As the budget results roll in, the future of California’s healthcare and public services finds itself consistently downtrodden and weary. Though this is a subject many others have written about, I think it’s something none of us can advocate enough. These trends are unacceptable and altogether unsettling.

Having worked with mental health organizations and HIV/AIDS advocacy foundations alike, the budget cuts struck home when my inbox was flooded with updates and newsletters detailing the effects the budget will have on these individual organizations. If I receive 10-15 emails in a week from 10-15 different foundations who are now struggling more than ever to serve populations in need, I cannot begin grasp the number of people who employ these services who are hurting as providers are forced to cut back and shut down.

The budget cuts extensive preventative care programs, which seems contradictory to the concept of basic healthcare. It should be our goal to help people before they are hurting, not offering healthcare as a last ditch resort. By providing those in need with a solid foundation of health care services and programs our state could potentially decrease emergency room visits and frequency of urgent care needed by the public. As far as a budget goes, prevention is the most inexpensive and takes less of a toll on resources—saving both money and lives.

Though it may take time to truly understand the full effects these cuts, the Clinic here at St. Anthony Foundation is sure to feel some pressure in the upcoming months. Our services here may be needed now more than ever as more and more people in California are liable to fall trough the cracks of California’s public healthcare plan.

When I first volunteered at St. Anthony’s in 1995, the Dining Room served an average of 1900 meals per day. When I began working here in 2000 the number had jumped a little to 2,000 meals per day and today we serve an average of 2600 meals per day. I reflect on the past nine years – 9/11, the dot com crash, the wars – and can see how the numbers have grown. As I read the news and the budget process updates every day what is happening now is greater than all of the events in the past nine years put together. I cringe to imagine all of the new people who are beginning to fall down the economic ladder. People like you and me who one day soon will find themselves finally accepting that they have joined the ranks of people who must eat at a soup kitchen. They will resign themselves and walk to Golden Gate Avenue and wait in line at St. Anthony’s. I also try to image how our Dining Room will be able to serve all of the new people who are left behind by the economic crisis.

In the midst of all of this pain and suffering I try to find a sense of hope. I keep flashing back to an incident during my first volunteer immersion experience at St. Anthony’s as a high school student. The Justice Education staff took us on a tour of the neighborhood. During the tour a neighborhood resident stopped us and began talking. He told us that it was nice that the nonprofits were in the neighborhood to take care of people because there are a lot of people here in need of care and support. However, they are also bad, because as long as they are here there will never be a revolution. What I have valued most working at St. Anthony’s is that we work at all levels form meeting people’s immediate needs to advocating for social change working “to create a society which all persons flourish.” It’s pretty unique to find an organization that works across that full spectrum. As I review the lists of programs and services that will be cut on the Federal, State and local level, I feel pain and despair for the people who will go without food, healthcare, mental health services, drug rehabilitation and so on. But, I also keep thinking back to the man’s words. And I think of Alina’s blog post on July 23rd. Will this time of crisis bring people together? Will it remind us that we have choices? Will it make us reexamine our priorities?

This is a time of crisis, but crisis can open the door to opportunity. This is where I am finding hope. Hope for a revolution in people’s hearts that leads to new priorities and making choices that move us towards becoming “a society in which all persons flourish.”

The Governor may have said his machete wielding twitter video was just a joke, but the budget he signed today makes very real, very deep cuts into services for those most in need.  Schwarzenegger signed an already brutal budget and added $656 million more in cuts.

“Schwarzenegger’s vetoes include $80 million from child welfare programs; $61 million in county funding to administer Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicare; $52 million from AIDS prevention; $50 million to Healthy Families, the low-cost health insurance program for poor children; and $6.2 million more from state parks,” Reported the Associated Press.

In the days, and months ahead we will see just how devastating these cuts are.  It is already estimated that the cuts to Social Security Income will cause nearly 50,000 San Franciscans who are already living in poverty to survive on even less.  Our low-income seniors and people with disabilities will have to figure out how to live on even less, and will have to choose between rent, food, medicine and other essentials.  Our community will see an even greater number of SSI recipients in our already overtaxed food line, free clothing distribution lines, food pantry lines and emergency shelter lines. With the additional cuts to Medi-Cal community clinics, including St. Anthony Foundation’s Free Medical Clinic, will certainly see an increased need for our services

Perhaps when the Governor sees the fall out of this budet, he will put the knife away, stop playing with his camcorder and make a little more time to focus on the citizens of California.

