Thursday, April 15, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Compassionate Criminalization of Smokers
am an asthma sufferer. I do not like cigarette smoke in my lungs, on my clothing, or in my wig for sure! That plastic just reeks after a smoke filled venue! I'm glad we no longer smoke in bars. It’s very difficult to look at cigarette smoking in public as something that should be protected by law. However, I absolutely do not support a ban on smoking patios that ignores the root cause of high rates of smoking among minority populations, places additional financial burdens on small businesses, and exploits children as a means to an end.
I recently attended the hearings to banning smoking patios in San Francisco. When I spoke up in defense of smoking patios, I was told by one man that I “didn’t care about the GLBT community” because I do not support a ban on smoking in the city of San Francisco. He argued that smoking on a smoking patio was the same as walking into a bar and spraying DDT all over the place. “Would you support that?” I was asked. Another woman who rents a unit to a smoker spoke out saying that she wanted the freedom to evict her tenant simply because she “hates smokers and smoking”. Where do we draw the line?
The Anti-Smoking Coalition – who is behind these proposed bans – is a rabid bunch that will do just about anything to disallow smoking in public. At the hearings, children were paraded shamelessly (dare I say “exploitatively”?) in front of the Board of Supervisors and other attendees. The children were there to speak about asthma and were used by the Anti-Smoking Coalition to tug at our heartstrings. What are children doing on smoking patios anyway? Fact is that the two highest causes of asthma are high-density housing and car exhaust – not second hand smoke. If the Anti-Smoking Coalition is as concerned about children’s health as it makes itself out to be, why are they not calling for some sort of referendum regarding the two highest causes of asthma, both of which are particularly relevant in an urban environment like San Francisco? Maybe we should all get out of our cars and take MUNI! They certainly could use the cash!
Previous smoking bans were put in place to keep smoke contained to one area and away from non-smokers. Many bars – especially Castro neighborhood businesses – opened smoking patios in order to keep smoke outside and comply with city codes. Many of these bars and restaurants have spent thousands of dollars creating smoking patios. The new law – sponsored by Supervisor Eric Mar – would ban smoking patios, costing bars and restaurants even more money. After pressure from bar and restaurant owners, Mar has suggested that a grandfather clause be added to the new ruling to allow previously-existing patios to stay open with no smoking 10 feet from the door. Also the new ban sends smokers into the street to be 15 feet away from the front entrance of a business or building. That means smokers in the street littering the gutters with butts instead of ash trays. More litter in the bay is better than smoking?
From where I see it, this is not about smoking patios. This is a freedom of choice issue. In an economic downturn, placing added financial hardship on small businesses – in the way of lost opportunity for business – is not a solution. And certainly, criminalizing personal behaviors and pushing smokers out of sight is not a solution either.
Besides being told that I “didn’t care about the GLBT community” I learned at the hearings that there are far fewer smokers in San Francisco than just a few years ago! Harm reduction strategies are working. We have already created a dialogue and citywide plan that is reducing the number of people who smoke. Why change what’s already working?
Perhaps we should put our time and effort into lobbying tobacco companies. After all, tobacco companies are responsible for creating and selling a product that is unhealthy and addictive. I say go for the real criminals! Why not hold hearings in favor of more funding for educational campaigns and quit-smoking programs for smokers? Why not allocate prevention funding specifically to youth and other marginalized populations at most risk of smoking?
Urban environments are by nature a melting pot of ideas, choices, and freedoms. San Franciscans have the freedom to choose what businesses they frequent and if those businesses have smoking patios or not. Similarly, we have the choice to drive cars or to utilize public transportation. We decide where our money goes and whether it goes into education and prevention versus the criminalization of personal choices.
I dislike the smell, the taste, and the slew of health problems – and healthcare costs! – that come along with cigarette smoking as much as the next person. What I dislike even more, however, is criminalizing personal choices. Criminalizing adult behavior removes some of the freedoms and foundations on which this "liberal" city is built. Criminalization is never a solution. Imposing bans on smoking patios under the guise of “Save the Children” propaganda is both exploitative and factually unfounded.
