Wherein Andrew Malcolm Eats His Blog Post

A couple weeks ago, Michelle Obama served food to the homeless at a soup kitchen, and one of the residents in line snapped a photo of her with his cell phone camera. Crotchety former Laura Bush employee Andrew Malcolm spat, "If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?" and was immediately crucified by, I don't know, everyone, for not understanding the concept of a cheap, pre-paid phone.

Apparently he roused someone at the Washington Post city desk, however, who wrote a story confirming that yes, the homeless carry cell phones, and if they want to get out of their predicament, they have to:

Today, it's not unusual for the homeless to whip out Nokia 6085 GoPhones (with optional Bluetooth and USB connectivity), stop at a public computer to check e-mail or urge friends to read their blogs.

It's another sign of a society in transition by way of technology, as businesses shed physical addresses for cyberspace and homeless people can establish an online presence and chase opportunities digitally.

"Having a phone isn't even a privilege anymore -- it's a necessity," said Rommel McBride, 50, who spent about six years on the streets before recently being placed in a city housing program. He has had a mobile phone for a year. "A cellphone is the only way you can call to keep up with your food stamps, your housing application, your job. When you're living in a shelter or sleeping on the streets, it's your last line of communication with the world."

Advocates who work with the District's homeless estimate that 30 percent to 45 percent of the people they help have cellphones. A smaller number have e-mail accounts, and some blog to chronicle their lives on the streets.

When Laura Zeilinger, deputy director of program operations for the D.C. Department of Human Services, conducted housing assessments of a couple of thousand people living on city streets last summer, she was surprised by how many gave her cellphone numbers and e-mail addresses.

"Phones are really a lifeline for many people," said Adam Rocap, director of social services at Miriam's Kitchen, a nonprofit drop-in center for the homeless. During a string of attacks against homeless people sleeping downtown in the fall, two victims called 911 for help after they were assaulted, he said.

It goes without saying that a phone is relatively very cheap compared to, you know, rent. A prepaid phone loaded with 200 minutes can cost as low as $20. And if someone on the streets wants a callback for a job, or wants to access public services, they need a point of contact.

I eagerly await Malcolm's apology.

Sacramento Tent City Update

Last week I took a look at the growing Bushville on the American River in Sacramento, which has been garnering national attention as a powerful symbol for these troubled economic times. It was clear at that time that the city government led by Mayor Kevin Johnson needed to do something to ameliorate the situation. The decision has been made.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to first make alternative shelter space available for the estimated 150 men and women who inhabit the squalid encampment near the American River, at the edge of the city's downtown.

Johnson, who toured the area with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier, said he hoped to have the ramshackle settlement cleared of tents and debris in the next two to three weeks.

"We want to move as quickly as we can," he told a news conference, insisting the city was determined to treat the tent dwellers with compassion.

"They are people out there. We have to do whatever we can do," he said. "We as a city are not going to shy away from it. We're going to tackle it head-on."

Advocates for the homeless applauded the mayor's action. Municipal authorities in Sacramento have been debating the fate of the tent city for weeks.

150 seems like a very low number, when news outlets have reported as many as 1,200 homeless staying in the encampment. Of course, that could simply be a matter of media overhype (local shelter organizers apparently fed this as well). However, even if the numbers are correct, finding shelter space for 150 deals with those made homeless as of today. With unemployment skyrocketing, there will be more left homeless tomorrow. And next week. And next month. While most in the encampment did not fit the profile of the "recession homeless" (a closer look reveals that the tent city grew out of multiple closures of other shelters, which is probably because of the recession anyway, so we can go around and around on this), such a group does exist and will need help over the next year as the state struggles. The fact that so many homes lie vacant and are owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, i.e. the US taxpayer, suggests there are solutions to this problem beyond the short term if creative solutions are made.

The Depressing Stability Of Bushvilles

I first wrote about an Ontario-area Bushville, a tent city of foreclosed Americans, almost a year ago. At that time, it became too big to sustain itself, as people from across the country moved to the tent city to live. The city required that only residents of Ontario be allowed to stay.

Now there's an even larger Bushville rising in Sacramento, on practically the same spot as a Hooverville in the 1930s. From The New York Times:

A tent city is burgeoning in Sacramento, Calif., prompting local officials to consider whether such an encampment should be made permanent, with plumbing and all.

