Speaker 1: It's the John Phillips Show. It's the fixed California Hour.
Speaker 1: Johnny's on vacation. It's Randy Wang here and the phone
Speaker 1: number to join us is eight hundred two two two
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Speaker 1: show at gmail dot com and search for the John
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Speaker 1: posted the twelve o'clock hour. Our next guest is the
Speaker 1: editorial director and CEO of the Voice of San Francisco.
Speaker 1: You can check out the website and read all of
Speaker 1: the inside info on what's going on in San Francisco
Speaker 1: The Voice SF dot org. The Voice SF dot org
Speaker 1: Susan Dya Reynolds. Welcome back to The John Phillips Show.
Speaker 2: Hey Randy, how are you doing great?
Speaker 1: So recently Daniel Lurie had his big State of the
Speaker 1: City address. He's celebrating one year as mayor of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and one of the accomplishments that he touted during the
Speaker 1: State of the City address is, and to quote from
Speaker 1: your article, we stopped freely handing out drug supplies and
Speaker 1: letting people kill themselves on our streets. You disagree with that.
Speaker 2: I don't just disagree with that. There's evidence everywhere that
Speaker 2: that's a complete lie. Hence my title Lurie's Big Lie,
Speaker 2: because you know, as much as I would love to
Speaker 2: see him succeed, he has to tell the truth. And
Speaker 2: the more he lies about things that are clear to
Speaker 2: the eye and that are videotaped every day by community
Speaker 2: advocates like JJ Smith. And if you don't follow him,
Speaker 2: everybody should, you know that there's just no way that
Speaker 2: he can stand there with a straight face and say it,
Speaker 2: and yet he does so.
Speaker 1: Tell us about some of the nonprofits that are still
Speaker 1: participating in harm reduction, handing out drug paraphernalia funded by
Speaker 1: the City and County of San Francisco, even though Daniel
Speaker 1: Lurry says we're not doing that.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the biggest one is the Ffaid's Foundation,
Speaker 2: which was started back in the day for a great cause.
Speaker 2: I have friends who died of AIDS, and I have
Speaker 2: friends that were saved because they were into drugs and
Speaker 2: they got safe needles, you know, and didn't share needles.
Speaker 2: But right now they're handing out needles to drug add
Speaker 2: it and not just needles but smoking supplies for fentanyl,
Speaker 2: so pipes foil, and they don't just hand they they
Speaker 2: don't just give you one. Right. The very idea of
Speaker 2: a needle exchange started out being you bring us your needle,
Speaker 2: will give you another needle. Or bring us three needles,
Speaker 2: will give you three needles. Now they're going into the ocean.
Speaker 2: They're all over the streets as you know. And JJ
Speaker 2: does these undercover videos all the time where he will
Speaker 2: go to ffaids, which despite Danie Lurie saying in April
Speaker 2: that the new regulations were they couldn't hand them out outside,
Speaker 2: they had to do it inside. They had to have
Speaker 2: counselors available, people from public health to offer treatment options.
Speaker 2: None of that is happening. And JJ has seen a seven.
Speaker 2: He has video of a seventeen year old getting harm
Speaker 2: reduction supplies. He goes undercover, they fill his bag. What
Speaker 2: do you need and he says, ohbrillo, I need a
Speaker 2: you know of pipes, so I need a bubble, I
Speaker 2: need here you go, here you go, here you go.
Speaker 2: No counseling offered. So they're the big dogs. That's who
Speaker 2: our public health department in San Francisco. The behavioral part
Speaker 2: which is run by Hillary Coonan's who's a one hundred
Speaker 2: percent harm reduction fanatics. She's not an advocate, she's a
Speaker 2: fanatic and needs to be fired. I'll just say it out.
Speaker 2: I actually just won a journalism award for coverage of
Speaker 2: a secret recording I got of the San Francisco to
Speaker 2: part of public health with all the harm reduction groups
Speaker 2: talking about how it was other people's problem that they
Speaker 2: had a problem with seeing drugs being used on the street.
Speaker 2: They won hundred percent support people doing drugs on the street,
Speaker 2: and that means they percent support overdoses, because there's no
Speaker 2: way anyone can keep up with two people a day overdosing.
Speaker 2: And by the way, JJ, who's out on the street
Speaker 2: every day, he you know, he videotapes them putting bodies
Speaker 2: in the medical examiner van and they open it up
Speaker 2: at seven in the morning and there's already three other
Speaker 2: bodies in there. So I think it's probably more than
Speaker 2: two a day.
Speaker 1: It's just insanity that we're allowing this, and we're paying
Speaker 1: for this, And it seems like Laurie is giving lip
Speaker 1: service to the common sense people out there that realize
Speaker 1: this is nonsense. But apparently he's not able to detach
Speaker 1: the city from all of the people inside public health
Speaker 1: that are obsessed with this ideology.
Speaker 2: Well there's that, and then there's also the fact, and
Speaker 2: I warned people this when he ran that he was
Speaker 2: handed on a silver platter by his mother, Mimi Haff,
Speaker 2: who married into the Levi Strauss fortune. He was handed
Speaker 2: on a silver platter Tipping Point, which was his nonprofit,
Speaker 2: and at one point they put one hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: out and said, we're going to solve fifty percent of
Speaker 2: homelessness in five years. Well, homelessness went up by thirty percent.
