Fear of the homeless — apprehension, uneasiness, opposition — is largely experiential. Since most of us have little or no direct contact with the homeless, it is emotions, based on what we see, not what we know, that drive the debate over how to solve a problem we all agree is a problem.
And so these feelings play out, unencumbered by fact, in Millbrae, a city with the unofficial slogan “A Place in the Sun,” and where residents angrily want the homeless, who spend so much of their daily lives in the shadows of highway overpasses and cobbled-together shelters, to find their patch of sun somewhere else.
If the “debate” in Millbrae establishes anything else, it may well be that the greatest hurdle to solving homelessness is the intractability of those who have homes.
This headlong embrace of emotion over facts is transforming quiet, sleepy Millbrae into a foaming cauldron of anger. It also is being seized upon by opportunists who want to mock California as the singular example of failed liberal policies. The fight has brought national attention to Millbrae, including this headline in the New York Post: “Liberal Bay Area town rages against proposed homeless shelter: ‘We don’t want to see that.’”
It is easier to describe what this Millbrae proposal is not. For openers, it is not a homeless shelter, no matter how well that serves someone’s narrative.
Already, the county has purchased three hotels in Half Moon Bay, Redwood City and San Mateo that have been converted into interim housing, and created two permanent housing locations at former hotels in Redwood City.
One of the issues that the Millbrae leaders have raised to try to change the debate from their own callousness to some firmer ground is the concern that La Quinta Inn is a major source of city revenue. When the county issued a request for proposals for additional sites, the owners of La Quinta Inn eagerly applied. This would suggest that La Quinta is a pretty leaky vessel upon which to plan a city’s financial future. This in a city that already is losing another hotel, the El Rancho, to development, and in a business, hotels/motels, that is struggling countywide.
The county has proposed covering the La Quinta financial shortfall for more than two years. Residents keep carrying signs calling for “transparency.” Indeed.
Callagy is proposing a compromise — limiting the residents of La Quinta to families and seniors in the hope Millbrae residents will see this as less threatening. It means the number of units available to people ready and able to move into permanent housing will drop, tragically, from 99 to 60. Many of the families to be housed there have children who would attend the school nearby.
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The plan never has been to scoop homeless people off the sidewalk and plunk them into this, or other, locations. The people who would move into La Quinta already have gone through the transitional services and shelters that are provided by the county — mental health assistance, drug rehabilitation and, most importantly, employment and financial assistance.
These are graduates from the streets. They do not need someplace to stay. They need someplace to live.
The issue comes before the Board of Supervisors for a decision on Tuesday. Expect more of the same heated rhetoric from opponents, who are disinterested in having their minds changed.
Of course, public debate in a council or board chamber is not about facts, or changing anyone’s mind.
A national opt-in survey by coUrbanize, a Massachusetts-based forum for discussion and comment on development and public planning, noted that 71% of respondents said a public meeting about a development did not change their opinions.
No, public meetings are about influencing the decision-makers. This upcoming decision is the latest in a continuing test of the increasingly localized, district-based system of governance that now dominates the political landscape.
The challenge always is to see the bigger picture, to see beyond highly local, parochial interests that can dominate debate and, almost always, are driven by emotions.
As Callagy has noted countless times, 90% of the people in this county who lose their housing are evicted because they cannot pay their rent. As has been said even more often, the cost of living on the Peninsula leaves an alarming number of us just a few missed paychecks from the streets.
The cost of living is a communitywide challenge. So is homelessness.
The solutions ought to be communitywide, as well.
Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He can be reached at marksimon@smdailyjournal.com.
Mr. Simon, thanks for covering both sides of the Millbrae proposal. However, when you say the proposal “is not a homeless shelter, no matter how well that serves someone’s narrative” and then follow that up with a discussion of people without homes (homeless) needing a place (shelter) to live, you're providing a perfect example of a homeless shelter.
Be that as it may, I wonder if you could use your considerable influence (similar to when you “paused” the push to increase tolls) to convince people pushing the homeless into Millbrae or anywhere else if they’d be so kind as to provide shelter for the homeless in their own homes. Maybe start with Mr. Callagy, resident Michael Kelly, and Councilman Goodman. Maybe if they’ll talk the talk instead of just walking the walk, others may do the same, and homeless folks will no longer be homeless. The solution can be community-wide, if folks begin setting an example.
