Joanne Gomez responds to Matt Tuchow's article, "Foster Care Should Not Lead to Homelessness." Tuchow was elected in June to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and serves on the California Democratic Party’s Platform Committee where he chairs the Sustainable Communities Plank.
Dear Mr. Tuchow,
Thank you for your articulate and informative article.
However, intended with the greatest respect, you fail to address the fact that thousands of homeless individuals are literally sent here by other cities on one-way tickets. San Franciscans should not have to pay the huge social and financial costs of this.
To ignore this population would be heartless, so I suggest that we send a bill to the respective cities so that they, not our City’s taxpayers, shoulder the respective social and financial costs of the problems these cities, not San Franciscans, have created.
This will accomplish various things:
1) Discouraging these cities’ social workers from shipping their problems to us, a City which they deem as so compassionate as to complacently assume this responsibility. At the very least, it might make them think twice.
2) The revenues would pay for social services for these thousands of people.
3) These cities would be held accountable for this problem, both financially and socially. Although somewhat idealistic, it might spark social reforms to address the causes of this problem in their own areas.
Again, I found your article incredibly educated and insightful, as I had never considered the homeless population arising out of foster care. Your suggestions as to how to address this are sound and deserve merit.
Nevertheless, I wonder, if there is not a manner in which to address the ultimate cause and not the symptoms of it - i.e., the increasing deterioration of the family unit.
Lest you quickly pigeon-hole me, I am not a bible-thumping, extremist who doesn’t recognize the virtues of untraditional family structures. Quite the contrary. Amongst the most loving parents I know, with happy, healthy and well-adjusted children are gay couples; unmarried, but committed couples; couples who are divorced but maintain a semblance of amicability for the sake of the children; aunts, uncle, guardians that are not biological parents, etc.
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