The primitive settlement sits in the shadow of the state capitol and is home to about 300 people who have no toilets or running water, creating unsanitary conditions that advocacy groups worry could promote diseases like cholera. With the downturn in the economy and more working-class people losing their jobs and their homes, the tent city is expanding [...]

This tent city is in a place of great natural beauty, between two rivers, with birds and open sky and a relatively mild climate. Homeless people have lived there for years, largely unseen, but as more working class people move in, the tents are multiplying and becoming harder to ignore.

The official count of homeless people in Sacramento is 1,226 people, and they are spilling out to the tent city because the housing shelters are full; one of the shelters is turning away more than 200 women and children a day.

Perhaps the most unbelievable part of this is that 10% of rental housing units in Sacramento, and almost 5% of owned units, are VACANT. We have nobody in the houses and people living in the tents by the river. And yet the housing owned by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is maxed out. It's very upside-down.

I agree with Charles Lemos that this is a test of our humanity and values as a people. Fortunately, the generosity of ordinary people is extending beyond the policymakers. Since a story on the tent city appeared on Oprah and the Today show, donations have been pouring in. Portable toilets and a dumpster have been installed.

But that's a temporary solution. While $2.3 million is coming into Sacramento to deal with homelessness through the federal stimulus package, that's not going to be enough if foreclosures continue to rise. In February, the number of homes threatened went up 30% year-over-year and up 6% since January, despite several large banks agreeing to a temporary moratorium. Five of the top seven areas for foreclosures are in California - Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield. While the first wave of subprime failures has already occurred, with unemployment still soaring we are starting to see unemployment-based foreclosures as a second wave. So I don't see any letup anytime soon, and Sacramento is going to have to meet this challenge of dealing with the wreckage of the Bush regime.

News Of The Good

After the week we had, I think I need a dose of the good. And actually, the Congress has provided some of it. Not only have Pelosi and Reid held the line on offshore drilling (for now; after Obama's hedge I expect something including some offshore elements before the year is out), they worked together to pass a consumer product safety bill that actually includes some good and stringent standards, and if we get a legitimate President, we might enforce them:

The measure, approved by the Senate in an 89 to 3 vote last night and now awaiting President Bush's signature, represents the most significant expansion of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) since it was created in 1973. It also marks a fundamental shift in the federal government's approach to protecting consumers from dangerous products: transforming a reactive stance to a preventive one by dealing with hazards before goods reach the marketplace, including products manufactured overseas [...]

Lead, the toxic metal that last year turned up in cherished playthings such as Elmo and Dora the Explorer, effectively would be banned from toys and children's products. So will some phthalates, a class of chemicals in soft plastic used in teethers, pacifiers and other items that infants and toddlers put in their mouths. The phthalate most commonly used in children's products, diisononyl phthalate (DINP) will be banned for two years, pending a study.

Toymakers would be required to have independent labs test products before they are sold -- a practice many consumers assumed was already happening until last year's wave of toy recalls. And voluntary safety standards would become mandatory, including a requirement that powerful rare earth magnets in toys not fall out or come loose. From 2003 to 2006, one child died and 19 others required surgery after swallowing magnets.

Consumers could eventually see labels certifying toys have been tested before being sold. When they buy a toy online or through a catalog, they would be able to see the same warning label that appears on packaging to warn parents of small parts or other potential hazards.

This includes a doubling of the Consumer Product Safety Commission budget (yes, a regulatory agency is being strengthened under Bush), and violators will see their penalty caps moved up to $15 million from $1.8 million. That's good.

The House got the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay Act through the House, which would go as far as the federal government has yet to close the persistent wage gap between men and women. Every single Democrat in the House voted for the bill, and there's some momentum to get this through the Senate.

Meanwhile, the FCC struck a major blow for net neutrality and Internet freedom this week.

A divided Federal Communications Commission has ruled that Comcast Corp. violated federal policy when it blocked Internet traffic for some subscribers and has ordered the cable giant to change the way it manages its network.

In a precedent-setting move, the FCC by a 3-2 vote on Friday enforced a policy that guarantees customers open access to the Internet.

The commission did not assess a fine, but ordered the company to stop cutting off transfers of large data files among customers who use a special type of ''file-sharing'' software. Associated Press reports on Comcast's activities led to the complaints filed with the FCC.

