My new home, Sweet home - Chapter 2 - July 2015

Here is my new home. Could be really sweet, were it not so hot, with an undersized aircon, and no insulation whatsoever. I've been on the verge of fainting the second day following my moving in! It definitely should be upgraded. It is on its way because my landlady is very nice and comprehensive... Patience. One day at a time!

My house is a one room house, with a separate kitchen - an oven at day time -and a bathroom - a hammam as well as a sieve when it's raining. Apart from those details, the house is lovely and its green environment charming.

 

The village I live in, 10 mns from the center of town is called Sok Paluang - Vientiane is made of the gathering of different villages -.  I have this strange feeling to be back in the village of my childhood - sort of - riding my bicyle along the 200 meter dirt road, hearing the sounds of nature at night, frogs croaking, birds screeching (definitely not chirping!), roosters crowing - those stupid animals always crow before the sun rise, right in the middle of the night-. They are so loud, believe me. And in the morning I can see hens and roosters running across my garden!

 

My new house

The terrace

View of my garden

 

My little "oven" kitchen

The One room with its sleeping, living, and dining space.

My New Home, Sweet Home! 09/27/2014

As some of you suggested I will write in English from now on because I need to practice, and morever after what you are going to read next!

Please, my English native friends or English expert friends, forgive my mistakes and be indulgent with me (you have the right and the duty to correct me).

So let's go back to the SF story:

in French we say: quand les oiseaux chantent, après ils déchantent - after the birds have sung,  they stop singing ! that's what I am going through!

Guess what: my hostess I just met an hour ago is just a young Eastern witch, with a strong sort of Russian accent, she is from Moldavia. She opened the door without a look at me. The two young daughters of her companion are staying with her (10 and 12 years old) because, guess what: the companion is a nurse in a psychiatric hospital 3 hours from SF so he is away 4 days a week. The poor little girls have nothing to do except stay in their bedroom to watch TV on a giant screen in front of their bed. We are in a supposed lovely house with a lovely garden in the near suburb of SF and guess what: they never eat outside because it is too cold! (I just got a sunburn today walking along the street). There is a supposed living room in the house and guess what: there is no couch, sofa or even chairs to sit on! Only a closed piano and a cupboard, with a view of the neighbours'wall, which anyway we do not see because the blinds are lowered and closed. I wanted to have a cigarette in the garden to relax and guess what: it is strictly forbidden to smoke even in the garden because it is not good for the children! So I go back to my room ( because I am not invited to have a drink in the living room which does not exist, and furthermore she seems to be disapointed that I have nothing planned tonight!) and try to get connected to REAL persons! So I ask for the wifi code and guess what : she won't give it to me because you never know what I could do with it, so she told me she would type it herself in my computer. So I wait for her in my room so that she can type the code herself... and guess what: she never came, because she was waiting for me to bring my computer to her!  I think we are going to be very good friend.

The good news is that she hosts two other sudents, and guess what: they are away for the week-end (which I now completely understand).

 

I have to tell you about my house: very neat and clean, in a street that could be compared to Wisteria lane, the famous desperate houswifes' street (a famousTv show for those who might not know).

My wonderful Moldavian Cristina is about 30, tall, thin, blue eyes, long blond air, but she looks like a grey spider.

She prepared diner for the 4 of us last night. It was not the gin & tonic welcome diner party I had expected but well! We had a very good plate of nice vegies+ rice + chinese dish. But no drinks at all (no glasses on the table) and no desert (a fruit would have been welcome).  It was ready at 8. We were finished at 8:15! Because I tried to chat with the two adorable little girls.

After that, I asked if there might be a family television I could watch, to make up for the Russian accent and the lack of English listening. But no, there is none, the only TV is in the girls' bedroom. And there is no living room as I said previously, only a passing room. But I can Watch TV on my computer. Of course!

After that I was given the rules: I shall not go back home after 10 pm at night during the week, because it wakes up the girls (of course, they live in the former living room separated to the corridor by a wood panel!).