Home run today, Mark -- and not even a Little League one, this was out of the park. Thank you especially for emphasizing that the people in this hotel would be the "graduates" of services programs, the people who've taken the steps to get themselves (and their families, in some cases) back to self-sufficiency, not the demons portrayed by some opponents of the proposal. Indeed, these people aren't demons, but many of them had to overcome demons to get to this point. Let's give them an extra push over the top.
John - are you kidding? 'back to self-sufficiency"? Free rent, food stamps and a clipper card, plus a monthly welfare check. Self-sufficiency has a new meaning? I never understood why these folks do not need to earn their keep.
And their Uber ride package is farcical. Uber drivers tell me the residents of these types of residences do not tip because the VA and other only pay for out and back rides, no lollygagging down town or in the VA cafeteria, and then they sell their meds for cash when the get back to their residences.
JB - You are getting too much fresh air riding your bike everywhere you need to go. Have you walked in the shoes of those of us - who have been victimized by not only the residents of Shores Landing but by the LIES and thoughtless rhetoric spewed daily by HomeKey - Mid Penn - Callagy and the one and only David Canepa.
Please - realize that Santa Claus was a symbolic figure in history.
It won't matter, as you correctly point out, that the Millbrae Inn will not be a Homeless Shelter.
TwinSuites became Shores Landing - another non-homeless shelter at 1000 Twin Dolphins Drive - where and when it opened it was 250 feet from the largest day care center on the Peninsula.
On the roll of the first 96 residents there were two single men who were registered Pedophiles. We were told - their specific crimes against under 14 year old girls were 7 years old.
The residents of The Shores, who Canepa referred to as GRINCHES - were not buying it and those two felons were evicted to another neighborhood.
We don't agree about the 7 year gizmo. Pedophiles don't change their spots.
Yet those two guys BEAT the iron clad vetting process. [unsure]
Millbrae does not need a similar Shores Landing in the town.
Ask yourselves this: If the entire issue passes and people and families 'move in' - and every entire item goes sideways - underwater ... could HomeKey and MidPenn - enter into the fray and say "That's It" - "Shut it down and Move Them Out".
Could they do that - could they 'Test Run' - these fantasy Island ideas of Callagy, Canepa - HomeKey and MidPen?
You make a good point about vetting. I remember when a Redwood Shores neighborhood association stridently objected to moving Project Homekey into the Marriott TownPlace Suites. The objections were largely grounded in safety concerns; however, I argued in favor of the project. Since that time, local law enforcement has dispatched officers and deputies to the Shores Landing site with more frequency than it did before the conversion.
If folks in Millbrae are now objecting to converting the La Quinta Inn due to safety concerns, it appears those concerns may be valid. They're not haters... they're worriers. One final thought... why would the county be so willing to promise extra police resources to the Millbrae site as part of the conversion unless they are anticipating a greater need for a law enforcement presence in that area?
I live across the street from the Catholic Workers Hospitality House, which provides transitional housing for folks who are getting off the street. It's fine. I didn't even know they were there for the first year I lived here. People need to chill out about this stuff.
aurosharman – I’m sure people would live to “chill out” about this stuff and they might, should they have your same experiences. Unfortunately, as can be evidenced by other testimonials (to wit, check out JustMike650’s testimonial below and in other letters) some haven’t. I'd say it'd be difficult to chill out with all that stuff going on.
Hard to chill out AFTER the fact - AFTER all the lies are told.
People are tired of this pearl of a statement:
"As Callagy has noted countless times, 90% of the people in this county who lose their housing are evicted because they cannot pay their rent. As has been said even more often, the cost of living on the Peninsula leaves an alarming number of us just a few missed paychecks from the streets."
For those of us whose families who know first hand what it is like to battle depression, PTSD, addiction, alienation from those who love us, homelessness. For those of us whose families know first hand what second and third chances can do. For those of us who would not have the connected communities we have today without public services, caring and compassion of others, including those who do not know us. Thank you. We are stronger together. Life is not a zero sum gain. Helping one person has a chain reaction of goodness. We all benefit.
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
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make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
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or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
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(13) comments
Thank you for this reasoned and compassionate piece.
... and to those who oppose the conversion - thank you also. [blink]
Mr. Simon, thanks for covering both sides of the Millbrae proposal. However, when you say the proposal “is not a homeless shelter, no matter how well that serves someone’s narrative” and then follow that up with a discussion of people without homes (homeless) needing a place (shelter) to live, you're providing a perfect example of a homeless shelter.