This is a real victory. The precedent is set and it allows the Congress to move forward with its own legislation codifying the principle. Comcast and the telecoms who want to open up another revenue stream and stifle innovation online have been delivered a mortal blow.

And it was Bush's handpicked FCC Commissioner who gave the deciding vote. Believe it or not, this news of the good includes an Administration initiative on homelessness that appears to have worked quite well, based on the principle of getting the chronically homeless who eat up almost all of the resources and services off the streets first.

DG: What is Housing First? How is it different from more traditional programs to alleviate homelessness?

DM: For a long time the way that government and the social service world worked to help homeless people was through a range of services and interventions that tried to help people on the street, tried to get them into shelters, tried to provide them with substance abuse or job counseling. This whole idea became known as the "continuum of care" -- a continuum of services.

Housing First is a really different idea. The idea is that you want to get people into housing as quickly as possible, especially people who would be considered chronically homeless. You have a small population of people who are persistently homeless and may not be able to get out of homelessness without serious, ongoing help. These people use an enormous amount of resources. They take up an enormous number of shelter beds. The idea is that you find a permanent solution for these people, it immediately reduces the number of homeless people on the street, it helps the people who are most in need, and then in theory, it frees up the resources that might be wasted on them for people for whom sort of a quick bit of intervention, a little bit of counseling, a leg up, might get them back on their feet and independent.

Malcolm Gladwell did a New Yorker profile on this idea a few years ago and it made a lot of sense. Amazingly, the Bush Administration decided to actually put it into practice. To get a substantive decline in homeless during a economic downturn and foreclosure crisis is pretty incredible.

OK, I'll go back to being depressed now...

Obama at LA Trade Technical College

Hey all. Sitting here in the spin room at the Kodak Theater prior to tonight's Democratic debate. The place is kind of swamped with media, and I guess Blitzer's doing his live show just outside, so there are a lot of sign-holders afoot.

Earlier today I was down at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, a community college near downtown, to watch a townhall meeting with Senator Barack Obama. A lot of his Southern California supporters were on hand, including Assemblyman Ted Lieu, labor leader Maria Elena Durazo, Congressmen Xavier Becerra and Adam Schiff, LA City Councilmembers Yvonne Burke and Bill Rosendahl, and State Senators Dean Florez, Gil Cedillo, and Majority Leader Gloria Romero. I have as much respect for Senators Cedillo and Romero as anyone in the State Senate. They have been at the forefront of taking on tough issues; in the case of Sen Romero, prison and sentencing reform, and in the case of Sen. Cedillo, immigration measures like driver's licenses and the DREAM Act (which Obama said he would sign). It means a lot to me that they are on board Obama's campaign.

After a pre-program which included all Spanish-language music (LA Trade Tech is a heavily Latino and black college), the overarching them was one of unity. The very first thing Obama stressed in his opening remarks was the black-brown divide. There were several signs passed out by the campaign that said "Si se puede." And he again talked about how he abhored the divisive tone of the immigration debate, where we "let lawmakers turn us against each other." He talked about helping the struggles of the middle and lower classes as "the cause of my life" (a pull from John Edwards?), and told the crowd that "you are determined to make something of yourselves - you just need the government to provide a little help so you can realize your dreams." The podium carried the sign "Reclaiming the American Dream," which is new messaging AFAIK.

After remarks which covered health care, education reform, relief for homeowners caught in the mortgage crisis, and making college affordable, Sen. Obama took questions. The first was about the Iraq war and yielded familiar comments; the second, about homelessness, was a completely new topic to hear in this campaign. I think Obama's answer was key. (paraphrase):

"We must build more shelters, but we also need to look at how we prevent more homeless. A quarter of the homeless are veterans who come back from war with PTSD or brain trauma, they don't get the help they need, and they self-medicate with alcohol or drugs. So we need to fix that. But we have an issue with mental health services generally in this country. I want to see mental health parity. Insurers need to cover mental health the same way they do physical health. Because depression can be as debilitating an illness as a broken arm, and probably more. It will save us money in the long run, because all types of services come into play when you deal with homelessness - police, EMT, the judicial system, our jails, etc. Another thing you're seeing is more homeless families on the street, because the government has gotten out of the affordable housing business. We need an affordable housing trust fund so that people of modest means can find a place to live in their communities."