Speaker 2: What was he doing the same things that the city did.
Speaker 2: He supported and still Tipping Points still supports the same
Speaker 2: ones of these, the same harm reduction nonprofits. His crowding
Speaker 2: achievement on Bryant Street that he bragged about, I did
Speaker 2: affordable housing on Bryant Street. You know eight fifty five
Speaker 2: Bryant Street is run by Episcopal Community Services, as they
Speaker 2: do client services there who have the highest overdose rate
Speaker 2: in San Francisco over the past five years. We actually
Speaker 2: took the numbers and we broke them down and wrote
Speaker 2: a story called Housing First More Second, and it's a
Speaker 2: series that we're working on their deep and investigative dives,
Speaker 2: and thirty percent of the overdoses are happening inside these
Speaker 2: supportive housing buildings, one of which you know Lurie himself,
Speaker 2: you know, set up with Charles Schwapp Foundation, and it's
Speaker 2: one of the worst ones by the way. It's run
Speaker 2: over by rats. There's dog fighting, there's breeding of dogs,
Speaker 2: which you know, I have a very big issue with.
Speaker 2: A social worker was stabbed. There's another one was shot.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is not you know, the way harm
Speaker 2: reduction and housing first is not the answer, but that's
Speaker 2: what comes from he has a nonprofit background. So the
Speaker 2: one I wrote ab up in this particular article harm
Speaker 2: reduction Therapy Center. They have vans and the city gives
Speaker 2: them a sanctioned parking space where they pull up in
Speaker 2: a van and they dole out harm reduction supplies and
Speaker 2: massages for the drug tourists. So by school, by the way,
Speaker 2: not by school, by a park where there are children
Speaker 2: playing in the park, they have a massage table set up,
Speaker 2: a sitting massage table where they're getting massages on sides
Speaker 2: of the I can't make this stuff up. They're getting
Speaker 2: about six million dollars from the city. Seventy five percent
Speaker 2: of that goes to salaries, only twelve percent, less than
Speaker 2: twelve percent goes to services. About five hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars of six million goes to services. And I'm
Speaker 2: assuming the services are driving the van around and giving massages.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder what the line item on their budget
Speaker 1: says how much they are charging the city for each
Speaker 1: one of those massages.
Speaker 2: What's really funny that you say that, because these nonprofits
Speaker 2: are masters of the empty nine to ninety. They are
Speaker 2: absolutely masters at it. They don't tell you anything, They
Speaker 2: just give you the numbers, and they get as little
Speaker 2: information as possible. I mean, I'm not an accountant, but
Speaker 2: I go through them quite often and very rarely do
Speaker 2: you see line items. And their mission statements are always
Speaker 2: something like to help with the suffering of drug addicts
Speaker 2: or they don't even call them addicts drug users, and
Speaker 2: to not stigmatize them and to show them that they
Speaker 2: are people too, something like that. Those are their mission
Speaker 2: statements six thousand, you know, six million dollars to thank you.
Speaker 1: That's quite lightly insane. We're speaking with Susan Dya Reynolds,
Speaker 1: the Voice of San Francisco. You've got to check out
Speaker 1: her latest article, Lurie's Big Lie, on the fact that
Speaker 1: harm reduction is still alive and well in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: And it just drives me crazy to know that, you know,
Speaker 1: San Francisco is in a massive budget deficit. How are
Speaker 1: these programs not the first ones on the chopping block?
Speaker 1: Who is stilst defending this? There is no track record
Speaker 1: of any success with these programs.
Speaker 2: There isn't any at all. And you know, and especially
Speaker 2: a group like HRTC, which I really started to dig
Speaker 2: into because it was one I was not familiar with
Speaker 2: until JJ took video of drug tourist getting massages and
Speaker 2: another guy sitting down shooting up next to our a
Speaker 2: bunch of kids were playing and they they say on
Speaker 2: their website that they have created a therapeutic mew that
Speaker 2: attracts one hundreds of people literally with the number one
Speaker 2: hundreds of people to seek therapy and other services, and
Speaker 2: their mission statement is straight schlock out of the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: HRTC exis to transform substance user treatment by providing low barrier,
Speaker 2: person centered, integrated mental health care, as well as clinical
Speaker 2: harm reduction training to people and organizations impacted by the
Speaker 2: War on drugs? What come on? Now, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's va whole thing. And then you know
Speaker 2: they also were there was an audit of the San
Speaker 2: Francisco Street Teams and they got called out for performing
Speaker 2: work for the City of San Francisco's Department of Public
Speaker 2: Health without a signed, executed contact contract for over eighteen months.
Speaker 2: And they were there at the Resource Center attending weekly meetings,
Speaker 2: leading trainings, mental health counseling, substance use for outpatients. Are
Speaker 2: you serious? I mean there's not a doctor amongst them, Like,
Speaker 2: what is this?
