City Budget for Non-Profits; Middle-Class Homeownership; Eastern Neighborhoods ...Jun. 25‚ 2008Dear Editor: Thank you for writing about city-funded non-profits because truer words have never been spoken. I don't think San Francisco realizes how much money the employees of non-profits spend in San Francisco and add to the cities financial profits. Every year for the last 5+ years we, non-profits, take the biggest cut. We take cuts in our salaries and/or go without COLAs. It is ridiculous. We do what we do because we love the work. Most city employees do what they do because they love the money and the benefits. I have often wondered why we don't get paid as much as city workers when, in certain instances, city contracted non-profit workers do the exact job, often better that their city counterparts. This is progressive San Francisco where we have made history with same sex marriages but can't match non-profit salaries with those of our fellow city workers. Shame, shame, shame. Denise Coleman Dear Editor: My repeated proposals over a 40-year period to eliminate the egregious waste in City government should now be heeded. My ideas may not cover the full $300 million dollar deficit but could save the City some $15-20 million. My resource recovery program established in the Department of Human Service (DHS) in the last ten years of my tenure saved hundred of thousands of dollars per year. This was a very modest program and did not include the myriad proposals that would have saved millions. Some of my proposals that went unheeded: reduce use of copy machines (DHS spent over $1 million on the use of these machines the year I left); eliminate paper processing at client intakes (use computers); eliminate most city automobiles by inaugurating van service and/or taxis to take social workers and nurses to visit their clients; set up a central warehouse and not allow any department to buy equipment or supplies without first checking the warehouse for discarded or surplus material; charge for parking in leased and parking in or on city office buildings. These are only some of the ideas I have proposed over and over again for at least 40-years that came to nothing. Of course, reduce some of the outrageous wages at the top as well as eliminate political payback positions (many in the Department of Human Services). Sincerely, Denise D'Anne San Francisco To the Editor: Regarding Randy Shaw's story, San Francisco Budget Ignores Nonprofit Workers, non-profit CEOs don't need salary increases, but their front line workers do. Non-profit CEOs who make $100,000, $200,000, or often even more each year are well able to afford to live in San Francisco, and they often enjoy many perks, such as free food and travel that is billed as a business expense. Front line workers, often making less than $25,000 a year, are the ones who needs raises and who cannot afford to live in SF. The city should mandate that any non-profit that gets a city contract or city funding must pay a living wage to its lowest-paid workers. That would be much more progressive than raising already bloated CEO's salaries. Nat Okey SF non-profit worker To the Editor: Although BeyondChron's June 24th article ("San Francisco Budget Ignores Nonprofit Workers" by Randy Shaw) makes some interesting points, it fails to report how much money San Francisco presently spends on services provided by non-profits. The latest information I could discern came from a report prepared by the San Francisco Urban Institute at San Francisco State University study that took place for fiscal year 2000-2001. At that time, non-profits had an estimated budget of approximately 1.45 billion dollars, of which San Francisco contributed approximately $314,000,000 just for health and human services. According to a survey, 95.6% of the human service nonprofits offered health benefits to all of their full-time employees. The report notes, that at the time of its survey, "The nonprofit human service providers employed over 15,000 staff, and enrolled an additional 1,007 'client trainees' in the provision of services..." Only 33% of the money spent by non-profits during the time of the study went to operations, with the the biggest piece of the non-profit expenditures going to salaries ($463,694,780). What ever the merits of the raising non-profit salaries, it has to be viewed in context of the significant expenditures that the City and County of San Francisco makes for health and human services and the budget failures of both the Federal and State Governments. Cordially, Manuel Jimenez EDITOR'S NOTE: City law requires that all non-profits that contract with the City provide their employees with health care benefits. To the Editor: In his June 24th story "Progressives must talk about home ownership" Paul Hogarth again repeats the false claim that Plan C supports eviction as a means of increasing home ownership. While Plan C does support condominium conversions as a means of increasing home ownership, Plan C does not and has never supported eviction as a means of increasing home ownership. It was well over a year ago that Paul Hogarth made this exact same false claim about Plan C in another Beyond Chron story he wrote. At that time I wrote a response that was published in the letters to the editor section of Beyond Chron pointing out to Mr. Hogarth that Plan C does not support the use of eviction as a means of increasing home ownership and asked him to cite one specific example of where Plan C went on record supporting the use of evictions to increase home ownership or at least cite one specific example of where Plan C advocated the eviction of anybody. I also stated in that same letter that I was giving Mr. Hogarth the benefit of doubt that his claim that Plan C supported evictions was born out of ignorance about our organization and was not a deliberate attempt to mislead people. So having repeated this false canard for a second time, why does Mr. Hogarth continue to put forward the false claim that Plan C supports evictions when he knows this is not true? Why do some people sacrifice truth on the alter of ideology? I'll ask the same question I asked over a year ago: Can Mr. Hogarth cite one specific example of Plan C going on record supporting eviction as a means of increasing home ownership or where Plan C advocated the eviction of anybody? If he can't, how much credibility will he have when he speaks out on this issue in the future? Not much I think. Mr. E. F. Sullivan San Francisco EDITOR'S NOTE: Plan C claims not to support evictions, but their policy goal of more condominium conversions inevitably means more tenants getting evicted -- as the rental housing stock gets converted. Even if the tenants technically took "voluntary buy-outs" rather than being forced out by the courts, such a move must be considered an eviction. Dear Randy: You and Paul Hogarth continue with your mistaken notions about class. Union members are not members of the "middle class" even if they have a middling income. They're members of the working class. The "middle class" is one of the great myths of post-World War 2 America. There is no such class. There are workers and there are people in management. Class is about the power people have in work and elsewhere. There is the power the capitalist elite have, there is an intermediate level of power that the bureaucratic class of managers and top professionals have, and then there is the working class majority who are subordinate to the various levels of management. But the working class includes better paid workers and poor workers. "The poor" is also not a class, it's just working class people who don't have much money. Hogarth talks about the need for a Left homeownership strategy for middle-income workers. The community land trust already provides such a strategy. The community land trust is a working class homeownership program. If we had the resources, we could build limited equity condominiums that would remain permanently affordable. There is no reason whatsoever that social housing should be restricted to the "poor". It should be available for households at all working class income levels. Tom Wetzel Dear Editor, I have a simple question. Why has Beyond Chron lagged in their coverage of the Eastern Neighborhoods rezoning process? This process will have a major impact on the city. Your website states that "we provide coverage of political and cultural issues often distorted or ignored by the Bay Area's largest newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle." Well, the Chronicle has failed in their coverage, thus I ask that Beyond Chron provide objective coverage of this political and cultural issue. I ask that you provide coverage by doing more than just reprinting something from SPUR. At the very least you should be informing your readers on a weakly basis on what is happening with the eastern neighborhoods rezoning process. Thank You Jaime Trejo You can submit letters to the editor by clicking on this link: feedback@beyondchron.org or by writing to: Beyond Chron 126 Hyde Street San Francisco, CA 94102 415-771-9850 (phone) |