Save Ritter House or the 300 Shall Fall

Up for review on Monday evening at City Hall, the Ritter House has been granted a permit to handle a caseload of up to 60 per day. That translates into 300 per week. There are people who would prefer Ritter didn’t handle these cases. What happens if the Ritter permit is revoked? The services received at Ritter are essential to the homeless and precariously housed, for some they are all they’ve got, a vital bridge between life in the streets and getting back indoors. The suffering of these people will be compounded and they will be even less healthy than they already are. More of our brothers, sisters and friends in the streets will die.

The more I’ve become involved in helping the homeless and precariously housed, the more I’ve come to realize the degree of separation between each and every one of us and them is zero or at most one. Maybe you’d be shocked to learn that an old friend like Kelso Martinez who grew up in Tiburon is chronically homeless? Kelso is not likely to ever come inside, but even more surprising there are many other Marin natives who have been homeless, lived out of their cars and under overpasses here in Marin County and made it back inside. Without the Ritter House and charities like it they never would have made it back to become productive members of our society.

It’s extremely difficult to make a living in Marin County because the bar is set so high. Too many of the people I grew up with have struggled with homelessness and precarious housing. If I was homeless and my friend Kelso was indoors I know he wouldn’t turn his back on me. He’d do whatever he could to help me up, and that would obviously include supporting Ritter House services. There is an argument that our services are attracting homeless people from other areas. I’m not going to refute that, but if some people who didn’t grow up in Marin are helped along the way doesn’t that make the services all the more worthwhile?

Homelessness is not pretty. It would be great if it didn’t exist. But people are coming indoors because of charities like Ritter, and the great work that is being down through the Downtown Streets Team (DST) in San Rafael. My friend Steve who is now in a sober living house would not have made it indoors if it weren’t for Ritter, and he’s now a working member of the DST. We need more charities like Ritter to help the homeless and precariously housed and more people who are willing to get to know what they need so they can be helped. Through my web page https://www.facebook.com/MarinHomelessFaces people are helping and we are making a difference on a myriad of levels.

Doesn’t our affluence obligate us to help the homeless and precariously housed, regardless of how awful the look? We can help the homeless and precariously housed or we can turn our backs on them because it doesn’t look good. Either way our numbers are going to drop. One path is paved with compassion and empathy and hopefully we’ll continue down that road on Monday night.

Some people say homelessness hurts business. Tell that to the owners of the most popular restaurant in Marin County, Sol Food which is just ½ block from the Ritter House. Good businesses do well, regardless of the homeless. Doesn’t it hurt property values? Tell that to the former owner of 1150 Mission who purchased the home across the street from Boyd Park, a known homeless haven. She purchased the home, which has a bird’s eye view of the homeless in 2009 for $410,000 and resold it late last year for $700,000 after putting a little money into it. Homelessness doesn’t seem to be hurting businesses or property values in San Francisco either.

Decisions on the homeless and precariously housed have complex social, economic and political consequences. I believe the moral consequences of this decision outweigh everything else. We can help the 300 up. Or we can turn our backs on them and make their difficult lives even worse. Kelso wouldn’t do that to you or me. I’m not going to do it to him.