And the best of all, I want you to open wide your ears because I am sure you have never lived such a welcoming attitude:

I asked If I could make a cup of tea, anytime. I was told that students are not allowed to use the kitchen utensils, nor are they to open the fridge. So if I want a cup of tea, I should go to the mall (a 15 mns walk) or to the gaz station which is closer!!!

At that point, I fell down and burst into tears... No , I just said "ok I understand ". Period.

 

So this is the bright golden jail I live in! This is not a nightmare, This is my real life!

Well, as you can see I do not know how long I will be able to bear this situation!

I wish you all a wonderfull sunny sunday, mine might be a long long one!

The transformational experience of being taught how to teach

I have done my teacher training and got what I’ve come here to get: the CELTA CERTIFICATE!  Four weeks of intense training. It was such an empowering experience.

We were three in my class (!), Cat, a 28 year old woman from Idaho who already taught in South Korea and is intent on moving to Taipei in Taiwan, and Jenny a 57 year old woman from California who already taught English literature at university in the US, is willing to volunteer in Tibet and seeked effective tools to teach English as a second language. Two great women ! We were in position of teaching the very third day or our course. It was something both highly useful and dreadful - scary to teach in front of a class almost from scratch -  also the best way to learn, by making mistakes which is part of the learning process. Every afternoon we were teaching “free classes” to “real” students of the school. They were approximately 8 to 14, from 20 to 60 years old, from South Korea, Japan, Brasil, Russia, Europe and were elementary to upper intermediate level.

My two classmates: Cat on the right Jenny on the left

My great teachers: Sezgi, 2nd on the right, and Jenny far right

I have entered a new world.

I realized I was not wired correctly with regard to what is required from a teacher. I realized I had to shed all those automatic processes I’ve been used to dealing with for years, to relearn a new way of expressing things. We – company workers - have been used to studying a topic, gain an expertise on it to be able to tell about it extensively to our colleagues and managers. And now we have to reverse the process and ask our audience - our students -  to tell us the good way, to elicit their skills, their mind, their speaking ability, to find the answers by themselves. It is a new philosophy we have to adopt : We enter the dialectic method of enquiry of Socrates . And as our renowned friend Wikipedia says : “the Socratic method remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand. This is perhaps Socrates’ most important contribution to Western thought”.

No wonder this training was baffling. The overarching principle of our teaching hinges on this student-centered methodology. I am entering a new world, I need an overall rebooting of my mind.

The paramount concept of our training lies on the CCQ  - Concept Checking Question - and its infamous enemy the TTT - Teacher Talking Time! The CCQ is a clever way to elicit students understanding rather than “spood feeding them” - quote from our teacher Sezgi-. And that might be the most difficult part for us trainee teachers because as previously said we are wired differently. That is when we are required to have a thorough analysis of the grammar point, the vocabulary or the functions we are supposed to teach. And we know we have done a good job when we’ve almost been silent during the class.

The interesting part of this course is that we’ve been taught the way we are supposed to teach our students, with this same discursive process.

Praise is the first tool of class management we’ve been told about. Surprisingly, as far as I can recall, it seems to me that the word praise does not belong to the lexical set of the educational system in France. As a tool of class management it is yet so positively obvious, because our students need confidence to be able to speak a new language! The use of interaction patterns such as working in pairs is also meant to foster confidence and encourages the student to practice the language in a “safe” environment, not being exposed directly to the teacher or the entire class. This is also the spirit of the“check in pairs” stage, in which the student can check their answers whith their classmate and thus be sure of themselves before giving an oral answer to the class.

The very scaffolding of our teaching was the lesson plan frameworks and we’ve internalized - or still are in the process of internalizing -  these while teaching ourselves or observing our peers teach. A good lesson is planned with a clear aim. The lead-in serves as an icebreaker, we then introduce a context to what we’re going to teach, we then set up a “treasure hunt” to make the students guess the rules or the meaning of what they are being taught, then we process to a controlled practice to check their understanding, then we set up a freer practice to give them a free way to practice the new language they ‘ve learnt. That is in a nutshell the guidelines to the Language lessons: vocabulary, grammar, functions. Nothing else but a logical way to get acquainted to a new language.

