In this issue

LIKE ALMOST EVERY advocate for the homeless in San Francisco, I wish that the focus of this fall's ballot campaigns wasn't going to be on defeating a really bad measure. I wish we didn't have to put a lot of time and energy into keeping something terrible from happening; as it is, we don't have the resources to push for good things.

But that's where we are. Sup. Gavin Newsom, whose cynical attempts to make political points by attacking the homeless, has forced us all to deal with an initiative he calls Care Not Cash, which would take money directly out of the pockets of some of the most desperately needy people in town. It's a brutal idea: most of the people on General Assistance, the welfare program of last resort in San Francisco, have to live on $320-$395 a month as it is. That's insane; that's also why so many of them are homeless. If we gave them all about four times that much – say, $1,500 a month – they might be able to afford a place to live and enough to eat.

Seriously, think about it: There are (according to the latest estimates I've seen) roughly 2,700 homeless single adults receiving G.A. from the city. Upping the G.A. grant to $1,500 a month would cost the city about $40 million a year ($30 million more than we already spend) – and if we did that, we could probably cut back on a lot of the $100 million or so we currently spend on other homeless services, since there wouldn't be as many homeless people. Makes perfect sense to me.

But Newsom doesn't want to do what's rational. Instead, he wants to cut the cash payments to $59 a month. The idea: people won't spend their cash on drugs and alcohol and will instead get into treatment, shelter, and training programs.

No they won't: they'll just panhandle or (in the case of desperate addicts) steal more, because there aren't enough programs, and there's nowhere near enough affordable housing.

So I'm glad Sup. Tom Ammiano has offered a countermeasure, called Exits from Homelessness, which isn't perfect but might take some of the worst bite out of Newsom's plan. Ammiano's plan would block the city from taking away a person's cash stipend unless there's actually permanent housing (and other services) available. We need to defeat Newsom's plan – but we need to have something around as a backup in case it passes. Ugly choices for ugly times.

Tim Redmond