Speaker 1: We're speaking with Susan Dyer Reynolds. You've got to check
Speaker 1: out the voicesf dot org and make sure you follow
Speaker 1: her on Twitter at Susan d Reynolds. Now, another thing
Speaker 1: that Daniel Lurry made a big promise when he became
Speaker 1: mayor was he was going to dismantle the open air
Speaker 1: drug markets that plague the tenderloin and SOMA and now
Speaker 1: the mission. We've seen some big raids, we've seen a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of arrests, but the open air drug markets persist.
Speaker 1: What's going wrong here?
Speaker 2: I bring it back to the harm reduction stuff. I
Speaker 2: always say every time he stands up there and talks tough,
Speaker 2: how he's not going to allow people to sell drugs
Speaker 2: on the street and use drugs on the street. Everybody says,
Speaker 2: get rid of the drug dealers. Well, of course, but
Speaker 2: that's easier said than done, because you know, in that
Speaker 2: case you have to deal with not just local authorities
Speaker 2: but California law. And everybody's sawt on crime California, as
Speaker 2: you know that the justice system here is an injustice system.
Speaker 2: So my you know theory. When I go to other
Speaker 2: counties and watch how they deal with things, I note
Speaker 2: that they don't have harm reduction vans driving around handing
Speaker 2: out bags full of needles and smoking supplies. So my
Speaker 2: number one suggestion to Daniel Lurie is that he stops
Speaker 2: handing out smoking supplies altogether. There's no no, and I
Speaker 2: don't buy the harm rediction theory that they might prevent
Speaker 2: a colds or whatever. No, you don't need to hand
Speaker 2: out smoking supplies. No other civilized cities do. And then
Speaker 2: just makes them come inside to get which is what
Speaker 2: he promised in April. Inside only you come to us.
Speaker 2: We don't come to you. You come to us. You
Speaker 2: hand us your needles, will give you needles, and also
Speaker 2: counseling and someone to tell you where you can find treatment.
Speaker 2: And now he wants to do this. You know, we're
Speaker 2: going to send them home. We're going to fly them
Speaker 2: home and give them some money to get set up
Speaker 2: in their own town. Stop treating them like they're the victims.
Speaker 2: They're victimizing San Francisco. These are not These are drug
Speaker 2: tourists who also commit crimes to keep their habits going.
Speaker 2: So the way other cities do it is they're not
Speaker 2: nice about it. They just they throw them in jail,
Speaker 2: they check their warrants, They make it uncomfortable and until
Speaker 2: Danie Lurie, you know, it takes some lessons from Matt
Speaker 2: mahon and Sama's and actually does what he says he's
Speaker 2: going to do, it's not gonna nothing's changing as long
Speaker 2: as you go to them and hand them drug supplies.
Speaker 2: Drugs are plentiful. You know, we know that the dealers
Speaker 2: are a problem, but getting rid of them it has
Speaker 2: to be federal because locally they go into diversion. That's
Speaker 2: my article coming out this week, I believe Tuesday is
Speaker 2: how many of the drug dealers go through mental health diversion,
Speaker 2: So there really isn't any any action on that end locally.
Speaker 2: It has to be federally, and we don't have enough
Speaker 2: federal you know, the lawyers to deal with all of them.
Speaker 2: There's no deportation happening because Daniel Loury doesn't want to
Speaker 2: hear that word, because you know, sanctuary city, sanctuary city again,
Speaker 2: you know, just common sense. Tell me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: but I think sanctuary city shouldn't count for people that
Speaker 2: are violent criminals, sells, drug dealers. Seems to me they
Speaker 2: shouldn't be protected, and yet they are so until some
Speaker 2: of those things change, and I don't see that happening.
Speaker 2: So you know, all I can say is he's one
Speaker 2: really good candidate and three more State of the City
Speaker 2: addresses away from losing his job if he doesn't do
Speaker 2: something serious.
Speaker 1: Well, and to that point, on the drug dealers, especially
Speaker 1: the ones that are in the country illegally, most of
Speaker 1: them from Honduras, I think you remember a few years
Speaker 1: ago when Supervisor Matt Dorsey wanted to change the sanctuary
Speaker 1: policy in San Francisco to just make it that if
Speaker 1: you're selling fentanel, we will hand you over to Ice
Speaker 1: and he got shouted down as a racist for that.
Speaker 2: Well, so did I. And it's ironic because several years
Speaker 2: ago I wrote a story called the Mansions that Sentinel built,
Speaker 2: and I took it from a federal case, and there
Speaker 2: were pictures of the mansion in the transcripts, and I
Speaker 2: read the whole transcript. I did the story about this
Speaker 2: family that was caught on audio with a tapped, you know,
Speaker 2: a line. And also the son was going back and
Speaker 2: forth to Honduras building a mansion, and the mother was
Speaker 2: caught on the phone saying to his uncle, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: he's just he doesn't know he's going to put in
Speaker 2: Marvel columns or if he wants a granite, And of
Speaker 2: course somebody was called a racist. I think because of that,
Speaker 2: the Chronicle decided they wanted to prove me wrong, and
Speaker 2: they sent reporters down to Honduras and guess what they found, mansions.
Speaker 2: And so it was absolutely true what I wrote five
Speaker 2: years ago or so. They go back and forth, no fear.