I don't think you can read the response to that question and say that Obama is somehow a Reagan disciple. His State Senate district in Chicago faced these issues head-on. This is not typically a plank in someone's platform. Politicians don't often talk about homelessness for whatever reason. But he showed an understanding of the issue and it really appeared that he would take it seriously were he to become President.

Other questions included Darfur, making college affordable, immigration, K-12 and early childhood education (which Obama stressed as very important), and the economy. Another question that jumped out was about racial profiling. The questioner was very animated about it, and apparently there was a recent incident on campus. Obama said that he was the only candidate who's ever passed a racial profiling bill, which got the support of both parties in the Illinois State Senate. Police departments learned to work with the law and believed that it aided their performance and showed areas where they needed to improve.

Unfortunately, we don't have a political system, and certainly not a political media, that pays attention to these issues. But I do believe that this is how regular people want to make their choices. They get a load of crap tossed at them about superficial issues and there's a lot of clutter to cut through. But people have real questions and real values they want to see expressed in a President, certainly more than they're getting now. If the media listened for a change to what answers people were actually seeking, perhaps they would provide them.

UPDATE: I should add that none of this more aggressive attacking of Clinton's foreign policy positions were on display today. I actually appreciated an unafraid Obama willing to go on the offense. And those differences are real. Of course, this won't endear him to his conservofans, who I agree are really only blowing smoke on Obama with the expectation that he'll lose, and then they can see "that awful Democratic Party stopped the great Obama." It is something of a trick.

Getting By In America

So the posting was light today because I was doing my Christmastime good deed, pitching in on a food drive for needy families in South Central L.A. Every year the nonprofit One Voice reaches about 2,500 families in the area with a holiday food basket.

And this year, that bounty is apparently more needed than ever, because I keep hearing about epic demand at our nation's food banks. For too many, it is a struggle to survive without help in America. Costs are rising faster than wages, despite an unemployment rate that doesn't count people who've stopped looking for work jobs are tight and the underground economy isn't paying the bills, and the mortgage crisis is raising rents all over the country as demand increases. Donations are not keeping up with need, either.

Where there used to be thriving suburbs there are now tent cities.

Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.

As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

I don't think people have an understanding of how bad it is out there. There was a house a few months back that was being transported here in Los Angeles, and it fell off the truck on the 101 and stayed there for a couple weeks. People started living in it. There are families who are finding it easier to turn in their keys and walk away from their homes. It's obscenely easy to become invisible in America, whether you're desperately poor or even middle class. And there's a fine line between ignorance and a flat-out lack of compassion. And yes, in many ways the U.S. economy is built that way.

The entire American economy is based on making people feel bad about themselves, making them feel poor, ugly, sick, helpless, stupid, inadequate and then offering to sell them something to relieve the pain of rejection and failure.

It's based on making them afraid, too. Of losing the aforementioned house/health insurance/paycheck and of the myriad of boogymen under our collective beds. You think we don't have national health care because we can't do it or can't afford it? We don't have national health care because if we did, quitting your job and moving on to something better or even to the unknown wouldn't be so fucking terrifying. Some American dream, huh?

Meanwhile, as the poor are shunted aside, the rich are feted. Circuit City, perhaps the biggest bastards in the business world, who fired all their workers who made any kind of decent wage and hired neophytes for less, couldn't be losing more money if they tried. Nobody wants to go to an electronics store where nobody has a clue what they're doing. Turns out the management tried to hire back their informed employees to no avail. And all this loss for their shareholders hasn't hurt the suits a bit.

We all know what happens when you mess up in the dog eat dog world of big business -- you get retention awards (that's because your stock options aren't worth anything). The Post reports that Circuit City's executive vice-presidents will get retention awards of $1 million each. That's 35 years worth of pay for one of sales clerks who earned $14 an hour. And that's just the bonus.

This touching account of Santa Claus visiting Circuit City's executive suites belonged on the front page of the Post and every other newspaper. What better way to get in the Christmas spirit?

America is on a bad track and the suits on Wall Street can't seem to understand why. The gap between rich and poor is unreal, and the media isn't covering any kind of real labor and class issues that would put this in front of people's eyes. As a result people feel almost completely alone.

Advocates Sue The Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator

You may remember that in August, Gov. Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto pen to cancel $55 million in funding for the treatment and care of mentally ill homeless people.

