Marine
12-31-2002, 10:34pm
The Rev. Amos Brown, a former supervisor, has a novel idea for fixing The City's seemingly intractable homelessness problem -- converting part of the U.S. Navy's "mothball fleet" into temporary homeless shelters.
"It's our responsibility as a civil society to help them," said Brown, referring to the estimated thousands of homeless people in San Francisco. "What we do doesn't work. We have to rethink the solutions."
His solution is the former USS Proteus.
After its service as a submarine tender ended in 1992, the Proteus was converted into a berthing barge, a home away from home for sailors whose ships were being renovated. Now it sits inactive as part of a mothball fleet of close to a dozen warships at Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in Benicia.
Complete with laundry facilities, fitness center, store and barbershop, the 1,200-room barge is big enough to house hundreds, maybe thousands, of homeless people. Brown, the minister of The City's Third Baptist Church, is hoping private donations will help pay for his idea, and he also is exploring state and federal financing.
It would cost about $4 million to refurbish the ship, including making it handicapped-accessible, but that wouldn't include the ongoing cost of providing shelter. Brown envisions berthing the ship near Bayview-Hunters Point.
Jerry Royal, marketing manager of maritime for the San Francisco Port Authority, says the cost of berthing a ship on port land depends on the size and duration of stay. The average is $4,000 to $5,000 a day for a "24-hour parking permit," Royal says.
Brown thinks his idea is more viable than ever because of the changing attitudes on strategies on how to deal with the homeless.
For instance, the recent passage of Supervisor Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash initiative, which replaces cash welfare grants with vouchers for services, is a step in a different direction in how The City deals with homelessness.
Homeless advocates say the idea of housing people on ships is all wet.
"It wasn't a lack of Navy ships that caused homelessness," says Paul Boden, director of The Coalition on Homelessness. "After 20 years I find it sad that we are heading that way."
New York City has been considering the idea of using retired cruise ships as shelters. Jim Anderson, spokesman for the New York City Department of Homeless Services, says his department is only assessing the viability of the idea.
Brown says he is open to the idea of using any kind of ship, but the local abundance of inactive vessels just makes more sense at the moment.
"Sailors lived on them for months," said Brown. "There are people living on house boats and (there are) restaurants on boats."
The fault with Brown's idea, according to Boden and shelter administrators, is the location of the ship and the difficulty of providing services to any potential residents.
Even if Bayview residents were to accept a ship full of homeless people offshore, activists say, it would be too far away from facilities providing mental health care, substance abuse counseling, and vocational training, many of which are located in the mid-Market and South of Market neighborhoods.
"We are aware of it and we are looking at any possible way to house people at the most efficient and humane manner," says Michael Farrah, aid to Newsom, of Brown's idea.
Brown is not talking about keeping homeless on ships forever. He hopes to provide the same quality of services on board the Proteus as is found in The City .
"It doesn't make sense to keep them idle," Brown says. "Ships used to kill people are being used to heal."
http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.mothball.1230w
"It's our responsibility as a civil society to help them," said Brown, referring to the estimated thousands of homeless people in San Francisco. "What we do doesn't work. We have to rethink the solutions."
His solution is the former USS Proteus.
After its service as a submarine tender ended in 1992, the Proteus was converted into a berthing barge, a home away from home for sailors whose ships were being renovated. Now it sits inactive as part of a mothball fleet of close to a dozen warships at Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in Benicia.
Complete with laundry facilities, fitness center, store and barbershop, the 1,200-room barge is big enough to house hundreds, maybe thousands, of homeless people. Brown, the minister of The City's Third Baptist Church, is hoping private donations will help pay for his idea, and he also is exploring state and federal financing.
It would cost about $4 million to refurbish the ship, including making it handicapped-accessible, but that wouldn't include the ongoing cost of providing shelter. Brown envisions berthing the ship near Bayview-Hunters Point.
Jerry Royal, marketing manager of maritime for the San Francisco Port Authority, says the cost of berthing a ship on port land depends on the size and duration of stay. The average is $4,000 to $5,000 a day for a "24-hour parking permit," Royal says.
Brown thinks his idea is more viable than ever because of the changing attitudes on strategies on how to deal with the homeless.
For instance, the recent passage of Supervisor Gavin Newsom's Care Not Cash initiative, which replaces cash welfare grants with vouchers for services, is a step in a different direction in how The City deals with homelessness.
Homeless advocates say the idea of housing people on ships is all wet.
"It wasn't a lack of Navy ships that caused homelessness," says Paul Boden, director of The Coalition on Homelessness. "After 20 years I find it sad that we are heading that way."
New York City has been considering the idea of using retired cruise ships as shelters. Jim Anderson, spokesman for the New York City Department of Homeless Services, says his department is only assessing the viability of the idea.
Brown says he is open to the idea of using any kind of ship, but the local abundance of inactive vessels just makes more sense at the moment.
"Sailors lived on them for months," said Brown. "There are people living on house boats and (there are) restaurants on boats."
The fault with Brown's idea, according to Boden and shelter administrators, is the location of the ship and the difficulty of providing services to any potential residents.
Even if Bayview residents were to accept a ship full of homeless people offshore, activists say, it would be too far away from facilities providing mental health care, substance abuse counseling, and vocational training, many of which are located in the mid-Market and South of Market neighborhoods.
"We are aware of it and we are looking at any possible way to house people at the most efficient and humane manner," says Michael Farrah, aid to Newsom, of Brown's idea.
Brown is not talking about keeping homeless on ships forever. He hopes to provide the same quality of services on board the Proteus as is found in The City .
"It doesn't make sense to keep them idle," Brown says. "Ships used to kill people are being used to heal."
http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.mothball.1230w