Speaker 2: Maybe a little more now, but in those days there
Speaker 2: was Biden's time, they had no fear. And you know,
Speaker 2: they're by far the biggest the drug dealers on the
Speaker 2: street in the tender wine particularly by far the majority
Speaker 2: of them are from Honduras. But they have no fear
Speaker 2: because they go in. They you know, the judge says, okay,
Speaker 2: we release you on your own recognizance, and then they
Speaker 2: go out and they're back on the street selling in
Speaker 2: an hour. And that still happens.
Speaker 1: Well, and I remember Brooke Jenkins complaining that they would
Speaker 1: go in front of the judge and say I'm a
Speaker 1: victim of human trafficking and the judgers say, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mental health diversion, there you go. But unfortunately Broke Jenkins,
Speaker 2: you know, has the last say about this is what
Speaker 2: you'll find out in my outcoming article. In California, there
Speaker 2: the law states that the district attorney has the final
Speaker 2: say on diversion. They're supposed to once a year look
Speaker 2: at these programs and decide if they're working, and they
Speaker 2: actually do have power there. So in my article I
Speaker 2: suggest that perhaps these all of these programs need to
Speaker 2: be looked at because you know, on another show we
Speaker 2: can talk about what I found. But let's just say murder,
Speaker 2: you know, attempted murderers, you know, are in diversion for
Speaker 2: mental health. I mean of course, if you're an attempted murderer,
Speaker 2: you probably have some mental health issues. But there's a
Speaker 2: fine line between that and someone who probably deserves to
Speaker 2: go to prison. The big difference.
Speaker 1: Well, in the Sacramento Shire, Jim Cooper try to get
Speaker 1: those laws changed last year and it got killed in
Speaker 1: committee in the Assembly, where we are all in on diversion,
Speaker 1: even when you think it's supposed to be for nonviolent crimes,
Speaker 1: We're going all in on diversion for any self attested
Speaker 1: mental illness, including ADHD for the most heinous of crimes.
Speaker 1: And it makes no sense.
Speaker 2: Oh, in an opioid now they are you know, in
Speaker 2: San Francisco, if you say I have an opioid problem,
Speaker 2: they send you to mental health diversion, and then there's
Speaker 2: drug diversion that I'm looking at those deaths right now,
Speaker 2: that's my next one. But I got to tell you
Speaker 2: that the mental health diversion is out of control. The
Speaker 2: selons that they allow. For example, in santave three selonies
Speaker 2: were allowed into diversion, whereas in San Francisco it's over
Speaker 2: a thousand, and you know, and first of all, I
Speaker 2: think in many ways this stigmatizes people who actually are
Speaker 2: mentally ill. You know, there's a big difference. Only about
Speaker 2: three percent of people with mental illness who aren't impacted
Speaker 2: by other things like drug addiction commit violent crimes. So basically,
Speaker 2: you're saying there's a thousand people with mental illness and three,
Speaker 2: you know, a third of them or drug dealers. That
Speaker 2: seems like a stretch.
Speaker 1: Susan Dyer Reynolds. The website is the Voice SF dot org.
Speaker 1: The Voice SF dot org. Thank you so much as
Speaker 1: always for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and you can also follow us
Speaker 2: on Twitter, on the VOSF dot at at the VOSS.
Speaker 1: At the vos F, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred two two two five two two two is
Speaker 1: the telephone number one. Eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two. It's Randy Wang here on the John
Speaker 1: Phillips Show. It's Jilly Buffett Friday on the John Phillips Show.
Speaker 1: Johnny's on vacation, so it's Randy Wang here. Eight hundred
Speaker 1: two two two five two two two is the telephone
Speaker 1: number one. Eight hundred two two two five two two two.
Speaker 1: You can email us at Johnny Don't like show at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You could search for the John Phillips
Speaker 1: Show wherever you get your podcast, and I do noon
Speaker 1: to three here every day with Johnny. But I also
Speaker 1: do a local show from five to six on our
Speaker 1: southern California station seven ninety KABC. It's called The Newsplitz.
Speaker 1: We talk local issues facing all of California and occasionally
Speaker 1: some fun food topics. Tonight, we're going to discuss the
Speaker 1: readers of Condie Nast Traveler voting Oakland as the number
Speaker 1: one food city in America. So if you want to
Speaker 1: listen to that, go to KABC dot com or download
Speaker 1: the KABC app. Have I got something exciting for you
Speaker 1: right now, seven ninety KABC welcomes John Mellencamp to the
Speaker 1: Hollywood ball on August tenth. Tickets are on sale Friday
Speaker 1: at ticketmaster dot com, but right now calling number nine
Speaker 1: at one eight eight eight seven ninety five two two
Speaker 1: two gets a pair of tickets to the show. Tickets
Speaker 1: furnished by Live Nation. Good luck dialing. We've got an
Speaker 1: hour and a half to go here on this Jimmy
Speaker 1: Buffett Friday, and when we come back, we'll go to
Speaker 1: the other side of the Bay and see what's going
Speaker 1: on in San Jose. Crap that rhymed. It's Randy way
Speaker 1: Here on the John Phillips Show. It's Jimmy Buffett Friday
Speaker 1: on The John Phillips Show. Johnny's on vacation, so it's
Speaker 1: Randy wang here. Eight hundred two two two five two
Speaker 1: two two is the telephone number. You can email us
Speaker 1: at Johnny Don't Like show at gmail dot com and
Speaker 1: search for the John Phillips Show wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: You know what's really exciting. In two weeks, we've got
Speaker 1: another live remote, the second live remote of the year,
Speaker 1: and it's coming on Friday, February sixth, join us for
Speaker 1: a live broadcast at Gladstone's in Long Beach. We're heading
Speaker 1: to Gladstones in Long Beach for our next live broadcast,
Speaker 1: and you are invited. Great food, good vibes, great my ties.
