District 5 Supervisor London Breed was featured at the March HANC General Membership meeting. For many of the 70 people who attended it was their first chance to meet the Supervisor and ask her questions about important neighborhood and City wide concerns and issues. She was joined by former Supervisor Beven Dufty, who is now Director of the SF program HOPE (Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement) which addresses solutions to homelessness in San Francisco.
The Supervisor began by sharing some of her background including the fact that she grew up in public housing in the Western Addition and emphasized that fixing the public housing problems in SF is a major issue on her agenda as Supervisor. So is working to connect young people with job and other opportunities to help them build successful lives. She believes the solutions to crime must include economic and social solutions along with a police component.
The questioning started off with queries as to her position on the Weiner/Farrel TIC condo conversion give away legislation that many in the audience and HANC oppose, seeing it as a major threat to the maintenance of affordable rental stock in the City. She refused to state her position one way or the other, maintaining that both sides of the debate were providing questionable "facts" and she was doing more research via the City's departments and reports to get the real information before making up her mind. When queried as to what her research had turned up she was unable to state any of the facts she had found so far.
The next major topic to be addressed was homelessness both in the Haight and as a larger social issue in San Francisco. She stated that the non-profits and agencies which the City funds to deal with the problem need to do a better job of getting services to the people who need it. She felt that people who break the law should be prosecuted but that a police solution alone was not the answer to homelessness and that sometimes the police can escalate a situation.
She wants to make permanent housing a priority. Several audience members pointed that that many service providers have seen their budgets cut in the last few years and many services, such as the Homeless Youth Alliance in the Haight Ashbury, were not funded by the City at all. She was cautioned against accepting the line that has been used for the last 30 years by opponents of services to homeless people in the Haight that it's the service providers who are to blame for the ongoing homeless problem and they needed to be cracked down on or eliminated. Invitations were extended to her by representatives of several service providers in the audience to come and visit their programs and see first hand what they are facing. The Supervisor greed to follow up with them. Beven Dufty talked about a program the City was instituting to give cell phones to homeless folks. He was invited to join us for a future meeting on the topic of solutions to homelessness which he accepted.
When asked about the eviction of HANC Recycling Center from Golden Gate Park the Supervisor refused to give her opinion but reiterated that, though she has been "told a lot about HANC", she was not into a politics of hatred and wants to be a supervisor for all and focus on solutions. Concerning quality of life issues she said that she grew up here and it's been the same issues for 20 years (more like 45 years - ed.) and she wants to change the discussion to make sure no one is left out as is currently happening.
Other issues that were brought up:
Tour and company shuttle busses in the Haight and City wide. The Supervisor said that the board is looking into this issue and will be proposing legislative action in the near future.
Bike rentals at Alvord Lake and other locations in Golden Gate Park negatively affecting small business owners adjacent to the Park. The Supervisor responded that she was pushing back on this plan until there was more community discussion and that Rec and Park should have had more public noticing of the plan and real discussions with small business and the community.
Renaming San Francisco Airport after Supervisor Harvey Milk. Her decision to support this move or not will be based on the cost of doing it. She wants more information in writing.
Pedestrians and Bikes using the same pathway in the Panhandle. Concern was raised about the potentially dangerous combination of fast moving bikes and unaware pedestrians on the path through the Panhandle. Erecting some signage for both was suggested.
The Supervisor closed the meeting by encouraging people to call her office. She also invited residents of the Haight to connect with people and groups in the Western Addition in order to understand the problems they are facing and explore what help we may be able to offer. This suggestion was warmly embraced by the audience.