A year after the heavily debated prohibition against sitting or lying on San Francisco sidewalks was proposed, police have begun to enforce the law. The debate continues with supporters of the law claiming it is working and opponents claiming that it targets individuals who are homeless or mentally ill.

The first week’s numbers indicate that police in the city have handed out 75 warnings and eight citations. Citations range from $50 to $500 and potentially even jail time.

“The emphasis is not to cite, but to inform and offer services,” said police spokesman Sgt. Mike Andraychak to the Associated Press on Sunday.

Many residents of the areas Police have begun enforcing the new law have their doubts. Bruce Wolfe, vice president of the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, doesn’t think the law will work and believes it to infringe upon civil rights.

“It seems a little bit overextended, overreaching. I just find to make everybody have to be on their two feet moving and walking seems very odd for a city to demand,” Wolfe said. “That it would have this huge drastic effect on changing the social landscape of the city, I just don’t see it.”

On Tuesday May 17, St. Anthony’s will join anti-hunger advocates from around California to talk to our state lawmakers on Hunger Action Day!   This year’s theme is: “FACE HUNGER – California’s Real Deficit!”

At St. Anthony’s we’ve seen significant increases in the amount of food we’re serving in our free dining room: our numbers are up 10% compared to last year.  As the numbers of people in need of free meals at St. Anthony’s dining room increases, we realize that speaking out about hunger is more important than ever.  We will be holding a training for our guests, volunteers, and community members to prepare for Hunger Action Day by learning about anti-hunger issues in California.  The training will be on Wednesday May 11, 2011 at 2:30 pm at 150 Golden Gate Ave.  If you’re interested in attending, please contact Celina Sutton at 415-592-2728 or csutton@stanthonysf.org

Hunger Action Day is an opportunity for regular Californians to talk to policy makers about hunger issues affecting their communities.  This year, we’ll be discussing:

If you’re interested in joining us in Sacramento on May 17, please contact Celina Sutton at 415-592-2728 or csutton@stanthonysf.org to reserve a seat on our bus.  Thanks to support from California Hunger Action Coalition, transportation is provided free for all participants.

“Slow Food for the People”, the first in St. Anthony’s series of 60th anniversary symposiums, explores how local policy makers, food banks, and feeding programs integrate into the Slow Food Movement.  According to the San Francisco Food Bank, 197,000 people go hungry in our city.  How do we, as a community of people living in the Bay Area, ensure that Slow Food, defined as “Good, Clean, and Fair Food” has space for everyone at the table?

Panelists include Charles Sommer, Manager of St. Anthony’s Dining Room; Paul Ash, the Executive Director of the San Francisco Food Bank; and Paula Jones, Director of Food Systems at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.  The Panel will be moderated by Tannis Reinhertz, Department Chair of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies at City College of SF

Please  join us on Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 5:30pm at the San Francisco Public Libary in the Latino/Hispanic Community meeting room for a lively discussion on this topic.

The San Francisco Public Library

100 Larkin St. (at Grove)

Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room is located on the Library’s lower level (Enter at 30 Grove St. Proceed downstairs to the lower level).

Did anyone else see the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie this past Easter Sunday called “Beyond the Blackboard”? It was based upon the book title above—Don’t Nobody Love Nobody (1994)—a memoir by Stacey Bess of her experience teaching homeless children in Salt Lake City. I started watching it when it was nearly ½ over, and I haven’t yet read the book (I intend to), but I was taken by what I saw. I have a protective sensitivity to any implication that people (adults) are responsible for being homeless and/or for not being able to pull themselves out of it. And I had that lens on as I watched the film: it got tripped a couple of times, but I know it’s not fair to apply it since I didn’t see the whole film or yet read the memoir. Just the little searching I’ve done so far reveals Stacey Bess as a tremendously empathic and dedicated woman who’s not only herself knocked down barriers to resources for homeless children and adults, she’s clearly worked to empower those who are struggling to become more resourceful and hopeful as well.

Here at St. Anthony’s we take pains not to blame or judge folks for difficulties. We also pay attention to societal systemic issues that impact enormously on access to housing, work, health care, clothing, food. Within that framework, it’s not much of a leap to realize that with severe deficits in resources, more people will be struggling—not through fault, but through vulnerability. And today, I don’t think many would counter that more and more of us are increasingly vulnerable to falling into poverty. In some ways, I see that the weak economy has only furthered empathy between “those who have” and “those who don’t”. While that’s not a solution to growing poverty—it is a response that gives me hope that our collective “wisdom” will be able to address systemic causes and to do something restorative for our shredded safety net (of health and human services). On the other hand, the demonizing of those who struggle is unfortunately gaining ground as well. SF’s “Sit/Lie” Legislation is a good example of that.

I hope that something as mainstream as the “Hallmark Hall of Fame” series’ highlighting of homelessness is an indication that the consciousness of the Country is changing to one of respect and support rather than one that stigmatizes and abandons people who are homeless or who are at risk for becoming so. It would be a remarkable paradox that the very time more people are struggling financially may become the time we clearly see the deeper causes of impoverishment. It sounds like a time when fractured “political will” may be morphing into healing “communal will” where Everybody Do Love Everybody… Ok, maybe that’s a bit too idealistic, but at least a time (high time!) when more “Somebodies Do Love Everybody…”

Best to close with a quote from Stacey Bess herself, one I found in a college alumni profile about her just now: “I believe we’re a very caring society still, but we don’t know how to serve. My purpose is to teach people to serve. Not to teach them that what I do is so great. If we spend our time judging we may lose the opportunity to serve.”