Observing and being observed by our peers with a time of constructive feedback  was a very empowering process and a time of self awareness thanks to our professional and empathetic teachers. And ultimately establishing a rapport with the students was a wonderful experience.

I feel like a whole new world is opening up for me. I AM so GRATEFUL!

A Sense of the Wild West - March 2015

On March the 7th, I took a Cambridge test in the morning, and joined in the afternoon my friends Anne and Coralie who had just landed in SF directly from Paris. Finally, it was vacation time! We set off for a trip to some of the renowned American natural parks and scenic drives of the West...

#The highly SCENIC highway one on the Pacific coast of California.

This beautiful road from Monterey to Big Sur definitely lived up to our expectations. Surprisingly, I felt like going through the outstanding lanscapes of Britany, followed by the low mountains of Pyrennees, the shredded coast of Cotentin or the dry cliffs of Les Calanques, all these at once, in larger and wilder than those we know. On top of that, you sprinkle some wild sea animals : seals, sea otters or even enormous sea elephants taking the sun, lazily lying on the sand of quiet beaches along the coast...This gives you a glimpse of what awaits you on highway one if you have a chance to drive on it.

Protected area between Monterey and Carmel

Anne, Pascale, Coralie

Sea elephants taking the sun.

 

# The STUNNING Death Valley.

Coralie unfortunately had to go back to work after this Pacific coastal trip. We extended the journey with Anne, heading east towards lake Taho and then south alongside the green and refreshing Sierra Nevada mountains covered with fir and spruce forests still spotted with patches of snow before diving suddenly into the dryness of the barren Panamint and Death Valley. This is a place you definitely don't want to cross in summer! We left an 18 degree temperature to a sudden 35 degree one...

 Leaving the fresh mountains of Sierra Nevada

Diving into Panamint Valley

The salted ground at - 80 m in Death Valley.

# The UNCANNY wild west ghost town of Bodie

On our way down to Death Valley, we made a stop at the village of Bodie, which was once one prosperous mining town which boomed following the discovery of gold in 1876 - a second wave of gold rush after that of 1848 west of Sacramento - This town that bragged 8000 inhabitants in 1880 dwindled rapidly to a few hundreds once the vein was used up and ultimately suffered a big fire in 1932 that ravaged most of the town. Nonetheless, this town gives a real sense of what the harsh life of the pioneers must have been at that time in this remote rough barren environment - Bodie was known to be the scene of one murder a day!

 

 

# The WONDERS of the National Parks & Monuments

We went with Anne on a 6 day camping trip organised by a Trekking agency. Seamus was our guide, a 35 year old man as thin as a toothpick, ultra marathon man (which means he runs 100 km races  -  crazy man!). We were treated with wonderful meals he cooked himself like vegie curry, taboule, blue berry oatmeal or strawberry pancake for breakfast, a delight! He reminded me of Tintin, this cartoon character whose shrewdness gets him out of any situation. We were in a group of 4 - including ourselves - with a sweet couple in their sixties, Rey and Tracey, both used to mountain climbing, having already hiked Mount Whitney twice! Tracey was a very dynamic and positive woman,  who survived cancer, and was talked into hiking by her husband to lose weight when she was young... She still craved a hamburger and a Pepsi at the end of the camping week! Her husband Ray, grumpy at first sight, was very sweet in the end, and definitely reminded us of Gandalf a character of the famous ' Lord of the ring'. The camping grounds were great, in Zion Park and Escalante National Monument (don't ask me the difference, a matter of preservation status). Be that as it may we slept in freezing cold temperatures - 0°C at night - Fortunately we had good quality sleepingbags.

