Public Comment
Déjà Vu All Over Again- “Positive Change” Boxes in Berkeley
The “Berkeley Cares” voucher program was launched in 1992. The vouchers came in designations of $.25 and theoretically could be used for grocery, laundry and transportation expenses. The purchase of alcohol and cigarettes was prohibited. The public was supposed to buy them at participating merchant stores or the Health and Human Services department and hand them to panhandlers instead of real money.
Except that lots of stores wouldn’t take them, redeeming them through the city was a pain, cash drawers and counters had no space for them or their explanatory displays, the vouchers themselves were flimsier than real money, tore easily, and were hard to manage since each one was only worth a quarter. Cities that adopted “Berkeley Cares” vouchers as a model have all ended their programs for the same reason Berkeley did; it didn’t work.
My favorite “Berkeley Cares” moment came when the University of California’s Milton Fuji arranged a presentation on the “Berkeley Cares” program for a southside neighborhood coalition and asked a local homeless woman to explain the program to the group. The woman was gracious, clear in her presentation, and thorough enough to mention that she couldn’t seem to get stores to honor the vouchers for diapers for her child, or formula, and as she listed the many things she couldn’t use vouchers for which any mother might need Fuji’s face went bright red.
What she unintentionally made clear in her presentation that day was what everybody eventually and quietly agreed by ending the program: nothing works like money. Voucher programs get brassy New York Times coverage until they fail, and when they fail the big brass band has gone home.
The Downtown Berkeley Association is still reeling from the viral video of one of its “ambassadors” beating up a homeless man while another “ambassador” offered no objection. But it apparently still thinks it is the best steward of four cash boxes planted around downtown the keys to which will no doubt be in the pockets of the same “ambassadors” whose training video didn’t manage to clarify to them that they can’t just beat people up.
The Downtown Berkeley Association’s Chief Executive Officer, John Caner, neglected to mention in his press release that San Diego, one of the cities mentioned in his press release as also having “Positive Change” boxes, has committed to Housing First as a strategy:
“Housing First – San Diego – SDHC’s Homelessness Action Plan, November 12, 2014"
Housing First–San Diego, the San Diego Housing Commission’s (SDHC) three-year homelessness action plan to create additional affordable housing with supportive services, will impact the lives of as many as 1,500 homeless San Diegans. Developed by SDHC and in collaboration with partners, Housing First–San Diego:- Renovates the historical Hotel Churchill to create 72 affordable studios for homeless veterans and youth aging out of the foster care system;
- Awards up to $30 million over the next three years to create Permanent Supportive Housing that will remain affordable for 55 years;
- Commits up to 1,500 federal rental housing vouchers to provide housing to homeless individuals and families;
- Invests up to $15 million from the federal “Moving to Work” rental assistance program to acquire a property that will set aside 20 percent of its units for Permanent Supportive Housing for homeless San Diegans; and
- Dedicates 25 of SDHC’s own affordable units to temporarily provide furnished apartments for homeless individuals and families. SDHC is one of the first public housing agencies in the nation to commit affordable rental housing that it owns for this purpose. Email us at: HousingFirstSanDiego@sdhc.org”
The success of San Diego’s commitment to ending homelessness, if it comes, may have a little more to do with the programs listed above than the spare change from “Positive Change” cash boxes as filtered through the dubious hands of the Downtown Berkeley Association.
