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SF CHRONICLE REACHES NEW LOW
FALSELY BLAMES HOMELESS
COALITION FOR FATAL OVERDOSE
- By Jennifer Friedenbach, Coalition on Homelessness
In an outlandish and brazenly dishonest article by Chuck
Nevius, columnist for the SF Chronicle, the Coalition on Homelessness citation
defense program is blamed for the overdose of James Hill, a man who passed away
recently in the San Francisco Library's Main Branch.
Nevius claims that if he had
been convicted of open container, he would have been given treatment. In fact,
there is no treatment attached to traffic court, nor any treatment being
offered by the District Attorney. The most the District Attorney has provided
is a list of services that includes phone numbers for treatment programs that
are full, with waiting lists.
This is the latest in a long
line of lies printed in Nevius's column.
On October 11, 2007, Nevius ran
a story stating that a study Gary Blasi of UCLA
found that criminalizing
homeless people decreased homelessness, when
in fact the study found the
opposite. Before press time, he was informed of what the study really said, but
he ignored that information and then lied anyway. Then, on March 2, 2008,
Nevius argued that panhandling is out of control because the Coalition on Homelessness defends
panhandlers in court. Once again, before he ran the article we informed him
that we had only defended a handful of panhandlers (less than 2%
of the number he suggests) over the year before he printed it. Not
because we wouldn't but because most are misdemeanors and do not go to traffic
court. He ran it anyway.
The Coalition is all of us. We
need to hold this newspaper accountable.
Please write a letter to the
editor with the following points:
- San Franciscans are deeply
concerned with human dignity. The lack of safe and affordable housing will
not be solved by making people without homes into criminals.
- Contrary to the article by
Chuck Nevius, treatment was never offered
through the court system to the
man who died at the Library. There is
a severe lack of substance abuse
treatment in San Francisco. There are hundreds waiting for treatment
every day. The City is proposing cutting that treatment and
community based mental health treatment
again this year by 15%.
- It is irresponsible for a major
daily paper to continue printing outlandish lies about poor
people and the organizations and volunteers who defend their rights.
- Due process is a basic civil
right in the United States that the Chronicle is challenging.
- If no lawyer had ever stepped
forward to represent James Hill he would be just as dead today, from just as
fatal an overdose, following an endless cycle of jail, release, re-offense, and
NO TREATMENT. Because there were no realistic treatment options that James Hill
could turn to. Lawyers are not resisting or interfering with access to
treatment.
- San Francisco does not provide
enough resources for homeless people - in particular, there is a lack
of clean, safe, permanent housing. The roots of this problem lie in the
abandonment by the federal government of low-cost housing two decades ago, which has never
been restored.
Please send letter to editor of
Chronicle
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and cc it to 1) me and 2) Phil Bronstein
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and 3)
Steve Proctor
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We want to have a cadre of
agency and individual statements in response to the Nevius attacks on homeless people.
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