Aunty Sez - A San Francisco Treat

SAN FRANCISCO - A new city law mandating the recycling of construction materials took effect this week and it has already boosted production for several local waste-management companies.

The Construction and Demolition Debris Recovery Ordinance, introduced by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Fiona Ma, took effect Saturday and requires that all contractors in the city send their waste to a certified facility instead of straight to a landfill.

Construction waste generated in San Francisco, which includes wood, metal, sheetrock, concrete, asphalt, bricks, cardboard and hard plastics, accounts for more than 100,000 tons of landfill every year, according to SF Environment, the city's environmental agency.

Many in construction already reuse and scavenge materials or send their waste for recycling but Supervisors hope the ordinance, passed in February, will increase the amount of materials recovered by eight percent.

With the new law taking effect, workers at a Norcal Waste Systems, Inc. center have been working extra hard, according to spokesman Robert Reed.

Three crews sorted through 400 tons of waste today alone, and in the coming days a fourth crew will be added, Reed said.

There are at least ten facilities in San Francisco that accept waste for recycling, and several more are located throughout the Bay Area.

Only about 65 to 70 percent of construction waste is recyclable, according to Reed. Workers sort through the waste by hand as it rolls by on a conveyer belt. They also use shaker screens and magnets to separate reusable materials.

Asphalt and concrete are crushed up to build new roads and sidewalks, metals can be melted down, and wooden materials can be chipped up and sent to power plants to generate energy.

SF Environment provides a list of certified drop-off spots on its Web site www.sfenvironment.com.

22 years ago I sewed the pennants and finish line banner for the Bay to Breakers. I sewed 10 hours a day for 7 days, burnt out a domestic sewing machine in the process. The people who subcontracted my work put a stop payment on the check because, as they told the Small Claims Court judge, "We ran out of money." They came to court looking like they slept in their clothing. I was there with my "going to court" wig, full face make up and a suit, with my folder of signed documents. The judge had her face on too. We were there on time. I won my Small Claims judgement against them and had them pay for the filing, the sherrif that went to the bank to put a hold on out going funds and what they owed me.

Every year when the Bay to Breakers comes around again I'm reminded

dress for the occasion

Another story that comes to mind each year is when my brother in law realized taking acid at his mother in law's home wasn't such a good idea so he went off to Golden Gate Park for a peaceful trip. He was sitting in the bushes when the ground started to tremble. He thought "Earthquake!" and then he saw people running by, first just a couple, who he dismissed because it was Golden Gate Park after all and folks go jogging. Then more people came running by. Then hundreds and some were wearing the strangest outfits, some were naked, which was even more distressing.

He had forgotten that the Bay to Breakers were going to cut through the park on that day.

Anyone living in San Francisco knows that you can have what most would think is a good job, spend only for rent, utilitites, basic phone, food and transportation and still barely make it from check to check. There's no left over money to save, put into a 401K, or even prepare an Earthquake emergency backpack.

When I got this one bedroom 20 years ago it was $585 and I was making $14K working for the EPA as a GS4. The rent alone was half my income before taxes. 20 years later, my husband has a job that makes more than twice that much and our rent is still half our income before taxes.

Wages are either stalled or lower than they were back in the Dot.Com boom, but medical benefits have gone up 300%. Forget about owning property in San Francisco if you're middle class by national standards. Median cost for a one unit is half a million dollars and that's on the San Andres fault.

The Poor People's Economic Human Right's Campaign is committed to uniting the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. We work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights- such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job.http://www.economichumanrights.org/

Study: State is one of poorest in U.S.
HIGH RENT EATS UP BIG CHUNK OF INCOME

By Brandon Bailey
Mercury News
California's high cost of housing has given the state one of the worst poverty rates in the nation, according to an independent study that was welcomed by critics who believe the government's method of counting the poor overlooks many people.

Thousands of Silicon Valley residents, for example, are living in poverty even though they earn more than the official federal standard, according to researchers at the non-profit Public Policy Institute of California, who calculated the numbers after adjusting for local housing costs.

The study confirms what social workers and the working poor have known for years:

``If you're poor here, you're really poor,'' said Candy Capograssi, deputy executive director of the Santa Clara County Housing Authority, which recently had more than 70,000 people submit applications for a housing subsidy waiting list.

Critics have long complained that the federal government uses an outdated formula to calculate the official poverty standard, which determines individual eligibility for welfare and other programs, and is also used by the federal government when it allocates money to state and local agencies.

The formula is based on income levels and the cost of food, but does not take into account housing costs that vary greatly from one region to another, said Deborah Reed, who wrote the PPIC report.

For example, the federal poverty level for a family of four in 2004 was $19,157. But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment that year in Santa Clara County was $21,852. That means a family earning $20,000 was above the poverty level, yet potentially homeless.

``There are people living just above the federal poverty level in California who are not doing as well as people who are officially living in poverty in Mississippi and Louisiana,'' Reed said.

Using the official federal standard, California has the 15th-highest poverty rate in the country, with 13.3 percent of its residents living below the poverty threshold.

But when Reed adjusted the formula to reflect the cost of housing, California's poverty rate rose to 16.1 percent. That gave it the third-highest ranking in the country, Reed said -- behind only Washington, D.C., and New York.

Using Reed's calculations, 15 percent of Santa Clara County residents live in poverty, compared with 12 percent nationally.

She also found that three California counties -- Monterey, San Francisco and Los Angeles -- have poverty rates comparable to some of the poorest counties in the country.

``The federal calculation doesn't fully capture the state's circumstances,'' Reed said. A more comprehensive measurement, she added, ``would give a better sense of the number of poor and degree of need.''

Local officials and others who work with the poor in Silicon Valley endorsed her argument.

They noted that eligibility for welfare payments, food stamps and Medi-Cal is based on the federal poverty standard.

``The fact that it doesn't get adjusted based on the actual cost of living means the same basic grant is going to go further in another county than it goes here,'' said Greta Helm, an official at the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency. ``We still get less bang for the buck.''

Other analysts note that the federal formula has been a political football for partisans on the left and right, as they argue about the quantity and need for various aid programs. Reed said her formula may not be a perfect measurement, but added that it's important to strive for a more accurate picture.

After adjusting for housing costs, Reed reported that California's poverty rate is higher than it was in the 1960s and 1970s -- in contrast with other parts of the country, which saw a decline or remain similar to the rates of the 1960s.

She cited several factors for California's high poverty rate, including more low-income immigrants and single-mother families. Low-income families in California saw their real income decline slightly since the 1960s, while the number of impoverished families with at least one person working had increased, she said.

Reed also found that adjusting the formula produced a different picture of poverty within California.

By the federal standard, the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento are both considered to have relatively low poverty rates, compared with Los Angeles County and the San Joaquin Valley.

But after allowing for the costs of housing, she found the number of San Francisco residents living in poverty had nearly doubled. The number in Santa Clara, Alameda and Santa Cruz counties also grew sharply. The Sacramento area, however, remained at about the same level.