 

# In Zion Park, we hiked the iconic Angel's Landing trail. Actually it is quite popular and you can just see it as it is as busy as the Champs Elysees (as the French say), but it is really worth it! This hike is reaaaaaally BREATHTAKING. A few people give up before the end because one has to walk on the ridge of a 500 meter high cliff on a one meter wide path, with a lot of rock climbing which I love ! Not difficult but just impressive because of the height right above you.

 

Angel's Landing Trail in Zion

 

# Brice Canyon was also FLABERGASTERING! A landscape unique in the  world, a forest of orange and pink limestone spikes looking like stalagmites, also called Hoodoos. There were still patches of snow which made the scenery even more photogenic. We had the chance to hike a whole afternoon in this incredible landscape,  walking down and up the colorful hills of a fantaisy land.  The trail was called " fairyland trail',  more fun than any Disney rollecoster in the world!

 

Brice Canyon in March

 

# We also discovered the slot canyons of Peek-a-boo and Spooky in Escalante National Monument. This experience was just EXHILARATING! The canyons were so narrow that we often had to take our bagpack off our back to be able to wriggle in the slot of the canyons. It was like making our way in the internal parts of a human body.

Anne in Spooky Canyon



# I keep the Grand Canyon for the end. I went there on my own after Anne had left to fly back to Paris. It is not an easy place to go to when you don't drive a car. However, its immensity is sort of unreal. So when I walked along the rim taking pictures I felt I was taking pictures of a fake backdrop hanging there. I had the chance to stay overnight on the rim, so I could walk down the South Keibab trail, half way from the Colorado river, unfortunately - my only regret -  but the hike was GORGEOUS with 360° views of the Canyon. And the Canyon became reality, eventually!

The South Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon

The unreal backdrop of the Grand Canyon

 



The American Paradox - Feb 2015

Keith Haring Exhibition - Dec 2014 - De Young Museum

Since I have been here, I have been very impressed by the sense of community Americans tend to cherish, which I found utterly positive. At the same time I have to admit I have been schocked, not to say appalled, by the seemingly callous way Americans handle their people's health care, which is to me not less than a community concern. This is what I call the American Sense of Community Paradox.

 

I recently fully experienced the best aspects of the American sense of community.
I discovered the city of San Francisco thanks to two websites.Those are great american initiatives which aim to foster local human links. 'SFcityguide.com' offers 60 different free guided tours of the city, run by savvy guides who have been selected and trained prior to their leading of a group.Those guides are mainly recently retired people who are interested in passing on their interest for the city without earning a penny. Thus I learned about the Gold rush in San Francisco,  the Earthquake of 1906, and the wonderful Victorian architecture that is so typical of the Californian city. If one day I retire in Paris I wish to emulate this wonderful organisation and set up free guided tours of the French capital, which would be awesome!
 

'Meetup.com' is also an American concept whose inception stems from the observation of a decline of community in the US, that has been rekindled after 9/11/2001. There was a sudden yearning for people to reconnect, to feel part of a local community. Though amazing the internet can be, the means to chat all over the world in front of one's computer has its intrinsic limits, for a web contact never surpasses a human contact. That is why Scott Heiferman created Meetup.com in 2002, to allow people to meet on the basis of common interests or hobbies on a local scale. Therefore, 12 years later, there are 125 000 groups that potentially allow14 million people to meet up in more than 200 countries all over the world.  That`s how I joined `Walking in San Francisco for Health and History` (but it could have been, `I love Californian wines` or `we are Bolywood friends`), and there I made some friends!
 

I also experienced this way of building a sense of solidarity in my English classes. It is very impressive to see how the American way of teaching is highly conducive to helping each other by fostering interaction between students. It is like creating a virtuous circle by getting everybody engaged in the success of all. I don't mean to fawn over the American spirit, ( my French teacher  friends will hate me!)  but all in all I find it utterly positive, and quite different from our way of doing in France...

"The last moments of John Brown" 1884 -  De Young Museum
This man was hanged convicted of inciting black slaves'insurrection.