Stitchers for St. Anthony are looking for more volunteers to help create practical, durable, and attractive clothing for children. This group of women and men have been working sewing clothing, quilts and tote bags, knitting and crocheting scarves, hats, sweaters and blankets for twenty-six years.

They meet on the first Friday of the month at 1:15 at the Church of the Good Shepherd (St. Rita’s Hall) 901 Oceana Blvd, Pacifica CA to exchange ideas, deliver the clothing they have made, and pick up sewing supplies.

This group is not funded by any church or organization. They use whatever fabric, yarn or notions that have been donated. They do not ask for money however they do accept money when it is offered.

If you are interested or have any questions you may contact Sue Burnfield at 650-359-5570 or Dorothy Molumby at 650-589-7238.

On April 23rd, 2011 the residents of Father Alfred Center will be heading to Sacramento to attend one day of the Northern California Convention of Narcotics Anonymous XXXIII. Each year (for the last four years) Father Alfred Center has held a spring fundraiser dinner to raise the money to charter a bus, and pay admission for all of our primary residents to attend.  With the convention just around the corner everybody is excited.

The big event is taking place at the

Sacramento Convention Center
1301 L Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

From Thursday April 21- Sunday April 24, 2011.  Anybody interested in attending can register at the following website:

http://www.norcalna.org/nccna.php

As per their webpage, The first convention took place in 1979 with only 360 addicts in attendance.  Since then the event as grown to encompass over 20 areas, and is attended by over 7000 addicts each year.

The conventions famous guest speakers, marathon meetings, dances, shows, food, concerts, talent shows & golf tournaments are just the tip of the iceberg.  The real magic for Father Alfred Center residents (and everybody in attendance) is to see so many recovering addicts (like themselves) gathered together in one place in celebration of that fact that recovery is possible.  They will have an opportunity to socialize and learn from other people who have faced the same problems they have and have come out the other side stronger for it.

In America today, 20% of the population owns 84% of the wealth. When there’s so much economic inequality in our country, why aren’t we more upset about it? This article from the Christian Science Monitor maintains that words, and the ways we use them to talk about class and wealth, are at least partly to blame.

Because differences in income and wealth ownership across society can be hard to wrap our heads around, we’re naturally inclined to employ metaphors that make this issue easier to understand. The most common metaphor we use uequates income inequality to a “gap,” a “gulf,” or some kind of natural chasm or canyon. These are innocuous words that don’t tend to inspire feelings of frustration, consternation, or anger. They also assign a degree of inevitability to economic inequality. Rather than being a result of deliberate and sustained government policy that favors the already-wealthy and diverts economic opportunity away from the traditionally poor, inequality, when described by these words, is made to sound like a natural phenomenon, just as a fissure in the earth is the natural result of shifting plates.

There is certainly nothing natural about the unequal distribution of wealth in the U.S. What are other words we can use to describe the fact that 80% of Americans are left with 16% of our country’s wealth? The article’s author suggests the word “barrier,” which connotes an imposing, man-made wall meant to keep some out and others in. Who has other ideas?

Thanks to former St. Anthony Foundation Development Associate Jen Thom for passing on the article and prompting the conversation! For more thoughts on the power of words and metaphors to influence our actions and understanding, read this NYTimes column.

Today, Dudley has a home, stable health, and the energy to do the activities that let him feel like himself. Two years ago he was in hospice care, and was not expected to live.

Dudley first arrived in San Francisco from Los Angeles in 1992, and found himself in the Tenderloin without a support network or stable footing. “My family’s all scattered,” he says.

It wasn’t long before he found his way to St. Anthony Dining Room for a meal, and later enrolled in what was then the Employment Program. But he had been dealt some crushing blows. Dudley had long struggled with alcoholism; he took his first drink at the age of 5. When he was also diagnosed as HIV positive, he became a regular client at the St. Anthony Social Work Center.

Dudley’s health continued to decline, until he was one day hospitalized with HIV/AIDS-related pneumonia. “The hardest part was my willingness to take meds,” Dudley says. “I wanted to check out. I believe that my mental state was so bad it affected me physically.” (more…)

This past week the Franciscan Towers burned. Over 100 residents were displaced, forced to leave everything behind. TNDC has placed some of the residents in vacant units in their other properties. Some are on cots in common rooms turned into evacuation centers.

Working with TNDC social workers, the Free Clothing Program delivered bags of clothes to the evacuees, including shoes for residents forced to flee the fire barefoot.

The evacuees needed towels and we didn’t have any in stock. The San Francisco Hilton along with other hotels often gives us gently used towels to give to our guests, but they didn’t have any, either. But seeing the need, they gave us brand new towels, which we picked up and delivered to the evacuees. Thanks again, San Francisco Hilton and Jo Licata!