Tuesday, January 17, 1 PM
SF gray Panther Zoom event
Here’s the next event in which we can all participate in: Save the date for this SF Gray Pather Zoom Event: Tuesday, Jan 17, 1 PM: Zoom Town Hall/Update on Laguna Honda Hospital and the intersection with treatment and shelter for San Franciscans in need….What’s happening? What promises are being kept? What promises are being broken? How can San Francisco be the best for all of us? All are welcome at this SF Gray Panthers January Meeting. Stay tuned for more. FOr more background, see bit.ly/LHH-ACTION Letters and comments are appreciated.
UPDATE: https://westsideobserver.com/news/longTermCare.htm
The Feds have NOT postponed the deadly discharges at Laguna Honda they are scheduled to begin again on February 2, 2023.
City Ends Homeless Hotel Shelter Program With Controversial Legacy
by David Sjostedt : sfstandard – excerpt
The city’s “Shelter in Place” program—a Covid-era effort that transformed hotels into homeless shelters—ended in December, leaving a controversial legacy in its wake.
To many, the program was seen as a success for quickly housing thousands of people who would otherwise have slept on the streets or been at higher risk of catching Covid in crowded living conditions. But some say that a seeming lack of oversight led to poor outcomes for clients, damage inside of the hotels and turmoil in the surrounding neighborhoods.
The program temporarily housed over 3,700 people in two and a half years, according to the SF Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. The availability of the hotels increased the productivity of outreach efforts, according to Sam Dodge, the director of the Healthy Streets Operation Center. And medical outcomes among the program participants also improved, according to a study from UCSF…(more)
RELATED:
Ending Homeless in San Francisco Will Cost $1.4 Billion, City Says
Should JFK Dr. be closed forever?
John Rothman Show on KGO 810 taped podcast:
https://www.kgoradio.com/johnrothmann/ with Megan Bourne de Young Chief of Staff and Secretary to the Board of Trustees, and Richard Skaff, Executive Director of Designing Accessible Communities. Federal ADA issues are discussed and the public has some comments.
Supervisors are expected to have the final say. According to and article in SFist.com there are three Supervisors who support permanent closure. The Mayor has voiced support for permanent closure.
Thursday March 10 there is a rally to Re-open JFK Drive at 9 AM prior to a special joint meeting at 10 AM with Rec and Park and SFMTA. They are expected to vote on the closure after the public speaks on the matter. Stay tuned for more news as it developed. Please try to attend he meeitng and speak in person or call in to do so.
Remote Meeting Access: : http://www.sfgovtv.org/sfmtaLIVE or
https://www.sfmta.com/calendar/board-directors-special-meeting-march-10-2022 Please note the remote access call in numbers to join the meeting by phone: +1.415.655.0001
Rent Payments to SF Public Housing Agency Plunged in Last Two Years, Spurring Eviction Fears
: sfpublicpress – excerpt
Rent collections by San Francisco’s public housing agency fell precipitously in late 2019 and have continued to decline to less than half of what is owed, according to a San Francisco Public Press analysis — but the agency can’t explain why.
Only 47% of rent paid directly to the Housing Authority was collected this July, the latest month for which data is available. The 974 households whose units are managed by the agency — the rest pay rent to private management companies — pay roughly 30% of their monthly income, or $489 on average. These residents owe at least $4.5 million in back rent to the city.
Officials at the Housing Authority said they could not provide an explanation for why the shortfalls in rent collections began increasing in September 2019. Nor could they say why San Francisco’s Housing Authority has a far higher rate of delinquencies than parallel agencies in other big cities, some of which are collecting as much as 98% of the rents due.
“Prior to the onset of the pandemic, the authority robustly embraced local efforts to keep people housed and worked with households to enter them into payment programs if they were struggling to keep up with their overall expenses,” Rose Dennis, a Housing Authority spokeswoman, said in an email. “This may have impacted pre-COVID rent collection.”…(more)
Facing ‘dire water shortages,’ California bans Delta pumping
By Rachel Becker, calmatters : sfexaminer – excerpt
In an aggressive move to address “immediate and dire water shortages,” California’s water board this week unanimously approved emergency regulations to temporarily stop thousands of farmers, landowners and others from diverting water from from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed…
The new regulations — the first to take such widespread action for the massive Delta watershed stretching from Fresno to the border with Oregon — could lead to formal curtailment orders for about 5,700 water rights holders as soon as Aug. 16. The decision comes on the heels of curtailment orders issued to nearly 900 water users along the drought-stricken Russian River, with 222 more expected next week.
The five water board members, who were appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom or former Gov Jerry Brown, approved the rule despite vehement opposition from representatives of Central Valley growers.
Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, said the regulation would “disrupt the critical production of essential food…Instead, the state should focus on expanding water storage and upgrading its existing water infrastructure, not punish local water managers.”
Assemblymember Adam Gray, a Democrat from Merced, called the curtailment orders for senior water rights holders “one of the most destructive measures possible.”
“The Board’s legal authority is by no means certain,” Gray wrote to the board. “Growers will have to risk significant fines and penalties just to find out whether the Board actually has the authority it claims. Either way, they lose.”…
Dwindling flows risk salty backwash from the Pacific tainting supplies for drinking, farmers and fish…
It’s just too fast, you’ve got to listen to stakeholders in this process,” said Valerie Kincaid, a water law attorney who represents the San Joaquin Tributaries Authority, a coalition of irrigation districts and water agencies. “We now have a draft regulation that exceeds water board authority.”…(more)
PG&E says its equipment may have led to 30,000-acre Dixie Fire
By Adeel Hassan, NYTimes News Service : sfexaminer – excerpt
Pacific Gas and Electric, California’s largest utility, said on Sunday that blown fuses on one of its utility poles may have sparked a fire that has burned through 30,000 acres in Northern California.