On the other hand, with regard to this high sense of community and solidarity,  I am bewildered by the way health care is treated in the US (I am not talking about the new Obama care- nevertheless the principles remain).

In my opinion,  every citizen should have the unassailable right in a modern democracy to be taken care of in case of illness or health problem irrespective of their salary or previous health conditions. No one chooses to get cancer or to give birth to a deaf baby. A lot of those people are not covered by health insurance because the health insurance companies are private and profit driven, and thus have the ability to choose their customers, preferably the healthy ones. Were they to insure a seemingly healthy person who becomes ill, they will find all the legal reasons not to cover their medical expenses. As an example I met Jane who hiked with me in Zion Park, 59 years old, recovered from a bad cancer two years ago, she now has to pay 2000$ a month to be insured, her husband, 69 cannot retire to be able to pay the cost of his wife's health insurance - not everybody can afford that. I recommend you see "Sicko", a staggering documentary from the infamous Michael Moore. As a result a lot of patients are not treated. The evidence for this preposterous situation is given by the life expectancy of the United States which is 3 years less than Western Europe  and Canada. It is at Cuba, Costa Rica and Lybia's  level (I checked this figure for the 2014 year).

The nadir of this system lies in the governance practices of the nation. Political parties and their candidates  are largely sponsored by private companies. This is an insidioulsy deleterious system, for there is a blatant conflict of interest here. It results in condoning a legalised corrupt government. This issue was pinpointed by the French government almost 30 years ago. Thus, they passed laws regulating this financing, forbidding any company to take part in any political funding. Political parties in France are now financed by public funding according to the results of the last polls, and private funding is allowed by individuals to the extent of a 7500 euro maximum amount. I told you my American sycophantic speech was not going to last long!

No wonder it is so difficult to change the paradigm in the US, drug companies as well as health insurance companies are big supporters of politicians who wouldn't give up their crucial financial help, by taking the risk of creating laws that would hinder those companies from thriving.

Conversly our French public health care system  does not let anybody down and treats everybody (almost) equally. However some  know very well that our sense of solidarity might be tainted by selfishness. Our current system leads us to dig the grave of our children by increasing an already outrageous debt because our earnings don`t cover our expenses. This is how we will bestow an overweight debt burden to our future generations. Why: because we are unable to budge an inch when it is about giving up the slightest privileges we have acquired over time.

As you can see the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence...
Or one could also say that it is easier to see the mote in your neighbour's eye, rather than the beam in our's own!

 

The story of an Epiphany

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang

I want to tell you the story of this 'Epiphany' I experienced a year ago.

I love this word, whose primary meaning is the celebration of the visit of the wise men to Jesus newly born, in other words, the manifestation of the divine to the common people. But in English it is more commonly defined as a sudden revelation of the essential meaning of something often initiated by some simple common occurrences.

From this story actually stems my presence here in San Francisco.

I had decided to go on a trip to Asia to turn the page of an almost 10 year relationship. I was as well at a turning point of my professional life. I was kind of worn out by my job environment, after 22 years at Air Liquide company, and was wondering what could be my desire for the 20 years of work to come.

In this context I decided to travel alone, not allowing  a friend to accompany me. I wanted to leave my mind open and available to random encounters and to my new environment, and I did well.

I set off on a trip to Laos and Cambodia in January 2014.

I met a few people there. Surprisingly they didn't know what they were telling me unwittingly was going to change the course of my life and I didn't know it either!

# The trigger point for a change of life

I met Christophe and Olivier in a restaurant in Laos at the border of Thailand. They both had settled in Laos a few years ago and were so happy about their new life here. I was actually very intrigued and envious. I asked them what the trigger point for taking action was, I was actually obsessed by this question. They both had spent time in this area, were attracted to its quietness and simplicity, and were both at a turn in their  lives when they had a strong desire for a change. One of them had this anecdote : he was in the Parisian metro and smiled spontaneoulsy at a woman sitting in front of him, whose gaze he had crossed, and she responded in turning her face and pouting. He could not put up with this anymore. (Eveybody knows Paris is the capital of pouting faces whereas San franciso is that of fake smiles, however...)  They also talked me into going on this Gibbon experience trip, which I had not planned previoulsy. So I set out to do that the next morning...



