The Recession Hits Home

My boss plops today's SF Chronicle onto my desk. "Looks like you made your escape just in time," she says. In the middle of the page is an article with updates of San Francisco's ongoing budget crisis and a shot of the building where I used to work. With more money being funneled into California's "Internal Waste Management Committee" (where money is being allotted primarily to the 6-figure salaries of its committee heads) many substance abuse and mental health programs are seeing massive reductions in services. The first things to go for Walden House were the adolescent programs that provided these services to youth transitioning out of the juvenile justice system. As a result, the teens are being abandoned by the system that's supposed to be helping and healing them. As if these kids didn't have abandonment issues already. . . now they are faced with two choices: the streets or the YGC. This is disheartening considering that society's greatest investment is in the youth population.

A part of me left Walden House because I knew that my job wasn't 100% secure. I'd known this since the announcement was made this summer that the methamphetamine program would be cut and jobs would be lost. The loss wasn't executed but it still had everyone sitting at the edge of our seats. Talking to old coworkers now, I hear that there is a silent depression that looms above the desk where I used to work. Walden House's Multi-Services facility, located in the heart of the Mission on 15th Street, offered indigent citizens of San Francisco services that aided in finding housing, employment, case management and counseling. More importantly, it was a safe haven from the darkest of the City's crevices. It was a place intended to foster growth for the community, development of self in lost souls, and the increased need for a "family" for those who had none. And now- less money means less employees, less hours, less services, less help.

The streets are going to blow up soon and I fear that, regardless of our new hope in Barack Obama's presidency, a violent revolution is bound to happen. I say I fear though I know that revolt is what its going to take to get it right... and people, we need to get it right.

"It's going to be massive in its impact. What we do for the poorest of the poor is minimal in the best of times. There's more to be done out there, not less."

- Rod Libbey, CEO of Walden House, Inc. [read entire article]