(San Francisco mayor) Newsom to take sit/lie measure to voters

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said he will bypass the Board of Supervisors and ask voters to decide on one of the city's most contentious issues: whether it should be illegal for people to sit or lie down on sidewalks during certain hours.

In taking the debate about the sit/lie ordinance to the ballot box in November, Newsom is reacting to stiff resistance from a majority of supervisors. They say the proposed law will unfairly target the homeless, day laborers and youth.

"It's crystal clear that the board's not serious about it," Newsom said in an interview with The Chronicle. "We're moving forward with sit/lie."

The mayor's legislation is scheduled to be heard today before the board's Public Safety Committee.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/24/MN5J1DIJNO.DTL

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Once again, the mayor has beef with the Board of Stupid...sorry Supervisors. In November, the Board overturned Newsom's veto of an amendment by the Board "that would bar local authorities from handing juvenile illegal immigrants over to the federal government unless they have been found guilty of a felony." The voters of San Francisco will vote on whether to put a citywide ban. As this article reports, the California cities Santa Cruz, Palo Alto, and Berkeley in California and the Washington city of Seattle all have sit/lie laws too, but Newsom's is "more sweeping" because it applies citywide not just to commercial areas.

The ACLU opposes the proposed sit/lie law. A poll by the SF Chamber of Commerce showed that 71% of San Franciscans (as of March) supported one.

[Cant trust em]

1. I'm opposed to sit/lie. It just feels really fascist.

I hate the idea of some cop walking up to someone sitting on the sidewalk, tapping them on the shoulder with their night stick and telling them to move along.

[Arkana]

2. This is a problem in San Francisco? People just lying down in the middle of busy sidewalks

in the middle of the day?

Wow, I MUST live in small-town America.

[Bette Noir]

3. Yes. I've had to step over sleeping people on the sidewalks.

A more humane way to deal with the problem might be to provide shelter for people, but it'd be better to have people sleeping in parks/on the beach than on busy sidewalks.

[Cant trust em]

5. A lot of homeless don't like the shelters.

Many times they feel like they aren't safe.

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. Beggars can't be choosers

Sleeping on the sidewalk can't be too safe either.

[Cant trust em]

16. Apparently they can...depending on what the choice is.

Many of them choose the street.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. "Beggars can't be choosers"

That's a rather callous statement. What do they do during the day, though. Should they just disappear so as not to bother "normal" people?

[awoke_in_2003]

19. delete- posting error. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

28. the shitheads targeted by this aren't homeless

Their douchebag teenagers from the suburbs who hang out in the city looking tough and shake down passers by for money.

[SoCalNative]

6. The problem is that

the majority of the homeless do not want to go to shelters. They feel that they are safer on the streets.

Shelters also only normally operate overnight, providing no place for the homeless to keep their belongings or stay during daylight hours.

[EFerrari]

8. Gavin's brilliant plan was to centralize resources for the homeless

so that no matter what part of the city you were in, you could take a cab downtown and sign up for what you needed.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. "I've had to step over sleeping people on the sidewalks"

I feel your pain :sarcasm:

[happy_liberal]

27. millions homeless- millions of foreclosed homes unoccupied

There must be a solution here.

Homeless people need low income housing.

Homeless people need homes, not shelters.

[Cant trust em]

4. It's more like sitting on the sidewalk propped up against a building.

Usually not sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk with people having to step over them.

[Arkana]

12. Oh.

I live in a town with about 800 people and no stoplights.

San Francisco might as well be Beijing to me.

[EFerrari]

7. Wait -- didn't you run on ending homelessness in San Francisco, Gavin?

Why are you still dealing with these inconvenient BODIES today?

What an asshole you are.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. Probably means...

he ran on running the homeless out of town.

[EFerrari]

14. Yep. That was the strategery. nt

[Cant trust em]

17. Remember that picture a few years ago of him volunteering at Project Homeless Connect

washing that homeless guy's feet?

That was about the funniest damn photo I ever saw in my life.

Funny in that kind of cold, humorless way.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. Sad K&R...

