Last week, the city of San Francisco announced a new program which will provide a guaranteed monthly income to trans “identifying” people who are homeless. Meanwhile, homeless people who are not trans-identifying can’t receive these benefits.
The program’s website reads, the “Guaranteed Income for Transgender People (G.I.F.T.)” will “prioritize enrollment of Transgender, Non-Binary, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex (TGI) people who are also Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC), experiencing homelessness, living with disabilities and chronic illnesses, youth and elders, monolingual Spanish-speakers, and those who are legally vulnerable such as TGI people who are undocumented, engaging in survival sex trades, or are formerly incarcerated.”
The program’s guidelines stipulate that 55 transgender-identifying individuals will receive $1,200 a month for up to a year and a half. The mayor’s office states that $2 million has been allocated for the program. The city is accepting applications from November 15 to December 15. Applicants can choose from 97 different genders and 18 preferred pronouns when filling out the paperwork.
The mayor’s office also said that the program will offer participants “gender affirming medical and mental health care.” While the office did not specify what this care includes, it likely encompasses puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and other gender transition procedures such as double mastectomies.
These highly controversial procedures have been proven to cause serious health problems, such as bone density loss, brain development issues, permanent sterilization, blood clots, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and more. The vast majority of Americans recognize the danger of these procedures, yet it seems Californians’ tax dollars will be used to fund them.
Further, the G.I.F.T program is deeply discriminatory. San Francisco has one of the largest homeless populations of any U.S. city, and there will be an estimated 20,000 homeless people in the city by the end of this year. There’s no reason for the city to prioritize assisting trans individuals, other than to send a progressive, virtue signaling message.
This isn’t the first time a city in California has launched a discriminatory program for the homeless. In March, Palm Springs announced that it would “allocate $200,000 to develop a guaranteed income pilot program for transgender and nonbinary residents.”
To solve the homelessness crisis in California, cash handouts with little accountability are not the solution. That makes the situation worse. It is better to follow the example of faith-based organizations like the Bay Area Rescue Mission.
They offer “life transformation programs” where homeless men, women, and children of any background are encouraged to find long-term relief from homelessness through “residential holistic programs,” that offer a “pathway to restoration and hope, identifying destructive behavior, while equipping clients with the necessary resources to establish independent lives of self-sufficiency and self-determination.” That includes things like training and counseling to break drug and alcohol dependence, job skills training, and vocational classes, spiritual guidance and biblical training, job placement, life management skills, and more.
But with discriminatory cash aid programs offered by cities like San Francisco, they are simply attempting to put their wokeness on full display, regardless of the effectiveness of the programs. California needs leaders who will spend taxpayer dollars wisely and fairly. When they don’t, they must be held accountable.
