Whitaker talks Joplin affair
ARTS
08
17
Sophie Calle
25
Jennifer Holliday
The
www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Hate crimes up in CA by Seth Hemmelgarn
Vol. 47 • No. 28 • July 13-19, 2017
LGBT data collection underway in CA, SF
H
ate crimes rose in California by about 11 percent from 2015 to 2016, according to a new report from state Attorney General Xavier Becerra The 2016 edition Rick Gerharter of the Hate Crime in Attorney General California report says Xavier Becerra there were 837 biasmotivated incidents in 2015 and 931 in 2016, an 11.2 percent increase. Hate crime incidents related to the victim’s sexual orientation went from 188 to 207, an increase of 10.1 percent. “When someone commits a crime motivated by hate, it is not just an attack on one innocent person, but an attack on the entire state and our communities,” Becerra said in a July 3 news release announcing the report’s publication. “We can see from today’s report that words matter, and discriminatory rhetoric does not make us stronger but divides us and puts the safety of our communities at risk. This is why condemning hate crimes, discrimination, and racism is critical to ensuring all Californians live without fear of being targeted because of their race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation. “As California’s attorney general, I am committed to working with local law enforcement agencies, schools, and local communities to enforce California’s anti-hate crime statutes to the fullest extent of the law. I strongly encourage anyone who believes they are a victim of a hate crime to report it to local law enforcement immediately,” he added. The report is drawn from data submitted by police departments, district attorneys, and other agencies throughout the state. While hate crimes went up last year, the report shows there’s been a decrease in the last decade. In 2007, 1,426 bias-motivated crimes were reported, meaning there was a drop of 34.7 percent by the end of 2016. Hate crime incidents related to sexual orientation have also decreased since 2007, when 263 such cases were reported statewide, leading to a 27.1 percent drop over the last decade. The attorney general’s report says that cases related to race/ethnicity/national origin bias were the most common kind of hate crime over the past 10 years, while incidents related to the victim’s sexual orientation were the second most common. According to the report, crimes motivated by a bias against gay men went from 108 in 2015 to 152 in 2016, a 40.7 percent jump. In San Francisco in 2016, there were 36 See page 14 >>
Natalie Summers from Openhouse, right, took a photo of Sister Rose Mary Chicken and E.J. Hebert in Jane Warner Plaza in May as part of a project that asked federal officials not to remove LGBT elders from the National Survey of Older Americans.
by Matthew S. Bajko
I
n the late 1970s Prudence Hull and her colleagues at the community college district in San Francisco worked to defeat a proposed policy that would have banned gay and lesbian people, and possibly straight educators who had gay friends, from working in California’s public schools. To their relief, voters rejected the statewide ballot measure, known as the
Briggs initiative, in November 1978. At that time if a government agency had asked someone about their sexual orientation, “people would have absolutely freaked,” said Hull, 66, who is straight, as she prepared to march in this year’s Pride parade in San Francisco with a contingent honoring those who successfully campaigned against the homophobic measure. Throughout her life Hull said she couldn’t
recall ever being asked to specify her sexual orientation on a government form or in a health care setting. She doubted she would have provided such information had she been asked to due to privacy concerns. “The only person I could think would ask such a question would be my gynecologist asking about my sexual health history,” said Hull. See page 11 >>
Guerneville looks at homeless options Rick Gerharter
by Charlie Wagner
A
ngry residents shot down a Sonoma County proposal for a homeless service center in the LGBT-friendly town of Guerneville earlier this year, as the tourismdependent area struggles to develop next steps to deal with what some call a growing issue. After county officials announced a $1 million plan to buy a small horse ranch on Armstrong Woods Road for the center, residents packed a meeting of the Sonoma County Community Development Commission, which is tasked with managing the homeless population. Exact figures on the number of homeless weren’t available (the county’s Point-In-Time count is slated for next year), but some residents estimate it to be around 200 people. While small compared to the thousands of homeless people living on the streets in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities, Guerneville residents have raised concerns about tent encampments near the Russian River and the possibility of water pollution from trash and human waste. According to the SCCDC website, the proposed center would have provided substance abuse counseling, primary care, dental care, and other services and would have contained a seasonal emergency shelter with 25-35 beds. County employees and possibly volunteers would have staffed it. The April SCCDC meeting drew hundreds of people, including Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, whose district includes
Charlie Wagner
The “pantry” area being set up in the Vacation Beach encampment in Guerneville.
Guerneville. Groups represented included the Guerneville Community Alliance, formed by Mark Emmett and other residents, and the Committee to Protect Guerneville School Children, Seniors, and Environment. Five locations in and near Guerneville were discussed at the meeting. Attendees were given green dots to place on a board to indicate which location they favored, although only Armstrong Woods was immediately available. News reports on the meeting suggested most residents opposed
{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS }
any new shelter and favored continuing to use the Veterans Building in town, which operates a seasonal winter shelter from December to March. Not everyone agrees on what most residents want. “I don’t think the majority of residents favor the status quo,” Hopkins said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “Most of the green dots were on the other locations.” Emmett said, “Unless we want to expand our infrastructure with more ambulances and deputies, most residents oppose a new shelter.” Debra Johnson, the broker-owner of the Berkshire-Hathaway real estate office in Guerneville, said, “For people at the April meeting, the answer is yes, they oppose any change. But lots of people are afraid and there’s no easy solution.” Johnson is one of the organizers of what she calls the “Garbage Patch Kids.” Her group works with local environmental organizations like Riverkeeper and Clean River Alliance to keep homeless encampments from spilling garbage and human waste into the Russian River. In early May Hopkins said the county was no longer pursuing the Armstrong Woods property and was planning alternative strategies, according to the Sonoma West newspaper. “We’re changing our approach based on community feedback,” she told the paper. According to the county’s Homeless Management Information System, over 70 percent of people who are homeless in the river area were See page 14 >>