Speaker 1: Let me tell sag Meister right now, I can't have
Speaker 1: one while we're doing the show because I will enjoy
Speaker 1: it just a little too much. But you could enjoy
Speaker 1: when if you come watch the show, show have a
Speaker 1: fun afternoon by the water. We're gonna have special guests
Speaker 1: with us, including Susan Shelley from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association.
Speaker 1: She'll tell you more about your taxpayer rights and protecting
Speaker 1: Prop thirteen. The courts have made it easier to raise
Speaker 1: your taxes. Come by and sign the petition to save
Speaker 1: Prop thirteen. The deadline is coming fast February seventeenth. She
Speaker 1: needs those signatures to get this on the November ballot
Speaker 1: to strengthen Prop thirteen and stop the judges from finding
Speaker 1: all these exceptions to Prop thirteen. Come hang out with us,
Speaker 1: grab a bite, and be part of the broadcast. It's
Speaker 1: the John Phillips Show Friday, February sixth from noon to three,
Speaker 1: live at Gladstone's in Long Beach. I love that spot. Actually,
Speaker 1: I love downtown Long Beach. Like at some point when
Speaker 1: I relocate out of the San Fernando Valley and I
Speaker 1: am thinking about where, if I'm going to stay in
Speaker 1: southern California, where I would be. Long Beach is pretty
Speaker 1: darn fun. Long Beach has its issues, but I'm really, really,
Speaker 1: really tired of the boring San Fernando Valley. I'd like
Speaker 1: walking to things, and I live in a part of
Speaker 1: town where you can't walk to anything. San Jose has
Speaker 1: been getting a lot of attention lately, because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people wondering if San Jose Mayor Matt Mayhan
Speaker 1: is going to be running for governor. He made waves
Speaker 1: himself saying that he's thinking about it because all of
Speaker 1: the candidates on the Democrat side have yet to impress him.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, over the weekend, Matt mahon invited Republican candidate
Speaker 1: for governor Steve Hilton to see what he's doing when
Speaker 1: it comes to homelessness, to see if anybody running for
Speaker 1: governor will pay attention to one of the few success
Speaker 1: stories in California. And San Jose has its share of problems,
Speaker 1: but Matt Mayhan seems to be doing a lot more
Speaker 1: than a lot of other cities. Let's see what's going
Speaker 1: on here. Here is NBC in.
Speaker 3: The Bay We now to the race for governor in California.
Speaker 3: Dealing with the on house appears to be a big
Speaker 3: issue with the upcoming gubernatorial campaign. Many of the candidates
Speaker 3: are coming to Santase to learn about how the city
Speaker 3: is dealing with the issue. Today it was Republican hopeful
Speaker 3: Steve Hilton, NBC Bay Area's Damnsure Heo is at a
Speaker 3: tiny homes facility in Santase with more.
Speaker 4: Mayor Matt Mayheon seems to be selling this tiny homes
Speaker 4: idea to all of the gubernatorial candidates. Many are getting
Speaker 4: a first hand look at this concept concept right here
Speaker 4: in San Jose. Steve Hilton toured the facility on Guadalupe
Speaker 4: Parkway with the mayor. The mayor used the opportunity to
Speaker 4: discuss what he sees as major achievements and roadblocks at
Speaker 4: the state level. This is known as an emergency housing
Speaker 4: site with ninety six modular units. The facility also offers
Speaker 4: case management and job training.
Speaker 1: Oh you don't hear that one that much job training,
Speaker 1: making sure that the people that are in these places
Speaker 1: are only there temporary, because we're going to find to
Speaker 1: get you away where you can support yourself. A lot
Speaker 1: of other counties, especially Los Angeles, we want you to
Speaker 1: be a ward of the state forever because that means
Speaker 1: more money.
Speaker 4: The idea is to get the unhoused in here and
Speaker 4: get them back on their feet so they don't have
Speaker 4: to live on the streets anymore. The city says there
Speaker 4: is a high success rate in moving folks into permanent housing,
Speaker 4: So the mayor is hoping that.
Speaker 1: I still don't understand what that term means I mean,
Speaker 1: technically it means subsidized housing. But how permanent is permanent?
Speaker 1: You know? I want to hear more stories of people
Speaker 1: like Tom Wolf, who's going to be on the show
Speaker 1: on Monday, who you know, struggled with addiction, got to
Speaker 1: the worst of it, went to the Salvation Army, went
Speaker 1: to rehab, got his life together and is now an
Speaker 1: advocate for all of the insanity that is going on
Speaker 1: out there. We need more of those stories, you know.
