our parks at night and establishing expanded camping and cooking restrictions, we often hear that “This is not about homelessness. It’s about the parks.”

While this phrase is a great tagline, it is also blatantly untrue. Park sweeps, police outreach teams, and the busting up of encampments in other public places has everything to do with homelessness!

Our parks, our freeway underpasses, and our streets have been around a lot longer than the relatively recent advent of closing, fencing, and privatizing them. In fact, a direct correlation can be made between the massive increases in homelessness in the early 1980’s and the park closures, police programs with both old and new vagrancy laws, and the fencing off of open space.

Prior to the federal cuts to affordable housing programs; from $83 billion in 1978 to $18 billion in 1983; contemporary homelessness did not exist. Public parks were open for stargazing (and necking), and panhandling was around but not that big a deal. After the housing cuts, Disney moves into Times Square and Union Square, million dollar lofts are built in Skid Rows, the parks are all closed at night, and practically every storefront has a “no trespassing” sign in its window. For homeless people, the end result is that just about anything other than walking and breathing can get them a ticket, which then lands them in jail.

We need to rediscover what we learned when we were infants: People still exist even if we don’t see them. It’s called object permanence. Maybe if we remembered this lesson, we would choose to do something about the increasing number of families and individuals living without housing in the U.S., and begin to refund housing programs. Maybe we could find a unified community voice for restoring the recent (in a long series of) mental health funding cuts by the state instead of constantly reading about the potential dangers those scary, crazy homeless people present for the rest of us.

When local government is allowed to play peek-a-boo with people’s lives, when it is given the authority to make people disappear, the result is inevitable: Incarceration. After all, removing individuals from society pretty much requires you put them somewhere.

As the federal and state governments have abandoned all pretense of responsibility for the health and housing needs of people who may be poor and/or disabled, local governments have increasingly turned to laws and policing programs to mitigate the damage.

In response, jails are overflowing and municipal courts have established “special courts” along social, as opposed to criminal, lines. Drug courts, mental health courts, and homeless or community courts are all, at their core, manifestations of a criminal justice system overwhelmed by a society that attempts rid itself of poor people rather than attempting to rid itself of poverty.

Just as sweeping dirt under the rug doesn’t really clean the floor, sweeping disabled and homeless people from public view or into jail doesn’t really address homelessness. They are still disabled and homeless when they are released. It is ineffective, but local governments keep trying; and we keep letting them.

It has been 25 years since the reemergence of massive homelessness in America. It is time we stop trying to recreate Jim Crow and start trying to recreate the New Deal. After all, the New Deal didn’t build prisons. It created jobs building hospital, schools and homes.