What’s cooking this week at St. Anthony Dining Room!

Monday, July 27 – Curried Chick Peas
Simmered with vegetables and curry

Tuesday, July 28 – West Indian Chicken
Simmered in coconut milk with yams

Wednesday, July 29 – Red Beans and COcunut Rice
Served with vegetables

Thursday, July 30 – Ham and Peas with Pasta
In a white sauce

Friday, July 31 – Turkey Chili with Beans
Served with vegetables

Check back for weekly installments of On The Menu!

Some years back now, I knew a wonderful “Grandma”–a Native American Indian Elder who told me “Francis (of Assisi) would’ve made a good Indian! He knew that all Nature was sacred and he knew how to talk with animals”. I imagine she would’ve recognized these same qualities in Fr. Floyd Lotito, OFM, beloved Franciscan Priest of St. Anthony Foundation for more than 40 years, who died this July 14th, 2009. I saw in Fr. Floyd’s obituary, that he’s descended on his Father’s side, from generations of Italian shepherds. You could say that Fr. Floyd was a “shepherd” in the priestley sense, but when he blessed the animals of San Francisco every October 4th (Francis’s Feast Day), he was also following in the literal shepherding heritage of his family. One of my first encounters with Father Floyd was at this very event in October 2000. Along with my 2 dogs, I joined the throngs of horses, dogs, cats, birds, snakes, guinea pigs, turtles, and human beings who gathered in front of St. Boniface Church, to receive the Fr. Floyd’s blessing…

…My early encounter was followed by many more, and most regularly, when we would have our weekend volunteer orientations. Fr. Floyd was almost always working in his office on Saturday and Sunday, and he would never miss a chance to drop in to welcome the new volunteers (and to enjoy a few tasty ginger snaps!). He spoke “human”, with generous accents of humor and faith, and I could sense the level of communication sinking in to a deeper level when he’d thank them and predict that they’d feel they were receiving more than they were giving (a sentiment that our volunteers confirm again and again)…

His absence is this regard, is just one of the countless reasons that we’re going to miss him dearly! But his 40 plus years of presence, thank goodness, remains.

The original “Wolf of Gubbio”–the real & ravenous wolf that Francis himself spoke with, became a trusted town mascot and companion once Francis heard the wolf’s plight and arranged for the villagers to feed him. St. Boniface Neighborhood Center’s “Gubbio Project” offers simple hospitality to people who are homeless-our brothers and sisters who are all too frequently looked upon with fear and loathing. These same “relatives” are among those who frequent St. Anthony Foundation, too, not only the Dining Room, but other services as well. These are among the programs that our dedicated volunteers support with their kind presence, day in and day out.

Fr. Floyd was equally at home with all people–volunteers, guests, clients, staff, donors, dignataries–you name it! His Franciscan vocation and dedication to serving the poor however, distinguished him, and guided us for nearly half a century!

Means, for Fr. Floyd, was not so much something you had in your pocket, but more so something that you carried in your heart. He seemed to recognize it in everyone, even and maybe especially, in the most troubled. To be genuinely recognized in this way, lifts the spirit and sparkles the eye! You could witness this endlessly, if you were near Fr. Floyd as he went anywhere. People would just light up! Our volunteers too, blessed for years by Fr. Floyd, demonstrate that same ability to recognize one another as brothers and sisters deserving of every hospitality and appreciation. This is the “language” that heals-that welcoming, tending, shepherding way that Fr. Floyd lived and bequeathed to us.

It’s easy and wonderful to imagine him meeting up joyfully with people (and animals!) who’ve gone before him. May he be having many wonderful reunions in Paradise, and may he continue to send his blessing to the entire St. Anthony Foundation Community. We will miss him. We will remember him!

Frankie and Laurel’s recent posts have me thinking . People die of curable diseases because they can’t afford the cure. Even in San Francisco they die. I know such a person.

