I had the honor of joining Mayor Ed Lee at a press conference this morning where he introduced the Season of Giving.  St. Anthony’s, Glide and Self-Help for the Elderly were invited to speak at this event, where Mayor Lee encouraged everyone to “Step Up” and give.  These are difficult times and at St. Anthony’s we see increasing numbers of people seeking services from all of our programs. The dining room alone saw a 15% jump in the number of guests in October.  Despite the many challenges people of San Francisco are facing, I also see hope on a daily basis.

St. Anthony’s, Mayor Lee, and many other social service agencies know that San Francisco has long had a commitment to care for those who are struggling.  When you make a financial donation or you volunteer with your time, you instill hope in our guests. Next week, Mayor Lee will be volunteering at St. Anthony’s alongside Police Chief Greg Suhr, Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White, and members of the SFPD and SFFD to help prepare our Thanksgiving meal.  Now more than ever, we need to believe in one another and give the gift of hope.  The Season of Giving is a time to share and come together. It is a season that truly never ends especially in a city as generous and caring as San Francisco.

Shari Roeseler,
Executive Director

It’s City Budget advocacy time!

We still have a little ways to go to get to a fair budget: we are facing about $10 million in cuts to substance abuse treatment, mental health, homeless drop-in, senior services, violence prevention, support services in supportive housing, and employment services for homeless and formerly homeless people.

Although St. Anthony’s receives no government funding, we stand up with our clients and our community partners for a fair budget that helps to support low-income and homeless San Franciscans.  Without these vital services, our community will suffer: we want to work together with our community to create a city where everyone can achieve stability and have the chance to succeed.

Today at noon we’ll be at the sidewalk in front of the Polk Street City Hall steps for a budget bake sale to remind our City leaders that the budget needs to be just a little bit sweeter for poor folks, homeless people, and seniors.

Tomorrow we’ll be participating in the hearing before the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee. Tomorrow’s hearing is a chance for anyone from the public to provide comments on the proposed budget.  Public comment will go from 10:00 am – 12:00 noon and from 1:00 pm until the last person is heard.

If you want to make your voice heard, but can’t make it to the hearing, please take a moment and write an email to Supervisor Carmen Chu, Chair of the Budget Committee.

We’ll keep you updated with the latest updates on the City Budget as we continue to support vital services for seniors, homeless people, and other low-income San Franciscans.

Here at St. Anthony’s, our attempt to sweeten up the San Francisco budget continues! Last week, we reminded our staff about the Beliensen hearing with cookies. This week, we’re letting people know about two important budget events with cupcakes!

The yummy cupcakes, made by our St. Mary’s College intern, Kendra, serve to sweeten up a budget proposal that tastes very bitter to homeless and low-income San Franciscans. There are about $10 million worth of cuts in the proposed budget that will be harmful to poor and homeless San Franciscans, including cuts to homeless drop-in services in the Tenderloin, mental health and substance abuse treatment programs, employment programs for homeless and formerly homeless people, senior services, and supportive services in supportive housing.

Join us for a budget demonstration and bake sale on the sidewalk in front of the Polk Street steps of City Hall on Thursday June 23 at 12:00 pm.  The bake sale will include drumming, singing, and educating our community about proposed cuts that will affect homeless and low-income San Franciscans.  Then, on Friday June 24, join us for public comment on the City budget before the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee.  Public Comment will be held in the board chambers (room 250 at City Hall) from 10:00 am – 12:00 noon and from 1:00 pm until the last person has been heard.

If you aren’t available to testify in person, please consider sending an email to the members of the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee to tell them to continue funding for mental health, substance abuse treatment, supportive housing, employment programs for homeless people, and homeless drop-in centers.   Go to the Board of Supervisors website to find the supervisor who represents you and send him or her an email. If you don’t live in San Francisco, send a message to Budget Committee Chair Carmen Chu. (We know that many of our volunteers and supporters live outside the City of San Francisco but still care deeply about health and social services in the City. Please explain this to Supervisor Chu when you write to her.)

If you’re not feeling inspired to make your voice heard yet, perhaps a picture of a delicious cupcake will do the trick!

What better way is there to remind people to take action for a fair City budget than with a cookie?  I can’t take credit for this great outreach idea — it came from Kendra, our wonderful advocacy intern from St. Mary’s College!