If you don't remember it, shame on you. It should be the only thing you think of when you think of this governor. He should be forever known as the "Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator."

The claim was that Prop. 63, passed by the voters, adequately funded this need, and so the dedicated funding that passed the legislature as AB 2034 could be eliminated. That's not true. What was actually going on was that the governor was trying to limit political damage by cutting funding for people who don't vote and therefore aren't of his concern.

Well, now some advocates of the homeless are suing this governor's ass.

Advocates for the mentally ill filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger subverted the will of voters when he eliminated a $55-million program for the homeless mentally ill -- a program he himself had touted as a success.

The suit asks a judge to restore the eliminated funding, order the state to continue paying for the program and declare that the governor acted illegally -- an important provision, the advocates said, in establishing precedent for future disputes over mental health system funding.

The suit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, chosen because the plaintiffs include several mentally ill people in the county who credit the program with improving their lives -- helping them kick a drug habit, for instance, or move from the streets into their own apartment.

Allow me to file an amicus brief:

The Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator is a callous, small man.

Happy Veteran's Day

25% of all homeless people are veterans, according to a new study, and many of them are younger veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The extent to which the government discards our fighting men and women after they serve their narrow political interests is disgraceful. One of the great untold stories of this Democratic Congress (of which I am critical) is that they put together the largest expansion of veteran's services in history this year. The blog of the AFL-CIO has more on what has be done, the obstacles put up in front of veterans, this stain on the Republic.

The homelessness crisis among veterans is fueled by the lack of family-supporting jobs and affordable housing. The alliance estimates that nearly half a million (467,877) veterans are paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent. More than half (55 percent) of veterans with severe housing costs fall below the poverty level, and 43 percent are receiving foods stamps.

Now, it also seems the same Bush administration has abandoned veterans when they come home looking for a job. Last week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions heard that the agencies responsible for protecting veterans from job discrimination are not doing the their job.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), committee chairman, said veterans who seek help "face a Walter Reed-like nightmare of having to negotiate a maze of bureaucracy."

He says those who seek help must wait for months, even years, just to get a simple answer about whether the government will take their case to court.

A new Defense Department report shows significant numbers of veterans have difficulty finding a job after they return home, even though the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) requires employers to reinstate returning veterans and give them full benefits.

A Pentagon survey of military reserve members showed that 44 percent were dissatisfied in 2006 with the Labor Department’s handling of their employment-discrimination complaints, a huge increase from the 26 percent in 2004.

The Democrats have done much to highlight this inequity, but we all have a stake in making sure that those who fight are treated with adequate respect upon returning home.

Steve Lopez Would Like To Award The Certificate of Merit

Today's column in the LA Times takes the Governor to task for his unconscionable cut of homeless services that were working and saving money, in favor of a tax loophole for Dick Ackerman's yachting pals. Lopez has spent lots of time on the streets of Skid Row, and gotten to know the homeless people that struggle to survive down there. One of them, Bill Compton, died Monday, and it's grimly ironic that this happened at the same time that the program inspired by his successful move off the streets had its funding cut.

Bill Compton's Project Return helped pave the way for AB 2034, which, until its funding was cut by Schwarzenegger last week, was keeping nearly 5,000 people off the streets of California with a smart mix of housing and all the necessary support services.

The governor's staff has argued that the program can be funded with other revenues, such as money from the voter-approved Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63). But state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who introduced AB 2034 when he was in the Assembly, said the latter ploy is both illegal and a subversion of voter intent.

"I was sick to my stomach for two days," said Steinberg, who believed until last week that the governor would be on his side, particularly since the program has substantially reduced hospitalization, incarceration and criminal justice costs for its participants.

Lopez then visited the Marina del Rey yacht club and did a little reporting about what was kept in the budget at the expense of getting homeless people off the streets:

If the governor was looking for savings, he could have taken his scalpel to an estimated $45-million tax break for purchases of yachts, planes and RVs.

To find out just how the break works, I called a yacht company in Marina del Rey. A sales rep told me I would have to buy the boat outside of California, but there's a loophole available in that regard. Technically, he said, if I took ownership of the boat three miles off shore, I'd be out of the state.

In other words, if I wanted to buy a $100,000 sailboat, I would sign the contract at the shop in Marina del Rey and then navigate around the tax bite with a little vacation.