The blaze, known as the Dixie Fire, has spread through remote wilderness about 100 miles north of Sacramento, in an area close to the burn scars of 2018’s devastating Camp Fire, which itself was caused by PG&E equipment failures…(more)
What will it take for the CPUC and state officials to see that the way forward is to rely less on long-distance power lines and promote more local rooftop solar production?
California Communities Are Bracing for Drought
By Peter Drekmeier, Tuolumne River Trust : westsideobserver – excerpt
Does This Mean We Should Panic in the Bay Area?
Listening to news about the current drought, one might wonder how long we have before we run out of water. Fortunately, for those of us who live in San Francisco and other communities served by Hetch Hetchy, we can rest a little easier than just about anyone else.
The SFPUC, which manages our water supply, has a lot of reservoir storage capacity. Hetch Hetchy makes up only a quarter of it, and at full storage, the SFPUC has enough water to last six years. Right now they’re sitting on enough water to last four-and-a-half years. That’s like driving with your gas tank three-quarters full – hardly time to panic.
The SFPUC also has a long history of inflating demand projections. Just a few months ago they got caught trying to cook the books in their Urban Water Management Plan. When forced to use actual demand projections, potential rationing decreased by 27%.”
Despite being in an enviable position, the SFPUC wants you to believe our water security is far from certain. They want you to support their lawsuits against the State Water Board. The Board is in the process of requiring more water to be left in the Tuolumne River – the source of Hetch Hetchy – to help restore the San Francisco Bay-Delta and rivers that feed it.
In an average year, the SFPUC is entitled to three times as much water as is needed, so if next year is close to average, all of their reservoirs will fill. The drought will be over, at least for San Francisco…(more)
Fire commissioner says Safe Streets SF program could put community at risk
By Andre Senior : ktvu – excerpt
Fire Commissioner criticizes continuing Safe Streets SF program
SAN FRANCISCO – There’s been a lot of support for the Safe Streets SF project, which began in April of 2020 to give residents of San Francisco more elbow room to physically distance outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Safe Streets SF led several streets across the city to be closed to cars to emphasize pedestrian activity…
San Francisco’s Fire Commission devoted much of Wednesday’s meeting to the topic where during public comment, a resident commented that he welcomed the continuation after previously being hit twice while on his bicycle. He said he can now safely navigate from one end of the city to the other through the network of Safe Streets converted roads…
Was he perchance one of the cyclists joy-riding through the stop signs or swirling in and out of traffic?
But during the meeting, one issue took center stage following a report from Fire Marshal Dan de Cossio who said that there has been a delay in response times on average of five to 30 seconds over the last year…
The revelation drew a sharp response from Fire Commissioner Francee Covington, who expressed concern that the Safe Streets project could put the community at risk.
“When you talk about a delay of five seconds or 30 seconds, you have to really if your house is on fire, that’s a lifetime to you that is not just a stopwatch period of time,” said Covington…(more)
Not one dollar of state rent-relief money has arrived in SF
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt
Hundreds of millions in federal funding is available — but tenants aren’t getting it.
Governor Gavin Newsom is talking about spending $12 billion on housing for homeless people and rent relief for tenants. It’s a great picture.
But in reality, the existing state program to help tenants who can’t pay rent because of the pandemic has not sent a single check for a single dollar to a single tenant or landlord in San Francisco, public records show.
It’s not much better on a statewide basis: Of the $403 million requested by landlords and tenants, only $4 million – that’s one percent – has actually been paid out.
“It’s just unacceptable,” Molly Goldberg, staff director for the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, told me. “The state of the need is huge.”
The story is a complex issue of federal, state, and local agencies, but the bottom line is simple:
California is leaving vast sums of federal money on the table because Newsom’s administration can’t seem to get it together to send the money where it’s needed…(more)
Too much talk and not enough positive action out of Sacramento. What is the hold up? Who are what is to blame?
Good News for SF’s Homeless
by
City Adopts New Strategy, Leadership
Last week brought some very welcome news to San Francisco’s roughly 6000 unhoused people living in tents, shelters and on the street.
First, a new referral strategy for filling vacancies in the city’s master leased SRO hotels has finally begun. Nonprofits began raising alarms about excessive vacancies and inadequate referrals in fall 2019. I described this as part of San Francisco’s “failed homeless strategy;” yet until very recently HSH made no material changes to the process.
The new referral process has already increased the number of unhoused who the city is allowing to move into permanent housing…
Starting April 1 a block rental system will sharply increase placements. Sending groups a large block of unhoused applicants as opposed to a few at a time is not rocket science; it gives the nonprofit provider the chance to offer options to potential tenants and ensures units do not sit vacant due to declines.
Hundreds of vacancies in city-funded, nonprofit master leased hotels will soon be filled. The new referral program will not end homelessness in San Francisco but it will maximize the use of city funds for reducing the numbers…
It takes time for the city to purchase hotels as many agencies are involved…(more)
“It takes time for the city to purchase hotels as many agencies are involved…” This is a problem that needs streamlining. Which agencies can be cut out of the process? There is no end to streamlining for developers. Let’s see some of the focus shift from building new expensive “affordable” housing to purchasing existing affordable housing and keeping it permanently affordable. One might even consider offering permanently affordable units as rent-to-own to help the tenants move into the middle class rather than remain on the public dole. That would allow the city to purchase more permanently affordable housing and extend the offer to more families of a secure future.