On Tuesday June 14 at 3:00 pm, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will be holding a hearing on proposed cuts to public health programs.  Cuts have been proposed to substance abuse treatment and mental health services as well as to support services in supportive housing.  Drop-in center services for homeless people in the Tenderloin and for 6th Street SRO residents provided by our neighbors at Central City Hospitality House are also proposed to be cut.

Although St. Anthony Foundation receives no government funding, we are concerned about these proposed cuts and the negative effects that they will have on our community and on the clients of our dining room, social work center, substance abuse treatment program, free clothing program, free medical clinic, tech lab, and senior residence.

In the words of our Executive Director Shari Roeseler, whose take on budget season was featured in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Open Forum, “we must come together to find solutions that truly will increase our common good.”

We can not truly increase the common good unless all members of our community are heard.  That’s why we urge our guests, staff, volunteers, supporters, and YOU to contact the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and tell them what you think.   Go to the Board of Supervisors website to find the supervisor who represents you and send him or her an email.  If you don’t live in San Francisco, send a message to Budget Committee Chair Carmen Chu.  (We know that many of our volunteers and supporters live outside the City of San Francisco but still care deeply about health and social services in the City.  Please explain this to Supervisor Chu when you write to her.)

Special thanks to our Advocacy Intern, Kendra (pictured below) for doing outreach to let St. Anthony’s Staff know about the budget proposals and how to get involved.   She’ll be doing outreach to guests in our dining room line on Monday.  Won’t you join us in making your voice heard?

Yesterday Chris Daly, Supervisor for District 6 of San Francisco which includes the Tenderloin area, proposed a ban on lying on the sidewalks. This legislation differs from the proposed sit/lie law sponsored by Chief of Police Gascon and Mayor Gavin Newsom in that it doesn’t prohibit lying down, but telling lies while on the sidewalks.

Although far-fetched and a bit bizarre, Daly’s proposal portrays the equal ridiculousness of the sit/lie law which gives police the power to fine or arrest people for innocent behavior. In addition, sit/lie would criminalize certain groups including the poor and homeless.

Last Saturday, individuals and groups gathered peacefully all across the city of San Francisco to participate in Sidewalks are for People, a decentralized, city-wide event that encourages people to utilize their city sidewalks as places of community-building. Over 2 dozen events, including poetry workshops, bbqs and tea parties, occurred in all areas of the city and demonstrated how sit/lie would eliminate sidewalks as community space.

A sit/lie hearing will take place at City Hall on Monday, May 10th at 10:00am. Stand up for your right to sit down and oppose sit/lie.

Today I stood on the sidewalk at lunch (I was tempted actually to sit/lie down but I suppose that is another issue entirely) and allowed myself to admire the resiliency of those members of the Tenderloin community who offer St. Anthony’s the privilege of serving them. At its peak, our Dining Room lunch line extended down Golden Gate Avenue past Leavenworth Street. Those of you who have been here before can likely appreciate the magnitude of that. The number of people, hungry, waiting patiently for their first (if not only) meal of the day, was inconceivable.

At that moment, I was instantly reminded of a conversation I had with a friend earlier this week. She had a visitor in town last weekend and decided to show her one of San Francisco’s great brunch spots. They waited 1 ½ hours to get into the restaurant, all the while chatting with strangers in line and enjoying the sunshine. Not entirely, unlike the experience of many of our guests on most days of the month, right?

In some respects it is exactly the same and demonstrates the point that poor people are not the only ones who wait for food. However, in MANY ways, it is entirely different. My friend waited in line because she wanted to; because she chose to, because she heard that the food was great and worth the wait. She could have chosen any one of a thousand other breakfast options that day. Perhaps had it not been for a rare, cloudless sky that day, she would have. She also knew that upon entering the restaurant, she would be provided a menu with countless items from which to choose and bottomless cups of coffee. These are all luxuries that many of our guests do not share: the inherent luxury of choice. Our guests stand in line for infinite amounts of time precisely because of a lack of choice.

Today, St. Anthony’s proved to be the only option for nearly 2000 hungry folks.

San Francisco may be the next city to enforce sit/lie laws prohibiting people from inhabiting public sidewalk space. Mayer Gavin Newsom will be introducing his two new proposals to the Board of Supervisors today. One is modeled after sit/lie laws in the Pacific Northwest, affecting only commercial areas while the other is the first of its kind: a citywide decree prohibiting sitting or lying on any sidewalks. Anywhere.