Speaker 1: And if our programs were truly successful in the state
Speaker 1: of California, shouldn't we have like just testimonial after testimonial
Speaker 1: after testimonial of all the former homeless that were changed
Speaker 1: by some of these programs, and now they've got their
Speaker 1: family back, they've got their lives back. We're not hearing it.
Speaker 4: So the mayor is hoping this can serve as a
Speaker 4: model for the state moving forward.
Speaker 5: What I'm interested in is how we can solve this
Speaker 5: problem in a real way, not shoft with people around
Speaker 5: from one place to another, not you know, make statements
Speaker 5: about how things are getting better when everyone knows that
Speaker 5: they're not.
Speaker 6: No matter who are next governors, no matter which party.
Speaker 1: By the way, Props to Mayhean for you know, reaching
Speaker 1: across the non existent island California, you'd be like, I'm
Speaker 1: looking for anybody that has good ideas, and Steve Hilton
Speaker 1: has a lot of good ideas no.
Speaker 6: Matter who are next governors, and I'm.
Speaker 1: By the way, same exact thing. Props to Steve Hilton
Speaker 1: for even though Matt Mayhan is a Democrat, he is
Speaker 1: a common sense guy and these are sense issues.
Speaker 6: No matter who our next governor is, no matter which
Speaker 6: party they come from, we need them focused on solutions.
Speaker 6: And that's what today is about. We are leading the
Speaker 6: way on homelessness, on public safety.
Speaker 4: The mayor held a similar tour with other candidates a
Speaker 4: few weeks ago, including Tom Steyer and Katie Porter.
Speaker 1: So ThisDay, Katie's here and Johnny's not here to take
Speaker 1: a cheap shot. She did wind drop of the year.
Speaker 7: You're out of my shot.
Speaker 4: So this is a message that the mayor hopes the
Speaker 4: next governor is focused on, and the mayor is willing
Speaker 4: to give a tour of this facility to anyone who
Speaker 4: is willing to help and make a change. He says,
Speaker 4: we're in San Hoose, I'm Damien through he o NBC
Speaker 4: Bay Area News.
Speaker 1: So Matt Mayhan, that story ran on NBC in the Bank,
Speaker 1: and Matt Mayhon posted a video with Steve Hilton, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you what he posted because apparently
Speaker 1: this pissed off Gavin Newsom, who sent his attack dogs
Speaker 1: after Matt Mayhan, who is shining just a little brighter
Speaker 1: than the absentee landlord governor that we have right now.
Speaker 1: So here's Matt Mayheen's tweet. Last year, Steve Hilton posted
Speaker 1: a video of San Jose's largest most dangerous encampment, Columbus Park.
Speaker 1: Today he came by to learn how we decommissioned it,
Speaker 1: move people indoors, and plan to keep the area clean
Speaker 1: and clear so the entire community can join it once again.
Speaker 1: He is the sixth gubnatorial candidate to come by and
Speaker 1: learn about our approach. The truth is, no matter who
Speaker 1: our next governor is or what party they come from,
Speaker 1: we need them focused on what works. Neither side of
Speaker 1: the political spectrum has a monopoly on the truth. We
Speaker 1: need to be able to talk to each other, find
Speaker 1: pragmatic solutions, and move toward a world where we uplift
Speaker 1: good ideas regardless of who came up with them boys.
Speaker 1: He have breath of fresh air and one idea that
Speaker 1: change the game in San Jose, a shift away from
Speaker 1: the status quo approach in California to an all of
Speaker 1: the above strategy focused on those suffering the most, the
Speaker 1: people living unsheltered on the streets. We scaled the faster,
Speaker 1: cheaper housing solution that has reduced unsheltered homelessness by a
Speaker 1: third over a decade of growth, and when it's available,
Speaker 1: we require people to use it. I hope that Steve,
Speaker 1: along with the other candidates in the race, adopt our
Speaker 1: approach as a model of what's possible and commits to
Speaker 1: holding every city in county accountable for doing their fair
Speaker 1: share in investing in what works. So nothing to you know,
Speaker 1: scandalous there not even calling out Gavin specifically or the legislature.
Speaker 1: But here's what happened. Mayhn posted that, and then there
Speaker 1: was a reply from a woman named Tera Gagos, who
Speaker 1: is a spokesman for Gavin Newsom. Apparently she used to
Speaker 1: be the spokesperson for Banta, and before that she was
Speaker 1: the spokesperson for or gubernatorial candidate Javier Bacarihea. But when
Speaker 1: you do the scrub You know that guy scrub it.
Speaker 1: So what did she write? What did she respond to?
Speaker 1: She said, Gavin Newsom paid to clear this side and
Speaker 1: open these tiny homes. You're welcome. Why are all of
Speaker 1: Gavin's Twitter people this bitchy, including against someone from his
Speaker 1: own party who is one of the examples of success
Speaker 1: in this failure of a state. But Matt Mahon replies,
Speaker 1: not quite Tera, No state dollars were used to clear
Speaker 1: Columbus Park, as a majority of the funding for this
Speaker 1: interim housing community was raised via local and philanthropic dollars.