We must be vigilant that good intentions do not create laws that disenfranchise the disenfranchised. Smoking surely is a health concern but the way to solve health concerns is education not criminalization. We have in place safety measures that work by reducing the number of smokers and the inhalation of second hand smoke and these extra measures are far too strict.We all want to enjoy nightlife and many of us don't want to breath second hand smoke and there are many choices of venue to go to that don't allow smoking. Finally to the person who wrote to me saying; "I pass out, my throat closes; and I must be rushed to the hospital every time I breath in a hint of smoke"; I worry that an urban environment is far too dangerous for you. I don't want to see you die so make the right choice and please stay away from the smoking patios and be very careful walking down the street. I do care about your issues so I worry what choices you are making to live in an urban and uncontrolled environment. For the rest of us I say make a wise choice and be glad you can; even if your a smoker.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Community response
For me the reality of the awesome task ahead has hit and I'm ready. There are no words that can describe the palitable momentum that I feel. I am buzzing with sheer joy at what is at hand. I live for a "Land Use and Economic Growth" meetings these days. I believe that this is one of the most far reaching Committees as far as impact to the feel and taste of San Francisco. Budget is good but there is something very wonderful at play in Land Use. Plus you get the added bonus of San Franciscans who come to the Board meetings to sing songs with little recorded devices. Amazing. Or to watch the venerable Sophie Maxwell yield power with such grace and precision. This is the most awe inspiring stuff ever. Quite frankly its like a night at Charlie Horse with everyone and everything happening at once but no vomit and much more reading.... the book kind darlings!
Yet the other side of "wielding power or saying that you want to be an elected official" is the hard part of dealing with the public and their expectations. (Again that was the hard part of Charlie Horse as well but thank goodness I excell at that!) Everyone wants theirs and they want it yesterday. People trying to protect their home values, businesses, intrests, kids and with every right to do so. The general public is angry already and that starts the conversation off in a way that often prevents both sides coming to an agreeable solution. This fear is based in the idea that government is one thing and the working class and lower are separated from this "government thing". That is not true at all. Just ask my new hero Jazzie Collins what you can do, I bet she can name 100 in a minute flat! Maybe everyone should spend some time running for office of some sort; I know I certainly have a lot less time to bitch and moan. In fact its not so complicated at all to get up to speed. I belive history and precidents are the things one must learn that take longer, but as I learned at the Dynamic Adaptability Conferance emotion and passion supply the drive and thoughts to create answers and make solutions possible.
This decision to care on a whole hearted level and without anything to loose has been the best decision ever. I am taking myself out of my comfort zone. WAY out. I used to believe that strength had something to do with where you came from; but now I know it's where we are going. In this journey I have found that we knew the solution all along. I like to think of myself as part of a community. I often hear that communities have no idea how to change things that they don't like or are causing discorse. Usually there is another force involved or in opposition. Both sides are equally right to have an opinion. Both do not have the right to believe the solution is going to be black or white or yes and no decisions that make up the final solution. It will probably be somewhere in the middle and if it is a good resolution should require that the community be an ongoing part of the solution. Bi partisan politics and refusals to bend lead to the inabilty to actually solve problems. Does our Government want us to go without health care and become bankrupt? Sure looks like it. Is over 7,000 homeless not a alarming tragety that we can't open our minds and be part of a solution? Sure looks like it. I was recently fuming over the Haiti relief benefits being held EVERYWHERE. Not that I think Hatian people should suffer or that people should give their money else where by any means. But.... and its's a big one.... What about the 7,000 plus refugees living in our city causing so much anger and resentment; that we decide if they can sit on the side walk or not by law. Why are we criminalizing the people who need help most this is insane!
Yet the solution does not lie only on the coffers of the city. It relys on the community getting in volved. We should demand that the SRO's be run in a more respectable fashion. For example we all know that if you live in a 6th street SRO you have crack and prostitution and petty crime galore. Now add cronic filth, bed bugs, rats, roaches and on and on. Third world living conditions in our city. We are responsible for these conditions; maybe not quite as much as say;.....the managment, but as much as the city and state government for allowing people to be treated this way. Yet with all our money spent on corporation bail outs and keeping the city a float where is the money to fix these problems? Where is the money for the after school programs that are being cut going to come from. It is time for us as a community to ban together and find it. We must get more involved in the solution. We are not owed a solution. They are something that is earned before its owned. If in one month I can raise enough to qualify for public funding for my campaign, in one show raise almost $1300 for a homeless organization then I believe the solution is at hand and its easier than we think.
Community must stop relying on others to do this for them. SRO's are NOT the problem. The Managment or Mismanagment is the problem. We need to enforce that people be treated with dignity by the people providing the care or remove the managment. This care must be more strictly regulated. We must stop letting giant corporate investors and large institution from buying all the affordable housing. Without affordable housing and rent controll across the board we will never end homelessness because it will continue to be perpetuated by special intrest and developers. This cycle must end. Small business must jump through so many hoops that they can hardly open without having to wait far too long to pass inspections and comply to the miriad of rules. We need friendly and user friendly services for all kinds of people. Communities must use their voices not to criminalize but to bind and create success. a sucessful SRO or restaurant or business is going to help the community not just part.
