Tax to pay for homeless services
Yes — We have to make up for years of federal disinvestment
When I first met Reina, she was living in her car with her two children. She was suffering from lung cancer, and struggling with the terror of having suddenly lost everything. Her story, like that of many others, is a reminder of life’s fragility; her battle with cancer led to her losing her job, which led her to becoming homeless. San Francisco’s high cost of living and exorbitant rental market leaves many people without options, and in turn, their lives hang in the balance.
Reina became one of the rare lucky ones. With fierce advocacy, lungs panting as she marched toward City Hall, she fought for more affordable housing and landed one of the city’s prized subsidized housing units. Once housed, she was able to get treatment for her cancer and her children flourished. She is now employed again, and continues to give back to her community that supported her when she was in the deepest struggle of her life.
Reina’s story teaches us: Only housing solves homelessness. She, along with thousands of other San Franciscans, cannot make progress in their lives without stable housing.
Our homeless crisis has a specific cause: federal divestment. Conservatives have slashed affordable housing, mental health services, educational opportunities, and poverty reduction programs, leaving us in today’s reality of extreme inequality and the daily tragedy of thousands of people living on the street.
Sadly, San Francisco, along with many other cities, has spent years trying to criminalize its way out of homelessness and poverty, to no success. We have spent years waiting for the federal and state governments to fix this crisis to no avail.
During that time, our policymakers have been unwilling to make the bold kind of investment that would truly turn around the homelessness epidemic, relying instead on incremental change that has not kept up with the thousands of San Franciscans who have become newly homeless. Bowing to big business interests, our legislators have been reluctant to take a bold step and tax wealth to address homelessness.
Proposition C is our chance to stand up for equity, for opportunity and for investing in the city’s future for this and succeeding generations. With 50 percent of our homeless population having become homeless before age 25, we must look long and hard at the cost of doing nothing.
Prop. C is our opportunity to turn around the humanitarian and public health emergency of homelessness with smart and humane solutions. Over the past year, the new homeless department developed a strategic framework that lays out steps needed to address homelessness. The plan identifies shovel-ready housing developments in the city’s pipeline that simply need funding. It identifies a thousand residential units sitting vacant that can be turned over to homeless people as soon as we have subsidies in place. However the plan is dead unless it gets funding. Prop. C creates a special fund with oversight that can only be spent on the new interventions specified, and each of those dollars will have strict oversight that exists in city contracting now, with no funds expended without demonstrated results.
Here’s how Prop. C works:
It levies a small tax on gross receipts of more than $50 million of San Francisco’s biggest corporations, all of which just benefited from Trump’s enormous corporate tax break.
It funds proven interventions: Half of the funding must go to permanent housing; one-quarter must go to intensive mental health and substance abuse treatment; and the rest must go to drop-in hygiene sites, shelter and preventive measures so people don’t become homeless in the first place.
Prop. C is a carefully crafted, comprehensive measure with strong accountability and a plan for every dime. Because the homeless crisis hurts all of us, say Yes to Prop. C.