Homeward Bound gets no respect 2

The interesting thing about Homeward Bound is how city progressives have always hated it. In fact my first post on the program in 2005 was about that opposition (Bus therapy for the homeless). 

The implication of that opposition: instead of giving the homeless a bus ticket out of town---a strictly voluntary program---San Francisco should instead provide housing for everyone who ends up homeless on our streets. Even though this is a prosperous city, even San Francisco can't afford to do that.

What those who arrived in the city afterwards need to understand is that the homeless issue roiled city politics for years, ending in the election of Gavin Newsom as mayor over a passionate left wing opposition in a campaign that featured the homeless issue. While still a supervisor, Newsom got Care Not Cash on the ballot and passed in 2002 and was elected a year later over a "progressive" opposition that was clearly oblivious to how upset voters were about the growing squalor on city streets and in city parks.

That left-wing cluelessness still manifests itself in opposition to Homeward Bound, a sensible, cost-effective homeless program (See Homelessness: The silence of the progs).

The recent Examiner story quoted a critic:

Chris Herring, a doctoral candidate of sociology at UC Berkeley who studies homelessness, said The City shouldn’t consider the bus program a solution to housing the homeless. “I think it would be great if all cities offered free transportation both within and from cities to poor people who cannot afford it, especially to poor people wanting to reconnect with friends and family for any period of housing or respite or a break from the streets,” Herring said. “But we should not fool ourselves that this is housing people.”

Of course no one at City Hall claims that Homeward Bound is itself a solution to the problem; it's just one tool that's been effective in dealing with some of the homeless who are willing to participate in the program.

A recent Alternet story features the same tired arguments against Homeward Bound.

See also Redmond and Newsom: Ideology and pragmatism.