Homeless haven rethinks tolerance

"People are questioning their beliefs," he adds. The response has indeed been surprising. Part of the plan is to expand a ban on panhandling to places such as median strips and transit stations. In the mid-1990s, Mayor Frank Jordan tried to take a hard stand on homelessness, too. Voters canned him in the next election.

Yet several things are notably different this time around. Foremost among them is a growing sense that the old way is just not working. As San Francisco's tourism-based economy sours in a post-Sept. 11 world of less travel, many are wondering if their tax money is being used in the most effective way. The county spends some $100 million a year on homelessness.

"It's analogous to where New York was in 1993 - reeling from recession," says Newsom. "People started focusing on the problems and got fed up with the soft ineffectual symbolism."

For example, while most municipalities offer benefits to the homeless in the form of a small cash stipend and other benefits such as vouchers or shelter beds, San Francisco still gives about one-third of its homeless population its benefits all in cash - as much as $395 a month. At the same time, the number of deaths among the homeless has increased recently - from 103 in 1995 to 183 in 2000.

That disconnect has resulted in a new willingness to consider new solutions, such as Newsom's proposal to take most of that cash and apply it to improving shelters and other homeless services. "It's difficult to deal with this issue without betraying progressive principles," says Richard DeLeon, a political scientist at San Francisco State University. "But Newsom's proposal has opened up a space in the public discourse."

To some observers, however, the shifts in policy still completely miss the mark. They say homelessness is a problem greater than any shelter or stipend, created by San Francisco's chronic lack of affordable housing and its decision decades ago to shutter mental institutions. These measures, then, are simply punishing the destitute, with only the thinnest suggestion of actually fixing what is wrong.

"All we ever get is the punitive, and we never get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," says Paul Boden of San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness. "Until they address the needs of the mentally ill, people will have a sleeping situation that is totally inappropriate for them."

Standing on a downtown corner, looking at a panhandler wrapped in a tattered and filthy blanket, Matt Beard agrees. "This guy here, you can't get him to follow somebody else's rules," he says.

Mr. Beard isn't sure that Newsom's new proposals are the answer. He feels the situation goes beyond improving shelters. Still, the shaven-headed and goateed San Franciscan is glad to see someone try.

"The problem," he says, "is enormous."

Page: 1 | 2