The Tree house of the Gibbon Experience

# The job I would have loved to do

The Gibbon exprerience trip was created by a French man to raise people's awareness about the preservation of the jungle in Laos and its last remaining Gibbons. It is actually a 2 to 3 day hike in the jungle, using an exceptional zip line cable network throughout the forest enabling the visitors to glide above the canopy. Guests sleep in tree houses at night, with breathtaking views of the forest. The fear I had about this trip was to be surrounded by young rich westerners, which was borne out by facts. Nonetheless, it appeared that those guys mostly from South Africa and the United States were English teachers in Bankgok or Seoul and told me about their job. I found it so awsome, it was like a thwarted desire that came back to surface. I was thinking then how wonderful it would be to do such an exciting and rewarding job.






Nyaung Kew The fishermen's village

# Daring a total change of job

I met Mary on the boat trip from the Thaï border to Luang prabang: a 2 day trip on a boat that used to be authentic but that now looks like a touristic bus filled with mainly western tourists. It has lost its former charm I think. However the journey stills remains impressive for we do not cross a bridge for the two days of the trip, nor a town, rarely a village, sometimes wooden houses spread out in the countryside, mainly endless wild forests, just to tell you the level of industrialised development of the country. Mary is a 30 year old German girl from Berlin, she was sitting just behind me. We had time to talk. She was actually in the process of changing job. She wanted to study sustainable environment and quit her job in the tourism industry that had led her on luxury ships throughout the world, but she found it too perfunctory and was seeking a more meaningful job.

Same process with a Corean girl I met later on, on the little boat that drove us to Nuang Kew fishermen's village. This one wanted to leave a job in web advertising she found meaningless to a job in the tourism where she thought the could find more human relations. As you can see the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. However, I was really impressed by this turning point they both had decided to take in their professional lives.



The Cambodian young lady

# Children are a lifelong burden

When I arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, after a 10 hour bus trip, it was nearly midnight. I had actually made no hotel reservation, and it appeared that the hotels were rather full. Exhausted I asked the first rickshaw to take me to to a place he recommended. "Cheap place" he said. I ended up in a gloomy room without any window, nor any bathroom, just a mere water hose over a toilet to take a shower. In short this place was awful but It was too late, and I was exhausted to make a move. However the Young cambodian woman who was in charge of the hotel rooms made up for the ugliness because she was so sweet. She offered me fruits for I had not eaten a bite for hours, offered me to use the open air  kitchen sink to brush my teeth. She asked me this common question which was: Do you have children? To which I answered no. Surprisingly her reaction was: You are so Lucky you are free to go wherever you want, you can travel and discover the world. I am stuck here with my two kids.

A couple days later leaving Phnom Penh for Siem Rep, I was in a bus sitting next to a whole Indonesian family who was here for a family vacation. The man of the family asked me the same question, to which I gave the same answer. His reaction was : Good for you, children are lifelong worries in life. You are free!

Well that was a new insight I had not thought about !

All of those people were the stones that paved the way to my epiphany.

When I returned home, my company was offering a severance package including a training to learn a new job  to the employees who decided to leave. Then it became clear that I could change job, become a teacher and settle in South East Asia if that was what I wanted.

And so I did.



Luang Prabang



San Francisco, a Haven for Homeless - déc 2014.

 

One thing that strikes any visitor to San Francisco is its population of homeless wandering dowtown. This might be true for any big city, descrepancies are always more prominent in such environments. But one thing is that they are much more visible here for they are all gathered in the same area dowtown, in and around the Tenderloin, right next to the financial and commercial heart of the city.

