A subtle, steady shift
Newsom-backed policies are keeping homeless away from services

By Rachel Brahinsky

Between 100 and 120 Latino men typically seek refuge each night in the Dolores Street Community Services' four Mission District homeless shelters. The agency tries to create a welcoming atmosphere, with Latin American foods, Spanish-speaking staff, and resources targeted toward immigrant men, many of whom survive by working as day laborers.

But in the past year executive director Bob Nelson has noticed something odd. About a year ago some 90 percent of his clients were Latinos. Now, Nelson says, Latinos fill only 65 percent of his shelter spots. And he doesn't know for sure where the rest have gone.

"It's caused a lot of concern on our part, because were wondering what's happening to our client base," Nelson told the Bay Guardian.

Since there's no sign of a mass exodus from the city, Nelson pegs the change to the city's implementation of a new centralized intake system, which Mayor Gavin Newsom strongly promoted as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and on the campaign trail last fall.

Others blame the shift in Nelson's client base on the city's expanded client-identification program, where shelter seekers are "finger-imaged" and photographed as a condition of accessing shelter.

Whatever the cause, critics of the mayor point to the Dolores Street Community Services problem as just one sign that the policies Newsom has pushed over the past two years are already having negative impacts on the city's street dwellers.

Even as he takes office with plans to continue to overhaul the city's homeless service system – and with an encouraging promise to support a multimillion-dollar bond measure to pay for supportive housing – the policies appear to be limiting access among some of the city's most vulnerable populations to emergency shelter and supportive case-management services for the mentally ill.

For advocates, it's all part of the same "tough love" approach to the homeless problem Newsom has promoted with two ballot measures in the past two years – an approach that calls for cutting welfare assistance and arresting beggars on the sidewalks for the crime of asking for change.

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The critique of the new policies comes from a range of sources. Nelson, who has not been an outspoken critic in the past, blames the Department of Human Services for "implementing the centralized intake system quickly and in broad strokes – as a one-size-fits-all system."

City staffers deny there's a serious problem. Dariush Kayhan, the DHS director of housing and homeless services, conceded in an e-mail to us that he's working with Nelson to improve coordination, but he insists the system works for "the vast majority of Dolores Street's clients."

But many advocates for the poor, including Renee Saucedo of the Day Labor Program at La Raza Centro Legal, believe immigrant men have been scared off from city services because of the new finger-imaging, or electronic fingerprinting, requirements. "A lot of people are fearful of accessing the shelters because of fingerprinting," she told us.

There are several problems, she said. "We're talking about accessing an emergency service. It's a life-or-death situation. Plus, were talking about poor people, and poor people are targeted by lawmakers. So among immigrants it raises fears of being reported to the authorities."

The DHS has said the system cannot be accessed by police or immigration authorities. But that assurance is not enough for some who note that illegal immigrants and homeless people with outstanding warrants for petty crimes have reason to desire anonymity. Newsom supported the use of finger-imaging in his campaign policy brief on homelessness last fall.

A survey of homeless people conducted last fall by the Coalition on Homelessness shows widespread opposition to the technology among the homeless. Out of 201 people surveyed by the group (which opposes finger-imaging), 73.5 percent opposed having their finger image or photo taken as a requirement for accessing emergency shelter services. Just under a third said they had chosen not to enter a shelter because of the procedure.

Among Latinos, feelings were stronger, with 83 percent opposed to the technology and 44 percent claiming not to have entered a shelter because of the practice.

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Over at Conard House, a nonprofit providing housing and case management for clients with psychiatric disabilities, other new DHS policies are also stranding needy clients. Under changes that kicked in Oct. 1, the DHS cut back on the case management the agency can do and is requiring the agency to take new case management clients only from within the shelter system. Strangely that leaves those who are living on the streets – and those who are already in permanent housing but in need of help – with few options.

Seth Katzman directs supportive housing and community services for Conard House. He said the new contract limits his staff to helping clients manage their finances, whereas in the past staffers provided a range of services. They "helped with grocery accounts, sometimes helped people negotiate the courts, sometimes just TLC." But under the new contract, "supportive case management is to be phased out for all but 40 of our 540 clients within ... two and half years. We still will have ... money management services, so we can help people apply for services."

Why the change? As Kayhan told us via e-mail, "the goal of the ... program re-design is to target services to DHS's high cost systems of care (i.e. shelters) and assist clients in securing and maintaining housing." He noted that more clients will be served under the new contract, which will significantly increase the group's caseload.

Yet already, in just three months, the new rules are cutting some people out as new clients are brought in. A source who asked not to be named at one of the agency's clinics told us 33 potential clients have been turned away since Oct. 1 because they aren't already in the system. It's unknown where those people will go.

But beyond that, the shift in services could have a more cynical purpose: making Newsom's Care Not Cash policies appear successful. In the next few months, the DHS will begin charging shelter clients for food and utilities. (This is allowed under Real Housing, Real Care, Sup. Chris Daly's alternative to Care Not Cash. The rules were in the original Care Not Cash ordinance and were kept in as a compromise to get a slightly better law passed.) In order to do this, the DHS needs a service provider to help manage client's welfare checks.

"They would have had to issue a new contract for money management," Paul Boden of the Coalition on Homelessness pointed out. What they're doing, Boden said, is "robbing Peter to pay Paul. They're taking the services from one group of people who are getting help and diverting those services to another group simply to collect rent. They would have had to expend funds to get money from the G.A. [and other welfare] recipients."

But saving money now, he warns, could have dire long-term consequences. "There's the human expenditure of 468 mentally ill people losing services," he said. "That's the backdoor expenditure.... They'll end up back in the streets – and some will die."

Newsom's spokesperson, Peter Ragone, did not answer questions for this story. "The mayor's not going to weigh in on this in an interview," he told us.

But Donald Whitehead, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition for the Homeless, told us the policies are reminiscent of attacks on the poor in other cities. "All these measures are very similar. The idea is that if you make services harder to access, people will go out and do something different," he said. "But there isn't something different to do. There isn't adequate housing, and there aren't living-wage jobs available."

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