Speaker 1: People who are sick and tired of excuses. You're right
Speaker 1: that a portion of the site was paid for using
Speaker 1: HAP funds, which Sacramento zeroed out in last year's budget,
Speaker 1: and the governor only proposes funding at fifty percent this year.
Speaker 1: We're grateful for the role of the state has played
Speaker 1: in building and operating solutions like this, but scale, billing
Speaker 1: and sustating what works requires an ongoing commitment. So let's
Speaker 1: work together to fully fund half this year and brace
Speaker 1: sober living environments, implement Prop thirty six to get repeat
Speaker 1: offenders into treatment, and implement a fair share framework that
Speaker 1: gets every city in every county to do its part
Speaker 1: in the era of encampments and end it, and Tara
Speaker 1: writes back, not quite, Matt, it's a bold move to
Speaker 1: try to emrase the funder when the funds are still clearing.
Speaker 1: Your city is sitting on millions of unspent funds, money
Speaker 1: you could have used to ensure that people you have
Speaker 1: cleared from encampments were getting connected to the services they need.
Speaker 1: The state is giving another one billion dollars another five
Speaker 1: hundred million from this budget available with Prop one funds,
Speaker 1: and Matt says, sorry for the late reply. We are
Speaker 1: not sitting on unspent funds because these dollars are not
Speaker 1: assured each year. They have often taken more than a
Speaker 1: year for Sacramento deploy and we budget them carefully, both
Speaker 1: to build out new interim housing to operate the sites
Speaker 1: we've already built. Ending homelessness is rarely a one time cost.
Speaker 1: Once we build a shelter, we have to operate it
Speaker 1: every day. The inconsistency of these dollars makes it all
Speaker 1: the harder to plan ahead and ensure that we're not
Speaker 1: investing solutions that we won't be able to operate on
Speaker 1: a long term basis and it just went back and
Speaker 1: forth and back and forth. So Gavin Newsom spokesperson is
Speaker 1: getting paid. I'm assuming this is a government job. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a campaign job. But she's getting paid to bitch
Speaker 1: out and try to fact check McMahon and she's not
Speaker 1: right on the facts. It's Randy Wang here on the
Speaker 1: John Phillips Show. It's Jimmy Buffett Friday on the John
Speaker 1: Phillip Show. It's Randy wang here. Johnny. You'll be back
Speaker 1: a week from Monday. Eight hundred two two two five
Speaker 1: two two two is the telephone number. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of successes in San Jose, but not everything is
Speaker 1: perfect when it comes to homelessness. As evidence by to
Speaker 1: competing our safe parking sites, one operated by the city,
Speaker 1: one operated by VTA, and there's a feud going on
Speaker 1: for mar Here's NBC in the Bay, a big.
Speaker 8: Fight over little spaces. A parking lot in San Jose
Speaker 8: being used by homeless people could be forced to close
Speaker 8: because of code violations. The city says that lot is
Speaker 8: not approved as a safe parking space for the homeless.
Speaker 1: So what, by the way, I think that this entire
Speaker 1: concept of safe parking needs to go we change the laws.
Speaker 1: It is now way more effective to crush these things
Speaker 1: into cubes. Most of these are barely operable. We have
Speaker 1: got to get these RVs out of the ecosystem.
Speaker 8: So what happens now. NBC's Robert Honda has the details.
Speaker 9: Well, this small VTA parking lot where some homeless are
Speaker 9: living in vehicles is off Santa Teresa Boulevard, and it
Speaker 9: is right next to another VITA lot that also houses
Speaker 9: people living in their vehicles.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what I do not understand. And look, everyone's
Speaker 1: situation is different. You know, you can't generalize how people
Speaker 1: ended up here. But if you have a vehicle and
Speaker 1: you can't afford to live in San Jose, why don't
Speaker 1: you drive it somewhere cheaper.
Speaker 9: However, this lot is approved by the city, this one
Speaker 9: is not. San Jose is strained to find places to
Speaker 9: put all the people swept out of homeless encampments such
Speaker 9: as Columbus Park. Late last year, the city set up
Speaker 9: two so called safe parking sites, including one off Santa
Speaker 9: Teresa Boulevard, a joint project by San Jose and property
Speaker 9: owner Valley Transit or VTA. Homeless advocates were encouraged but
Speaker 9: say it's not enough.
Speaker 1: It's never enough because the advocates need more funding.
Speaker 7: I think it's very crucial we need more. I'm really
Speaker 7: sad that the city is not stepping up getting more.
Speaker 7: I know there are places we can put our these
Speaker 7: say parking.
Speaker 9: So the community group Amigos they Go Wanta Loupe made
Speaker 9: a contractual agreement with VITZ.
Speaker 1: If you don't know Spanish, that means the friends of
Speaker 1: Guadalupe see this dual Lingo's paying off?
Speaker 7: Are these say parking?
Speaker 9: So the community group Amigos they Go Wantaloupe made a
Speaker 9: contractual agreement with VTA in twenty twenty four to allow
Speaker 9: about a dozen vehicles to stay temporarily on a lot
Speaker 9: right next to the city's safe parking site, but a
Speaker 9: neighborhood group complained to the city, saying it never agreed
Speaker 9: to this new safe site and that it wasn't actually
Speaker 9: safe city.
