26th and Shotwell
Francesca Pastine <fpastine@gmail.com> Thu, Jun 29, 2017, 4:30 PM
to Randolph, Jeff, Hillary, (POL), Deirdre, Laura, Mayor, Rachel, bcc: Craig, bcc: Erica, bcc: roxanne
Jeff Kositsky, et al.: After living intimately with an encampment at 26th and Shotwell since August 2016 it was finally cleared. I am not going to thank you yet since, in the past, this encampment was cleared a total of 2 times and was repopulated within days. I just listened to a podcast of Michael Krasny's program today with Jeff Kositsky and Daniel Carder. I particularly congratulate subsidizing market-rate housing, creating a comprehensive data base, and more rigorous treatment for mental health issues, as these strike me as real solutions. I was a little disturbed about Daniel Carder's dismissal of the effect homelessness has on neighborhoods. If the city takes a compartmentalized approach to solving homelessness, the problems for certain neighborhoods will be exacerbated. As always, the brunt of the solution will fall to neighborhoods like mine which have a majority of renters and are not as economically upward as others. At this time, the Mission has three Navigation Centers. My immediate neighborhood already has a lot of low-income housing and three separate towers for affordable/low-income/homeless housing are slated for development. I am hoping that all of San Francisco's districts are persuaded to step up to the plate so that there is an equitable mix of incomes spread throughout the city. Another disturbing comment was made on the Michael Krasny show concerning the Navigation Center in the Civic Center. A caller stated that, since the navigation center there opened, there has been a glut of new tent encampments with a lot of chop shops, drugs, as well as other issues such as trash and needles, around that center. This has been my number-one concern with the Navigation on 26th and South Van Ness. I have yet to been told how the city plans to prevent this from happening. It's all very well to say there will be a zone around the center that tents will not permit tents but, if the city is unwilling to enforce it, or if it's just empty talk. Yesterday, KALW's Cross Currents had a show on homelessness in which Laura Waxman stated that the time limit in the 26th and South Van Ness center will only be 30 to 60 days. Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition for the homeless stated is SFish that 30 days was not enough time to address many of the severe problems of the unsheltered. The Episcopal Community report for the navigation center at 16th and Mission says that most people needed 90 days to transition into housing. At the neighborhood meeting concerning this center held at the Mission Community Center I brought up the inadequacy of the 30 day time-line and Hillary Ronen said point-blank that the South Van Ness navigation center will have a 90 day transition. It is of great concern to me that the Navigation Centers are trying to rush people through to get better success rates while abandoning those that can't transition in a set time frame. I applaud the creativity and great efforts that Jeff Kositsky and Daniel Carder are putting into solutions for finding housing for the unsheltered. I feel that in the case of the South Van Ness navigation center that the neighborhood community was unfairly ignored. It started with no community outreach or education. There were two contentious meeting held after the fact which did little to enlightened and, instead, pitted neighbors against each other. The Episcopal Community report on the 16th and Mission navigation center website states that more and smaller centers are better than a few larger ones. According to their report, once a navigation center is too large, more restrictions need to be put in place to control it which defeats the purpose of a navigation center. The navigation center in the Dog Patch, according to Laura Waxman, is in an industrial area. I know from talking with a Dog Patch community leader that their supervisor worked with the neighborhood association to find an appropriate site for the center. I fear that the South Van Ness center was rushed, ill planned, and has and will continue to have a negative impact on my community. It is my hope that the Department of Homelessness, Supervisor Hillary Ronen, and Mayor Ed Lee's office reach out to our community and work with us since the success of this centers is a success for everyone involved. Sincerely, Francesca Pastine
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