Be that as it may, I wonder if you could use your considerable influence (similar to when you “paused” the push to increase tolls) to convince people pushing the homeless into Millbrae or anywhere else if they’d be so kind as to provide shelter for the homeless in their own homes. Maybe start with Mr. Callagy, resident Michael Kelly, and Councilman Goodman. Maybe if they’ll talk the talk instead of just walking the walk, others may do the same, and homeless folks will no longer be homeless. The solution can be community-wide, if folks begin setting an example.
Home run today, Mark -- and not even a Little League one, this was out of the park. Thank you especially for emphasizing that the people in this hotel would be the "graduates" of services programs, the people who've taken the steps to get themselves (and their families, in some cases) back to self-sufficiency, not the demons portrayed by some opponents of the proposal. Indeed, these people aren't demons, but many of them had to overcome demons to get to this point. Let's give them an extra push over the top.
John - are you kidding? 'back to self-sufficiency"? Free rent, food stamps and a clipper card, plus a monthly welfare check. Self-sufficiency has a new meaning? I never understood why these folks do not need to earn their keep.
JB Continued:
And their Uber ride package is farcical. Uber drivers tell me the residents of these types of residences do not tip because the VA and other only pay for out and back rides, no lollygagging down town or in the VA cafeteria, and then they sell their meds for cash when the get back to their residences.
JB - You are getting too much fresh air riding your bike everywhere you need to go. Have you walked in the shoes of those of us - who have been victimized by not only the residents of Shores Landing but by the LIES and thoughtless rhetoric spewed daily by HomeKey - Mid Penn - Callagy and the one and only David Canepa.
Please - realize that Santa Claus was a symbolic figure in history.
Mark
It won't matter, as you correctly point out, that the Millbrae Inn will not be a Homeless Shelter.
TwinSuites became Shores Landing - another non-homeless shelter at 1000 Twin Dolphins Drive - where and when it opened it was 250 feet from the largest day care center on the Peninsula.
On the roll of the first 96 residents there were two single men who were registered Pedophiles. We were told - their specific crimes against under 14 year old girls were 7 years old.
The residents of The Shores, who Canepa referred to as GRINCHES - were not buying it and those two felons were evicted to another neighborhood.
We don't agree about the 7 year gizmo. Pedophiles don't change their spots.
Yet those two guys BEAT the iron clad vetting process. [unsure]
Millbrae does not need a similar Shores Landing in the town.
Ask yourselves this: If the entire issue passes and people and families 'move in' - and every entire item goes sideways - underwater ... could HomeKey and MidPenn - enter into the fray and say "That's It" - "Shut it down and Move Them Out".
Could they do that - could they 'Test Run' - these fantasy Island ideas of Callagy, Canepa - HomeKey and MidPen?
If not - No Go.
100% - it cannot happen. [ban]
Hello, Mike
You make a good point about vetting. I remember when a Redwood Shores neighborhood association stridently objected to moving Project Homekey into the Marriott TownPlace Suites. The objections were largely grounded in safety concerns; however, I argued in favor of the project. Since that time, local law enforcement has dispatched officers and deputies to the Shores Landing site with more frequency than it did before the conversion.
If folks in Millbrae are now objecting to converting the La Quinta Inn due to safety concerns, it appears those concerns may be valid. They're not haters... they're worriers. One final thought... why would the county be so willing to promise extra police resources to the Millbrae site as part of the conversion unless they are anticipating a greater need for a law enforcement presence in that area?
I live across the street from the Catholic Workers Hospitality House, which provides transitional housing for folks who are getting off the street. It's fine. I didn't even know they were there for the first year I lived here. People need to chill out about this stuff.
aurosharman – I’m sure people would live to “chill out” about this stuff and they might, should they have your same experiences. Unfortunately, as can be evidenced by other testimonials (to wit, check out JustMike650’s testimonial below and in other letters) some haven’t. I'd say it'd be difficult to chill out with all that stuff going on.
Hard to chill out AFTER the fact - AFTER all the lies are told.
People are tired of this pearl of a statement:
"As Callagy has noted countless times, 90% of the people in this county who lose their housing are evicted because they cannot pay their rent. As has been said even more often, the cost of living on the Peninsula leaves an alarming number of us just a few missed paychecks from the streets."
For those of us whose families who know first hand what it is like to battle depression, PTSD, addiction, alienation from those who love us, homelessness. For those of us whose families know first hand what second and third chances can do. For those of us who would not have the connected communities we have today without public services, caring and compassion of others, including those who do not know us. Thank you. We are stronger together. Life is not a zero sum gain. Helping one person has a chain reaction of goodness. We all benefit.
Welcome to the discussion.
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