"We would effect delivery out of state, three miles out, with a hired skipper who would take you out," the salesman explained. If I then sailed down to Mexico for 90 days, I'd avoid the sales tax of $8,250.

That's roughly the cost, Van Horn told me, of keeping someone in the AB 2034 program for a year, if you count the matching Medi-Cal funds.

May Bill Compton rest in peace.

This is why Dick Ackerman - and Arnold Schwarzenegger - deserve the certificate of merit for being rich and not homeless. The creativity with which they engineered yet another tax cut for the wealthy while dismissing those who are in vital need of help must be recognized with some sort of award. There will be a special place in the afterlife for those who put this together. I won't say where.

Dick Ackerman's Certificate of Merit

This will be faxed to Sen. Ackerman's office today:

CERTIFICATE OF MERIT

The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless (NCYCWHTH) proudly bestows this award upon State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine), who has the courage and foresight to be a yachting enthusiast and not a mentally ill homeless person, and is therefore eligible for a major tax break instead of having his social services eliminated. As an organization of yachters who will also benefit from the same tax cut to the tune of $45 million dollars, coincidentally almost the same amount that would fund the rehabilitation program for mentally ill homeless people, we applaud this setting of the real priorities for our state. Sen. Ackerman has been a leader in the twin fields of yachting and not being homeless for many years, and we are pleased to award this certificate today. We ask you to be the keynote speaker at The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless clam bake in Tustin later this year. After all, there wouldn't be an organization this strong without you.

Sincerely,
David Dayen
Executive Director, The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless

You can send this too:
Capitol Office fax: (916) 445-9754
District Office fax: (714) 573-1859

Sailing Dick

Here's some trivia about State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman which may shed some light on the late round of budget cuts for social services. No, Ackerman's not a mentally ill homeless person, but he is a yacht owner.

Several lawmakers at the center of the budget dispute did not return phone calls or could not be reached. They included Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine -- a yacht owner who pushed to ease the tax burden on owners of yachts, planes and RVs.

An Ackerman spokesman said the senator was unavailable.

In other news, it's 79 degrees and excellent sailing weather in Irvine!

Here's a little more on this supposedly unnecessary mental health program, cleaved for the benefit of yachting aficianados everywhere:

It has served 13,000 people since November 1999. There are about 4,700 participants today. Among those enrolled as of January, there were 81% fewer days of incarceration, 65% fewer days of psychiatric hospitalization and 76% fewer days of homelessness compared with their pre-enrollment days.

Rusty Selix, executive director of the California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies -- like Steinberg, a Proposition 63 coauthor -- said the cost of incarceration can be six times higher than the cost of enrolling someone in the mental health program.

"Rehabilitation costs money. But it's worth it," said Adrienne Sheff, director of adult services at the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center in Van Nuys. Los Angeles County receives nearly a third of the state funds through AB 2034 and serves 1,700 people.

This program was designed to lessen the cost of those homeless who eat up emergency services - like the guy who showed up at San Diego ERs 87 times in a calendar year. Ultimately this move, done purely to satisfy short-sighted bean-counters, will end up costing the state far more. But that burden will be placed on municipalities and local governments, not the state coffers. Making the bean-counters - and yacht owners like Dick Ackerman - very, very happy.

Who Would Arnold Defund?

OK, time for a little role-play. You're the post-partisan governor of a large state. The state budget comes into your hands with cuts almost to the bone, but you promised an additional $700 million and just don't know what to do. Who's going to get the shaft?

Now ask yourself this...

Who doesn't vote?

Give me a sec...

I know! Mentally ill homeless people!

The Governor used his line item veto to cut the entire funding nearly $55 million for the AB 2034 housing program that serves over 4,700 adults with severe mental health needs, all of whom were homeless and frequently hospitalized or incarcerated before getting into the program. The Governor said in his veto message deleting the funding that:

"...while I support the goals of the program, this reduction is necessary to limit program expansions and to help bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources. To the extent counties find this program beneficial and cost-effective, it can be restructured to meet the needs of each county’s homeless population using other county funding sources, such as federal funds, realignment funds, or Proposition 63 funds. I am reducing Schedule (6) to eliminate the $12,000,000 legislative augmentation for the 5 percent rate restoration for mental health managed care. This technical veto is consistent with the legislative action taken in [Budget] Item 4440-103-0001."

