Public Comment

"we can not transfer people out... " - Thomas Lord

Thomas Lord would benefit by reading the most recent study of San Francisco's homeless/street population, who are indeed from San Francisco. And if he takes a closer look at Berkeley's policies he would discover that our community has for years been "transfer(ing) people out" in a variety of ways. All it takes is the current city council majority's dedication to providing a severely inadequate number shelter beds, low-income housing, and case management money for voucher placement, which has been the case for decades. This is not because Berkeley doesn't have the money. This is because Berkeley's city council majority doesn't want poor people here, preferring to build high-end condos. 

Berkeley is dedicated to providing less than what's needed so that people get emergency placement - in Richmond, etc., anywhere but here. Berkeley is generous, all right, if all you need is a bus ticket back home. The night the police surrounded and "cleaned out" the People's Park Annex protesters, that's exactly what they got; either an arrest or a bus ticket out of town.