Our personal intrests really are based in healthy communities. We must keep it based there and hold the government accountable for helping in this struggle. If we don't want Walgreens on every corner we are going to have to help in the solution. We must fight for just laws. We must utilize businesses that are thriving and not penalize them to encourage more growth. We must not criminalize the people who need help but take to task the people who exploit their misery. Mostly we must find ways in our communities to raise funds to help the schools, the people, and each other. We are not just part of the solutions that we seek, we are those very solutions.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
St. Luke's. Land and Hookers, Shame Shame Shame....
St Luke's hospital in the mission has been closing for years. Honestly it was the worst run hospital I have even been to. My friend Jason and I were left to rot till I went over to General and the wait was actually shorter. Now I think I understand why. The plan was to let this hospital; that is one of 2 South of Market hospitals; rot into the ground and build a new one in the TL. The same TL that is having problems with the gluttonous land absorbsion and alleged near slum lord tendencies of the AAU. So I ask you when 150 SRO's are taken out of the Tenderloin and now Sutter Health is vacating 11 more where are these people going? Where do we imagine they go. To another SRO? Exactly where is that SRO going to be since we have lost 160 or more recently; and as far as I know land developers are not exactly jumping at the chance to build a home for poor or elderly poor, or any other low income folk. So are we saying they have less rights than people who can afford to live here? With affordable housing driven out of the TL where are my friends to live?
Having lived for 2 years in an SRO after arriving to San Francisco perhaps people don't quite understand what it is like. For $450 a month in the late 90's dot com boom era I got a room on California Street with a shower. It was awesome. I had no cooking facilities so I got a hot plate from a friend and ate a lot of ramen noodles and fresh produce from Project Open Hands pantry. See I was also going to Beauty School at Miss Marty's school of Beauty. I wasn't working, my GA was all the money I had and that was $400 a month. Catholic Cheraties had to take my case on and pay my rent and subsidize my income, so I was left with $200 a month to live on. In San Francisco. During the Dot Com Boom. It was only by the help I received from community organizations at that time that kept me alive and healthy and able to make something out of myself. They are the reasons I could succeed in life.
What I learned while living in this SRO is that there are many people who need help in the most desperate ways. People who can't bathe themselves and think for themselves but there is no place to go for them. One time in line at general I saw a man covered in his own feces who had very obvious mental disorders and the staff person told me terminal cancer. This is what is out there and the fact that by closing St Luke's the city gets rid of beds for these people. Plus there are no care facilities with bed to help the mentally ilL who are unable to care for them selves! Downsizing St Luke's removes over 70 acute bed care options as well as eliminating 81 psychiatric beds. Just what the Mission and SF General need in that area. Imagine what we get to see our next visit to General or on a street near you. This is not how housing and care should be dealt with in our city. Land development needs to consider the people who are already living in a community and what their needs are first.
While I was at City hall the other day I was listening to the Native Americans talk about how this was their land and they are not recognized. I thought it just happens over and over again. The people with enough money to silence and discriminate so often reap the rewards. This is still happening at such a quick rate in San Francisco frightens me. I am afraid because so many people seem asleep at the wheel. Grass roots organizing was changing and is changing things but without effort by the communities themselves our cares go without voice. There have been many mayors in this city in a row that run things as they wished and favored business and gentrification. It has changed our beautiful liberal city into a Manhatten Jr. I don't want our city to be owned by Disney with pretty fake atmosphere and botiques only. I want the trannies and the freaks to stay in this city if they want and to be able to find housing. This city should work to become the producer of more success stories like myself. Only through dignity and offering care where it is really needed can we keep this city vibrant for all people.
It's not just land use either. The Polk Street Merchant organizations with Police Chief Gascone and Kamala Harris have decided the Polk is unsafe. They state that the THOUSANDS of trannie hookers, male hookers and a "new influx of hookers from out of town" are making it unsafe to live on Polk. Poor little Johnny is getting stabbed by needles on his way to school and pimps are killing each other every day. First off these are lies. Lies to cover the mass gentrification ideas that the city has for the polk. The Polk is 300 times more white washed and suburban that when I first arrived in San Francisco. You know what is gone from the Polk? Gays. The gay businesses have been snuffed out on purpose because of the beliefe that we are degenerates and ruin the neighborhood. Gay businesses have been blackballed from re opening. In fact one Polk Merchants Association leader thanked the ABC and Entertainment Commission for coming to the aid of a condo owner who lived next to a noist bar and looks forward to working with them again in future such cases.
