Homeless activist Bob Erlenbusch’s usual eloquence ebbed slightly during his last attempt to get the Board of Supervisors to stay this month’s General Relief termination, which would drop 7,000 people from the rolls. You saw him wondering just how many times he had to say, “They’ll return to homelessness, to the streets and alcohol.”The supervisors didn’t listen, of course. The GR cuts rolled through last week as planned. “For 14 years I’ve poured my heart out to you,” Erlenbusch pleaded. “Are we to believe you will not support some kind of merciful act?”We are indeed so to believe. Erlenbusch begged for another six months of county support for a full GR. He wanted it for the sake of people who were getting or had barely got their acts back together, who were finally living in SRO housing instead of on the street, who were in addiction-control programs instead of being addicted: hapless people who, in short, were about to have their $221-a-month rugs jerked out from under them.–– ADVERTISEMENT ––And all because the county had made a deal with these same homeless activists well over a year ago, when the county lost the Gardner decision on appeal and wound up having to pay back the GR cuts inflicted on past GR recipients starting in 1993. The Gardner plaintiffs then agreed that these restorations would come out of future GR emoluments, but suddenly that future was now. Too bad.Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky interrogated Public Counsel attorney Paul Freese on this point, pressing for a salient in the argument. Didn’t you guys agree to this cutoff? Now it’s here. So what’s the problem?Well, the problem was that when Gardner was settled many months ago, the county seemed in much worse financial shape than it’s in now. Hence the plaintiffs had agreed to this less than optimal deal: We take from B to pay back A. Now, however, the county is in much better fiscal shape, and the GR proponents, much closer to the consequences of their compromise, wanted a further break. Either just a month’s stay to recheck options, which Supervisor Yvonne Burke had proposed in a motion on the agenda, or – optimally – another six months of GR for around $14 million.But even Burke didn’t vote for her own motion, and her motion was rejected in silence. The deed was done: For at least the next six months, a few thousand people will return to homelessness.The official line last week was to blame the advocates. A deal was, after all, a deal. And these politicians had many times heard the same passionate pleadings. There could be something in this last objection; maybe Erlenbusch and Freese should try a different strategy next time.Recommended videosPowered by AnyClip NOW PLAYINGMichael Cohen Is Ready To Spill The Beans‘The Hunt for the Trump Tapes with Tom Arnold’ Gets Premiere DateAG Sessions: ‘Perhaps’ It Was Wrong To Laugh Along With ‘Lock Her Up’ ChantPompeo Says Trump has ‘Proper Understanding’ Of Russian MeddlingUFC Superstar Conor McGregor Pleads Guilty to Disorderly ConductTurkey Responds To US, Says It Will Not Tolerate ThreatsYouTube Pulls Four Videos From InfoWarsPiers Morgan Defends Himself From Stephen Colbert CommentsNASA and Northrop Grumman Grilled By Congress On Billion Dollar DelaysJeremy Corbyn On May’s Failure To Capitalize “Benefit” Of BrexitBut the supervisors’ willingness to shift blame was overshadowed by what seemed the real reason for the board’s inaction: the flaccid 1998 supervisorial realpolitik. There were probably never more than two votes for the Burke proposal; the widely held Eighth Floor assumption was that Gloria Molina, at war with Yaroslavsky on nearly every issue since the latter called for an MTA subway initiative, would have voted against the Burke measure had Yaroslavsky openly supported it (Molina’s office did not return my calls for comment). The three liberal votes could otherwise have made the difference, at least before the budget was passed. The board’s two conservatives were and are anti-welfare in any form. But now, after the budget’s final passage last week, it’ll take four votes to make the requisite changes.So that’s it for GR politics this year. Maybe next year, some of the state surplus will mitigate the cuts (Assemblyman Gil Cedillo’s bill, now pending in the Senate, could do that, but it wouldn’t kick in until January).Meanwhile, internal, as much as ideological, board politics have had their say: There will be no further relief this year for the needy in this county.Orwell’s ListLike other journalists who came of professional age in the 1970s, I’m strongly influenced by the work and life of George Orwell. His exemplary complete letters and journalism finally made it into print then, and it became easier to study and to try to emulate his invincibly clear way of thinking on a page.It was a good time to read Orwell. Twenty-five years ago, we endured the remnants of the old journalism – pieties, official versions and received wisdom – and the excesses of the new – fabricated monologues and
Source: No Mercy | L.A. Weekly