Speaker 1: Well, there is that. You remember the lawsuit that's coming
Speaker 1: out of the safe camping and safe parking sites that
Speaker 1: are in San Diego and the derelic conditions that are
Speaker 1: going on the vermin because these sites are not clean.
Speaker 1: Because Shaker, the nonprofits are taking the money to operate
Speaker 1: it and aren't making sure that they are safe. In fact,
Speaker 1: they had a security guard at the one in San
Speaker 1: Diego that was trying to solicit prostitution from the homeless women.
Speaker 9: Code enforcement inspectors sent compliance orders to VTA after they
Speaker 9: found violations, including what they called property blight, hazardous conditions,
Speaker 9: and inadequate solid waste management.
Speaker 1: We've got to stop this entire concept. Safe storage, safe parking.
Speaker 1: We change the laws a little, we need to change
Speaker 1: them more. If the RV is not driveable, it needs
Speaker 1: to no longer be considered a dwelling or even a
Speaker 1: piece of property. It needs to be crushed into a cube.
Speaker 1: These things are dangerous and what happens in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: is the worst. Where we toe one of these things,
Speaker 1: the police impound lots are full. So the laws of change.
Speaker 1: It used to be that if it was worth more
Speaker 1: than five hundred dollars, you couldn't crush into a cube.
Speaker 1: Now I think that's up to four thousand dollars, depending
Speaker 1: on if counties opt into that, and I hope they do.
Speaker 1: But what was happening was these things we get auctioned
Speaker 1: off for fifty bucks. The van lord would get them
Speaker 1: put them back out of the street and rent them
Speaker 1: to a homeless person for five hundred bucks.
Speaker 9: VTA told us compliance is the responsibility of Amigos they Guadaloupe.
Speaker 9: Amigos de Guadalupe says it's stepped up to help during
Speaker 9: a moment of crisis and we'll work with residents.
Speaker 1: I wonder how much money Amigos de Guadalupe is getting
Speaker 1: to set up this RV camp.
Speaker 9: To bring the current situation into compliance. One issue looming
Speaker 9: over all of this is that San Jose says, despite
Speaker 9: Amigo's agreement with VTA, under city land use rules that
Speaker 9: parking lot is not allowed to be used as a
Speaker 9: safe parking lot. Advocates say the city, VTA and Amigos
Speaker 9: need to find middle ground for the sake of those
Speaker 9: in their vehicles.
Speaker 1: Well where are they going to go?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: How about the sake of the neighbors that don't want this?
Speaker 1: I mean, gosh, there is and I'm sure they'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm we did, we did some public input, we had
Speaker 1: some town halls. They don't care about that. And who
Speaker 1: has the actual time to go to these things? Do
Speaker 1: you know what's going on in my neighborhood? In the
Speaker 1: San Fernando Valley. There is is the Metro G line,
Speaker 1: which is the we call it the Orange line. It's
Speaker 1: the big bus. They have a big parkin ride lot
Speaker 1: where it's right at Victory and Balboa Caddy corner from
Speaker 1: a big high school and homes and shopping. It's, you know,
Speaker 1: a very residential part of town. But they have this
Speaker 1: parking ride lot for Metro and to deal with the
Speaker 1: problem of all the RVs showing up in my neck
Speaker 1: of the woods. Ammelda Padilla from the La City Council.
Speaker 1: You know this Amelda Padilla street pavements that are cooler,
Speaker 1: This Amelda Padilla oken windy theory. This Amelda Padilla.
Speaker 7: The neighborhood kids, the down as kids don't like it.
Speaker 1: She cracked a deal because she's also on the Metro
Speaker 1: board to take away that parking lot so people can
Speaker 1: use the bus that they want you to get on,
Speaker 1: and they're going to stuff it full of RV's. Currently
Speaker 1: there's police caution tape on the entrance to that parking lot.
Speaker 1: They haven't put an the RVs in there yet, but
Speaker 1: nobody can use it. How can we not just crush
Speaker 1: these things into cubes?
Speaker 9: Well, where are they going to go.
Speaker 7: They're going to go to maybe another VTA site or
Speaker 7: another neighborhood. They keep sweeping these these RVs and they're
Speaker 7: moving one am to the next neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Now that'm by, we give them a one way ticket
Speaker 1: and enough gasoline to get them to Slab City.
Speaker 9: Now, this issue first came up in early December, and
Speaker 9: the original compliance deadline has been extended from December twenty
Speaker 9: eighth to the end of January. The city and VTA
Speaker 9: says until then, no one will be forced to move,
Speaker 9: but after that there are no guarantees unless the two
Speaker 9: sides reach an agreement.
Speaker 1: I do not understand why our transit agencies that want
Speaker 1: you to get out of your car are taking away
Speaker 1: parking lots so you can use their services and turning
Speaker 1: them into RV safe camping. What nonsense. Hey, we got
Speaker 1: one more hour to go here on the John Phillips Show,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're going to Oakland and
Speaker 1: we actually have some somewhat positive stories from there. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm here for it. It's Randy wag Here on The
Speaker 1: John Phillips Show.