To get an insight into this issue, I had the opportunity to help feed the homeless people preparing meals at Glide Church memorial. Glide is a Church very much dedicated to social causes and to helping minorities. It has been one of the most prominently liberal Churches in the US since 1960,  defending homosexual rights but also providing primary health and social care, such as a daily free meal program that serves 3000 meals a day to homeless in dowtown San Francisco.

When I went there on a saturday morning I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into. We were 10 students from St Giles. We went in the basement of the Church where there was a  big collective kitchen. We were given masks, plastic apron and gloves, and then we were all set  to work as little soldiers on a food assembly line production with a target of 3000 lunch bags. On one side: paper bags, one team filling them with mustard, ketchup, salt and Pepper. On the other side: packs of sliced bread, giant bowls of peanut butter and jam, or cheese and sliced ham, and here we are, making either jam and peanut butter sandwiches or ham and cheese sandwiches, a last team wrapping them into plastic, and filling in the previous paper bag we came across at the beginning of the line.

And that was it. No vegetable, nor fruit. It is not the soundest and healthiest diet you could imagine  for already unbalanced people but it's better than nothing, and it fits the american way of eating, sandwich for lunch and a balanced meal for dinner, therefore I assume the meals are more varied in the evening.

I had at this occasion no contact whatsoever with the homeless for we were not to distribute the meals, and there was nobody I could ask questions to.

So I tried to figure out what could have brought about such a situation in San Francisco. I was told many different versions of the story so I had to check.

Powel Bart Station (RER), a dormitory for homeless. 

The story began 10 years ago (well it can begin 100 years ago with the story of the Tenderloin area, but I won't go so far) when the mayor of San Francisco set about to tackle the issue of chronic homelessness in the city launching a big social program. Today it seems that it had a mitigated success. The city says it has succeeded in moving 20 000 homeless off its streets over a decade, but they are still there ! How come?

In June 2004, Mayor Gavin Newsome pledged that in 10 years the Homeless problem would be solved. The primary goal  was to build 3 000 permanent housing units for homeless, which they almost did for the city is short of 300 units this year, but will reach the target in 2015.

In addition the city also succeeded in finding housing solutions for 11 300 homeless people, when 8 000 have been sent home to friends or family outside SF. Which means almost 20 000 people have been moved in ten years, the size of the town of Fécamp, isn't that amazing?

And yet the most recent count found 7 350 of homeless people according to SF Guardian on line - 6 436 according to the city! (I am amazed by such accuracy). In 2004 they were estimated 3000.

Two main reasons could explain this bottomless pit phenomenon.

First  reason can stem from a lack of supportive measures  and incentives to social integration. Newsome's ten year program was actually primarily based on permanent housing before adressing people's problems, such as alcohol, drug or mental illness. Nothing seems to have been done to drive those people towards social integration. Moreover the city focused on single men but failed in taking care of single families with children. In addition, when people get a chance to get subsidized housing, there is no conditions for them, like a limited time, to leave. So when people move in... they don't move on. They stay for ever with no incentive to get trained, abide by a schedule, find a job, earn a salary and the situation is stuck.

But the main reason seems to me to be "the magnet theory".

The social Policy of the city, aimed to provide support for the homeless, has unwittingly converted itself in a haven for homeless attracting all the freaks of the US. 40% of the homeless in SF are effectively coming from somewhere else.

I heard rumors about states that did send full buses of homeless to San Francisco, which seemed to me rather doubtful. But I actually found evidence of this: The city of San Francisco is suing Nevada for having dumped thousands of poor homeless patients with mental illness into buses with one way tickets to San Francisco and told them to seek medical care there. This state has sent allegedly 1500 people over 5 years, people who should have been taken care of by psychiatric hospitals in Nevada. Can you believe that!

All this comes down to what a federal nation is based on: independant state policies, with the flip side of the coin. The absence of nation wide social program can lead to such a preposterous situation when a state is more careful than its neighbor. 

However I am not sure we have anything to brag about, when we witness the booming of slums spreading out along the northern or eastern highways going out of Paris. I have no numbers for that!

Merry Christmas !!!

The ginger bread house at the Fairmont hotel.