OK. It is time to stop any thinking that the hybrid charity/govt organization Sacramento Steps Forward is doing anything other than going after people's dough for the sake of going after people's dough. They've adopted a corporate mindset: It's all about the money.
For corporations, that's legitimized. Big corporations are, by Supreme Court determination, supposed to be wholly at work for the stockholders. It is all about profits for them.
Sacramento Steps Forward, on the other hand, is supposed to be at work for the public. Certainly, they are tasked with the job of helping the homeless -- but that shouldn't be, and certainly needn't be at odds with serving the public interest. And how should they "serve" the public? By being an honest and straightforward enterprise -- which is what they've chosen not to be.
Three days ago, Bob Erlenbusch, of Sacramento Housing Alliance and whom I believe is on the Board of SSF, was quoted at the SSF Facebook site saying SSF doesn't need the hundred thou until the end of the year [see graphic at the bottom of this post], but Sac Steps Forward is playing a game of "bucks rush" to try to panic the public into sending in money straight away because there is a dire emergency. {Pay us before you have time to think! It's a dire emergency!! Pay us NOW!!!]
Something else the public isn't told in the email campaign is that grants are being sought. Very likely, I aver, the grant givers are standing on the sidelines to bridge the gap in the gap -- that is, to pay whatever short of the $100,000 that Sacramento Steps Forward seeks. So, the probable truth is that the public gets hassled and then hustled when there really isn't going to be any shortfall in the Winter-help program till. It's all just a rabid-dog marketing scheme. Right now on SSF's homepage at their website is a big blue sign that says "Urgent!"
Just as bad as all of this is that Sacramento Steps Forward doesn't have a real sense of what being homeless in our county is like. How could they, from their Ivory Tower? If you go to their website, you will see that they could just as well be talking about Hampton dilettantes or people in wheelchairs or hotdog-cart vendors as Sacramento homeless people. The experience of being homeless and cold and miserable and at risk isn't delved into. I think this is because the lot of them don't have a clue. An exception is Rudolph and TRB, who curiously are on a committee as homeless representatives when neither is homeless anymore, and when both were there to accept winter-long stays at Hawthorn Suites for SafeGround's core members from Mayor Johnson in 2009, when most of the rest of us were left to struggle with the elements. This, when SafeGround would have nothing to do with Winter Shelter. It's a lot like Benedict Arnold supposing he can take off his new Red Coat and come back, again, to work for George Washington at Valley Forge.
For corporations, that's legitimized. Big corporations are, by Supreme Court determination, supposed to be wholly at work for the stockholders. It is all about profits for them.
Central bit of SacStepForw's email sent Friday.The countdown of days is in red,which presents a falsified sense of urgency. Click here to enlarge to a more-easily-readable size. |
Three days ago, Bob Erlenbusch, of Sacramento Housing Alliance and whom I believe is on the Board of SSF, was quoted at the SSF Facebook site saying SSF doesn't need the hundred thou until the end of the year [see graphic at the bottom of this post], but Sac Steps Forward is playing a game of "bucks rush" to try to panic the public into sending in money straight away because there is a dire emergency. {Pay us before you have time to think! It's a dire emergency!! Pay us NOW!!!]
Something else the public isn't told in the email campaign is that grants are being sought. Very likely, I aver, the grant givers are standing on the sidelines to bridge the gap in the gap -- that is, to pay whatever short of the $100,000 that Sacramento Steps Forward seeks. So, the probable truth is that the public gets hassled and then hustled when there really isn't going to be any shortfall in the Winter-help program till. It's all just a rabid-dog marketing scheme. Right now on SSF's homepage at their website is a big blue sign that says "Urgent!"
From SSF's Facebook wall; an entry dated 10/11. [Click here to enlarge slightly.] UPDATE: SSF has taken down this entry. |
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