Lately, Board of Supervisors meetings have been as infrequent and bland as my cooking. Which is to say: Very.
I’ve missed the good old days and I’ll admit to being less-than-hopeful when I tuned in to Tuesday’s meeting. But then Supervisor Chris Daly got into an argument over a housing issue and I knew everything was going to be alright.
In 2006, Daly, along with some community groups, put together an ordinance establishing a rental subsidy for homeless families. The Human Services Agency set the monthly amount per family at $500 and limited the length of time a family can receive the subsidy to two years.
On Tuesday the Board considered Daly’s proposal to change that cap to five years. (Here: Download rental_subsidy_ordinance.pdf.)
Here’s how the debate went:
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick: I won’t be supporting Daly’s ordinance because I don’t think that’s what this program is for. Let’s have the Executive Director of the agency, Trent Rhorer, tell us about the program.
Daly: Save it, Jake. We’ve heard this spiel before in the numerous hearings on this ordinance. (Note: 100% correct statement. Even I rolled my eyes and was all: "Not this shit again...")
McGoldrick: But I asked him to come…and he’s sitting right here…
Rhorer: This was not meant to be a long-term solution to the problem of homelessness. It is supposed to be a temporary emergency measure.
Daly: Since I wrote it, I think I know what we “meant” when we created the subsidy and it did not involve putting families out on the street after a couple of years.
Rhorer: We plan to work with the families and we hope that doesn’t happen.
Daly: Whatever, heartless nerds. Let’s just vote.
The measure failed by a vote of 6-5, with Supervisors Carmen Chu, Bevan Dufty, Sean Elsbernd, Sophie Maxwell, McGoldrick and Michela Alioto-Pier voting “no.”
Later in the meeting, Supervisor Tom Ammiano delivered an October Surprise of his own when he announced that he might not need all of the $500k he originally requested for combating violence in the Mission district because many of the needed services were being achieved without additional money. Then, because he had completely inverted reality, Ammiano took the opportunity to (jokingly) refer to himself as a “fiscal conservative.” I spent the next twenty minutes breathing into a paper bag. He really shouldn’t sneak up on a girl like that…
Finally, this meeting ended with the usual three-song medley by Walter Paulson during public comment. My favorite this week was his plea to fix our streets to the tune of “Give My Regards to Broadway”:
Give your regards to Broadway Street,
Remember Union and Alamo Square,
Tell the gang at 7th and Market Street,
That you’ll fix them and you’ll be there…
And the universe made sense again.
--Melissa
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