Mental health advocates say that the immediate effect of the funding cut by the Governor could result in thousands of those people in the program being forced back on the streets at risk of hospitalization and incarceration... The actual outcome of these programs depend on response of local mental health agencies and the Department of Mental Health - but advocates say the cut seeks to supplant funding from the landmark Proposition 63 Mental Health Services Act - funding that was meant they say only for new community based programs - and specifically not meant to fund existing programs.

This is a bait and switch we've seen before by budgetary bean counters. Dedicated funding that's supposed to go ON TOP of budget outlays ends up being the only funding source. So the will of the voters is completely overturned; instead of supplementary mental health funding, Prop. 63 becomes the sole funding.

There were some other cuts, including $6.3 million that would have gone toward the California Discount Prescription Drug Program. But the mentally ill homeless cuts were the most drastic. And it once again shows that those with the softest voice end up getting hit the hardest.

UPDATE: State Senator Darrell Steinberg, who authored AB 2034, the bill whose funding was eliminated by the Governor's budget cut, is shrill.

"The program provides over 4,500 homeless Californians living with mental illness with permanent housing, where they can regularly receive medical and psychiatric treatment and job counseling. The program has been wildly successful according to the Department of Mental Health, reducing the number of days spent homeless by 67 percent, increasing the number of days working full-time by 65 percent, and reducing the number of days incarcerated by 72 percent.

"This is a program that works, that saves the state money in incarceration costs and that humanely treats a population that usually gets short shrift in Sacramento," Steinberg said. "I'm extremely disappointed that the Governor used his veto power in a way that punishes the least among us."

"Steinberg noted that the Governor chose to keep in the budget a $45 million tax break for yacht, private plane and recreational vehicle owners. Under the tax plan requested by Republican lawmakers, luxury vehicle owners can avoid paying sales taxes on purchases if they keep the vehicles out of California for just 90 days after purchase. According to the Legislative Analyst's Office, opening the loophole costs Californians $45 million a year.

"That's the state of California's budget: $45 million in tax relief for yacht owners will stay while $55 million to save thousands of homeless mentally ill is being sacrificed," Steinberg said. "It's wrong morally. It's wrong economically."

Where's Arnold?

You would think that a governor would try to step in on July 16 when a budget is due July 1. And you would think he would be doing everything he can to manage the prison crisis given the rapidly approaching deadline when judges may cap the number of inmates. But you're just not post-partisan (or lazy as hell, you choose).

last week closed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attention thousands of miles east as he ventured to Florida for a turn before the cameras and a $25,000-per-table Republican party fundraiser.

To Capitol insiders, the trip was the latest troubling evidence that despite the many big issues before him, the governor's interest in the nuts and bolts of governing has ebbed. Splashy announcements remain his trademark, but after the cameras pack up, Schwarzenegger has often not followed through. As a result, key parts of his agenda are foundering.

I think my biggest problem with those paragraphs is the word "ebbed." When was he EVER interested in governing? Sure, he likes magazine covers, and getting to wear anything with the California state seal on it, but actually GOVERNING. Not his style.

The governor waited until July 9 to bring the four legislative leaders into his office for a "Big 5" budget meeting — the forum he and other governors have used to keep negotiations moving. The leaders from both parties emerged to announce that little got done. No more meetings have taken place.

"We're all starting to say, 'Mr. Governor, phone home,' " said state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). "We've got a budget impasse. We need you to engage."

Republicans too are warning Schwarzenegger that his legacy is at stake.

"He clearly has a case of wanderlust," said Bill Whalen, a Republican political consultant. "While it is good and swell to go around the world and talk about global warming, being governor of California is very much a pothole job. It is about dealing with matters both large and small."

The Republicans are obviously being willfully moronic about the budget, claiming that they don't have to show what $2 billion dollars in programs must be cut but just that it has to happen. The Governor, however, might be even worse, showing no leadership at all in sleepwalking through Sacramento, stopping to pause at wildflowers while the impasse continues. You'd think he'd be embarrassed at this, just like you'd think he's be embarrassed at trying to cut mental health services for the homeless (actually, he probably had nothing to do with that, I'll bet a staffer typed it up). But then you wouldn't be as post-partisan and awesome as the Governator.

Dan Walters wrote a story today saying that governance is the overriding issue in California. That certainly becomes a lot tougher when there isn't a governor.