Gascone and the Merchants association believe shame is the best way to do this. First keep you camera ready because they are asking YOU to take pictures of suspicious characters and turn those pictures into the police. Thats right BIG Brother is here to clean up the Polk. Also pictures of men who use prostitutes will be plastered about the city to shame them into not partaking in the night time trade.
As a gay man I have been shamed, photographed and put in a hospital for the mental disorder called being gay. None of these have worked. I am a very rebellious and angry citizen because of it. I am living proof that shame does not work. Instead of shame shouldn't we give these people, because they are people after all lets not forget; a place to live that they can afford so that like myself they can become another success story for our city. Stop the shame and stop the destruction of affordable housing! There are 2 ways to make the city livable for everyone. To the lady on the Polk Merchants association who said its a women's issue because god knows what these men bring home after tricking; I say this; where is your heart and compassion. Until we offer dignity to the "undesirable" you desirables will not be able to find it for yourself. Personally Kamala, Gascone and the Polk Merchants I don't know how you can sleep at night. That bed of shame money must be pretty darn soft.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Academy of Art and the Good Neighbor argument
Yesterday at the Land Use and Economic Development meeting I saw what was the start of an investigation into the housing practices of the AAU. Last week the Chronicle talked about how this business was really in the business of slum lord ship and in violation of several building codes. I believe the outstanding code violations number 34. Several of these 34 codes are what are known as life codes; or codes that endanger human life. The other problem this giant land owner has that in a disproportionate amount of the buildings being used as dorms are actually rent controlled buildings or former SROs.
Lets start with the SRO buildings. The impact on one hundred and fifty units of SRO housing have been taken off the market by a company that grosses somewhere just over a billion a year. Many advocate groups lobbied David Chiu, Eric Mar, and Sophie Maxwell about the huge impact the loss of that many SRO units were lost. When a company buys a residence hotel and displaces the poorest environs in a city where do they go. Most likely onto the street and into shelters. The shelters are not a guarantee because nationally over 50 percent of homeless can not qualify for sheltered housing or benefits. To qualify for GA one must have a bank account and to have said account one must have money. Although care not cash is headed in the right direction it has run into snags along the way as well. This impact of 150 rooms gone makes the burden fall on not for profits and tax payers to house these new homeless. There are not enough rooms in SRO and the legislation allotting people to pay 15 to 30 % of their income in new construction just fuels the existing problems.
The academy of art also buys up many of the rent controlled buildings. In a city with so little affordable housing again the impact on the community is great. The AAU has 9 dorms, 17 properties used as dwellings and group housings. The AAU and Larry Badner call single kitchen single living space a dwelling. A single kitchen multiple living spaces a Group living space and then no kitchen dorm rooms. So they are taking rent controlled buildings and sticking 4 people in every room possible and sharing a kitchen and call it group housing for mostly wealthy foreign students. The code violations occur when too many people are forced in to small a living space and effectively turn a property into a dorm. Having lived at Bush and Post there are several such building and they are not pleasant to live around. Loud behavior, smoking on the cigarette butt strewn side walk, alcohol use and consumption on the sidewalk. I went to college so I'm not surprised at the student behavior but to impact a community in this way and then say that it is for the love of San Francisco is crazy.
Another issue brought up is that the AAU does not own these properties out right so they are still rent controlled buildings making huge profits by over charging and over crowding. When a property does not change ownership it remains at a 2% yearly property tax increase. So not only is the revenue going directly to the school but there is a loss of tax revenue for the city by skirting the issue of ownership change.
So lets see what else. The AAU kept reiterating that they are doing the city a service by creating a love by foreign students that go home and talk up San Francisco. Brad Paul pointed out that this may be true but many such students stay for jobs in Sf and where are they supposed to live? He also proposed measures to create some public funding fees to be placed in the hands of this university to offset this displacement and impact on the community. Personally I think all land purchasing should stop till all the EIR reports are filled and completed, building violations are brought up to code, and a fare back payment on environmental impact is made. This is exactly the accountability we need from large companies gobbling up land and power in this city. As Jeff Kotsitsky of the CHP stated, "If our buildings were under this many code violations then we would have real trouble from a committee such as this."
So why has the AAU gotten away with this? Where was representation from district 6? Why are the EIR reports not made a priority and pushed through legislation? It's time to find out and get answers and restitution from one of the biggest slum lords, taking advantage of over seas students, and enforce strict laws and adherence to all outstanding code violations.
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