Years ago, when I helped coordinate the adult religious education class in my church, we had to deal every year with the question of theodicy. Why does God let bad things happen to good people? Who is bad enough to deserve death by starvation, plague, earthquake, tsunami?

It’s an old and difficult question. But it gets a lot easier when you eliminate the long list of “natural” disasters that are caused or made much worse by the conscious decisions of human beings.

Examine the list of famines caused by war: burning of fields, mining of rice paddies, troops fighting in large open spaces where the crops are grown.  Study the plagues caused by the intentional contamination of a people’s water supply to force surrender in war or the unconscious contamination by people upstream who have no choice about what they put into the water for the people downstream because they have no other means of washing and dumping. The knowledge and resources exist, but the political will does not.

Earthquakes, of course, are natural. But the disaster is often man made. In Afghanistan, poor neighborhoods were devastated while wealthier neighborhoods incurred very little damage because buildings in poor neighborhoods were flimsy while buildings in other neighborhoods were earthquake resistant.

As Frankie and Laurel point out, it’s not the disease, it’s not even lack of healthcare; it’s lack of access to healthcare.

The United States suffers from the disease of poverty. In our business, we often see the causes of poverty listed as “lack of job skills, lack of work history, physical disability, mental illness, alcoholism and addiction.”

But these are not the causes of poverty. The causes of poverty are lack of job training, lack of job mentorship, lack of accommodation and training for people with disabilities, lack of residential recovery programs, lack of services and supportive housing for people with mental illness, lack of affordable housing for the underemployed.

Why don’t we have enough of these things? Is it because we can’t afford them? In the United States? In CALIFORNIA? As a homeless activist I used to know said, “This is not a poor country. Someone is making a decision.”

We need to re-examine that decision. We need new priorities.

I am in the waiting room of an oral surgeon’s office as I write this, waiting to get my wisdom teeth pulled. The strips of peeling faux leather on the waiting room chairs, faded posters depicting proper oral hygiene, and bulbous silver hanging lamps scream not so much ‘retro’ but ‘seen better days’. Having gotten up at 5:30 am to make this appointment, I am feeling the same way myself.

But I am also feeling blessed, because when I started having wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of the-night tooth pain, I was able to be seen by a dentist (who determined the pain was being caused by my wisdom teeth) and then an oral surgeon within a week. Most people in the world are not able to do that. As the pain was getting beyond the daily maximum advil dose, I was able to take time off to get my teeth attended to. Most people are not able to do that either, without risking their employment. And I even had the blessing of dental insurance, which covered a significant percentage of my dental appointments. That is nothing short of a miracle.

As my stomach grumbles with morning emptiness, I reflect on the hungry people in the meal line at St. Anthony’s. I wonder how many people in that line began their journey to homelessness because they could not afford an absence at work or medical bills when they or a loved one were ill or in pain, and so they lost their job, got sicker, and one day could not pay the rent.

At home, I have frozen peas, otter pops, and soup ready for me, able to be at whatever temperature I need them to be so I can feel better faster, because I have a kitchen. Most of the people waiting for a hot meal at St. Anthony’s do not.

I know I will feel lousy and feel better again soon. I know this, because I have the luxury and privilege of housing, healthcare, and good employers.

Gil Gross at KGO says “They can only take your teeth, not your wisdom.” That’s only if you can afford to get your teeth taken care of. Otherwise you get compounded “wisdom of experience” and “wisdom born of pain”. The way I’m feeling right now, I’d trade my tooth pain for naiveté any day.

This week St. Anthony Foundation Advocacy Coordinator Colleen Rivecca was featured in the popular San Francisco Blog I Live Here SF. Here’s a brief excerpt from her story:

I want to tell you about The Tenderloin. My version of the Tenderloin. The Tenderloin can be a rough place, but I see a lot of little miracles here every day. I certainly do not want to romanticize the difficult things that the people of the Tenderloin have to deal with. But, I have seen a lot of beauty here, a lot of kindness, I have seen heartbreak and I have seen joy.

Check out the entire story or read more of Colleen’s writing here on The St. Anthony Foundation Blog.