Homelessness and the quality of life in SF

Dorothy Enisman, director of the city's Homeward Bound Program, tells us that, as of yesterday, 1,694 people have been assisted through the program. That is, the city bought these people a bus ticket back home/where they came from---or where there's someone on the other end to meet them. 

In his speech yesterday, Mayor Newsom also noted that the city has placed 2,222 people in permanent supportive housing and that 4,236 of the homeless have been moved off the streets during his administration ("The Little Things Mean the Most, Mayor Says," Cecilia M. Vega, SF Chronicle, Oct. 27, 2006)

Based on numbers from last year, in the items linked below, this means that the Newsom administration is putting around 75 people on the bus every month and placing about 100 a month into permanent supportive housing, as opposed to shelters.

In the same Chronicle article, Supervisor Mirkarimi does some posturing on the quality-of-life issue: 

The mayor hits all the right notes, but not all the right nuts and bolts...I am pleased he is taking responsibility for quality-of-life issues, since many of us throughout the city have been grappling with the day-to-day travails impacting our people.

The Murk is a recent convert to the quality-of-life cluster of issues. He's been pretty quiet on the homeless issue in particular. Why not break ranks with Chris Daly and doctrinaire progressives to lend the mayor a hand on the issue? 

And the Murk's stand on tagging/graffiti has been, well, murky until now. He takes part in clean-up efforts after the damage is done. He also supports the monthly Critical Mass demo that screws up commute traffic downtown. And he likes to indulge in ultra-left rhetoric when it's soundbite time:

"The issue here is certainly about the illegal incarceration of Josh Wolf and violating his protections as a member of the free press. But more importantly, we are witnessing the unraveling of the very fabric that made this country great." Mirkarimi said when a government actively persecutes dissent, using all the branches of government to silence opposition; the citizenry will eventually rise up and be forced to consider civil disobedience to make their values and their voices heard. Mirkarimi went as far as to suggest, "Maybe it's time for a new revolution."

"Illegal incarceration" of Josh Wolf? The Murk must know that there's no federal shield law for journalists. And, like his comrades on the left, the Murk over-interprets the Josh Wolf case, since there is no visible coordinated assault on dissent in the US. Nor does a remotely revolutionary situation exist here in the Great Satan.