I guess the homeless can just wade out into the bay and be taked out to sea when the tide goes out :sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

15. So you back up your insult to our board by bringing up

protecting undocumented youth from being treated like felons.

Perfect illustration of the mentality behind this last POS from Newsom. Well done.

[alp227]

21. Just because I almost said "Stupidvisors?"

Sorry about that. People call the BOS "Stupid" all the time on the SFGate comment boards just because the BOS passes environmentally friendly laws and shows off its liberalism.

[EFerrari]

25. Sfgate's comment section is a toxic dump. n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

29. There is liberalism, and there is whatever the fuck Chris Daly is

Whatever it is, it isn't helpful.

[CreekDog]

23. Newsom is right on this

any attempt to characterize him as somehow conservative or unsympathetic to issues of human dignity is ignoring the whole of his record and issues he's championed. I criticized him a lot when I thought he lacked focus and interest in SF issues, but some time ago, Ronn Owens was going on and on about all the things Newsom did that he disliked, I realized that I liked Newsom more than most SF mayors.

i think street people have a terrible life in general and there should be resources to solve that, and there should be more. i don't think that is the problem this measure is supposed to fix. it's simply trying to fix the belligerent behavior among people that use our sidewalks and yell and let their dogs do whatever, unleashed and uncontrolled in many parts of the city.

however i understand the argument that says this measure doesn't necessarily accomplish this. i do understand the police position that they need a law supportive enough for them to make enforcing against bad behavior practical. i don't know what that law would be and if it's better than the sit/lie measure --which for all its exclusions, doesn't seem all that bad to me.

[EFerrari]

24. No, Newsom is not right on this. Ever since he moved into City Hall

he's been horrendous on homelessness, just like we knew he would be. I've already told the story about the time I gave a fundraiser at the Great American and since I was talking to the press already, a reporter told me he was on his way to a roust. One of those rousts that Gavin never knows about.

I called his office and sure enough, they didn't know about it. The next day, he tells the Chronicle he didn't know about it until it was over which I knew to be cr@p because I was talking to them while it was in progress.

That's our Gavin, the humanitarian.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

30. They aren't homeless, they are neo-hippie wannabes from the suburbs

I can't stand Newsom, but he is right on this.

[CreekDog]

20. I don't know if this is a solution...but there is a problem in SF

I don't know if the people on Haight Street with their dogs that block the sidewalks are actually homeless or if they are homeless by necessity, but I do think the city has an obligation to do something about some of the problem people that don't control their dogs and essentially block the sidewalks in that neighborhood.

I have a ton of sympathy for the homeless that are so because of economic, mental or substance abuse problems and think they should get all the care that they need.

But I don't think people that lie on the sidewalk much of the day and/or panhandle are necessaarily homeless. I think the typical homeless person lives in their car or is more hidden and works during the day and is much less visible than the street people I see in different parts of SF.

I've gotten a lot of flack on DU for it, but I don't give money to random panhandlers on the street. I think it's better choice for me (not you, you do what you want...), better choice for me to give to St. Anthony's, the Food Pantry, Shelter charities in amounts greater than what I would hand out on the street to random people (I'm not doing this to save money, in fact, I think the paycheck donation costs me more than I would hand out).

But there are problems with many of the people sitting and blocking the sidewalks in SF and I think the city has the right to do something about it and no, I don't think solving "homelessness" in terms of mental or economic issues is going to clear the folks off the street in the Haight. Some folks are there for other reasons.

[EFerrari]

26. I agree with you that there's more than one thing going on.

The only piece I know well is the utter and foreseeable failure of Cr@p Not Care. I used to be a little plugged into harm reduction folks but really haven't talked to any of them for a few years now. The people who work that issue in town had been struggling for years now, losing their staff and gaining more clients all the time. Ditto for mental health.

One of my Chron reporter buddies went all over looking into successful homelessness abatement models and he set them out in the paper in the run up to Newsom's election. Of course, the city didn't use any of them and in fact, used one that housing advocates knew would fail.

[harry_pothead]

22. Between the muni cutting lines and SFUSD running out of money...

...this is what we need to be spending our time and money dealing with? Our local government is made up of idiots.