In my hometown of Portland, OR a similar law was implemented a couple of years ago — and since then has been ruled unconstitutional. The law resulted in several cases of profiling against the homeless and poor. Often, tickets issued were contested and thrown out in court. I’ll be interested to see how it pans out here in San Fransisco…it’s hard to say a law won’t be profiling when it’s meant to target only a specific group of people.

Read more about the proposed laws here.

Some days are harder than others.

For some reason when the rain returns after a glimpse of sunlight it seems a little darker than if we just had a few rainy ones in a row.  You need that morning coffee to kick in a little harder those days.

Reading the headlines of the paper there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of uplifting news.  Budget cuts, another round of teacher pink slips, and an unrelenting concern for profit juxtaposed with a disappointing negligence toward our country’s everyday people.

As one can imagine, working in the fundraising department of a non-profit during these times is an emotional and logistical challenge.  It is my job, however, to keep faith.  And  I must say, I am in a pretty good place for that.  At St. Anthony’s I am surrounded by people keeping faith and having hope that it may be dark today, but there will be light.  Our staff, guests, supporters and neighborhood friends are all amazing reminders, and believers.

As so many know and have been touched by the gratitude expressed by our guests, I too am thankful that there is a mission and movement that I can be a part of to keep faith and remember the sunnier days ahead.

It is good to dream, but it is better to dream and work. Faith is mighty, but action with faith is mightier. Desiring is helpful, but work and desire are invincible.    –Thomas Robert Gaines

Some alarming news about spiraling state of California health care: LA County reimbursement rates to private hospitals for emergency room visits made by patients without insurance are being cut to below 20% of visit cost. These emergency room physicians, who service primarily poor, uninsured patients, are perhaps some of the most vital players in the health care safety net. Many uninsured patients go to emergency rooms for care because law requires that the ER accept all patients, regardless of ability to pay. These safety nets are growing weaker by the second, as highlighted by an article in the LA Times today.

On Tuesday, County Supervisors voted to cut reimbursements for uninsured patient visits down to 18%. Drastically reducing pay to ER physicians and specialists means a higher burnout rate: doctors are more likely to leave these facilities for specialty practice or private work as they are continually underpaid. Uninsured visits make up 25% or more of many ER specialists’ visits, which means drastic pay cuts for these physicians. Losing top-quality doctors means losing top quality care for ER patients, leads to understaffing, and in turn perpetuates the dangerous cycle of over-worked, understaffed emergency facilities.

Private hospital emergency specialists and on-call physicians offset the volume of uninsured patients at county hospitals. This may no longer be the case as private hospitals may choose to close ER facilities due to increasing costs and bare-bones reimbursement. In fact, ER physicians in LA who treat uninsured patients have not been subsidized at all for these visits since the county put a hold on payment July 1, 2009. Part of the decision to reduce rates to 18% was because of demands to pay these delayed subsidies, if even at a lower rate. LA County is in severe debt, having lost 11 Hospitals since 2002 due to deficits. Dramatic cuts are affecting doctors, patients, and the community as a whole.

San Francisco emergency rooms are already overcrowded; we too are subject to the same healthcare anxieties as LA County. At St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic we’re doing our part to keep the safety net strong by providing medical care regardless of ability to pay. Preventative care like that our patients receive here at St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic help relieve pressure on ER facilities. Poor, uninsured patients often don’t receive the primary care they need because of economic barriers and thus delay seeking medical attention until health concerns are severe and require emergency attention. Clinics like ours empower patients, providing them with the primary care they need to stay healthy and offering healthcare support in times when they are not. St. Anthony Free Medical Clinic continues to be a source of steadfast support for the most vulnerable individuals in San Francisco—the uninsured falling through our community’s fraying safety nets.

All of us at St. Anthony’s have heavy hearts this week. Our friend and colleague, Fr. Floyd Lotito, OFM, has gone home to God, a few days shy of his 75th birthday. For forty years Floyd’s blood, sweat and tears (and lots of song and laughter as well) have been poured out here at Jones & Golden Gate, in service to God’s favorite people: the poor. This dear, and much loved, Friar personified the ancient, revered tradition we call “Franciscan”, and in his honor, we remember and celebrate that legacy of loving service.

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