“Having paid lip service to the goal of ending chronic homelessness, the Bush Administration is now threatening to kill off the only program that could possibly achieve it”—–New York Times May 10 lead editorial, “Killing Off Housing for the Poor”
For the past six months, the San Francisco Chronicle has lied to its readers about the Bush Administration’s commitment to ending chronic homelessness. In story after story, and in a succession of editorials, the Chronicle has bought hook, line and sinker the phony claims of Bush homeless czar Phillip Mangano that the federal government was providing “new” resources to combat chronic homelessness. Meanwhile, the paper has ignored Bush’s assault on Section 8 housing, described in the above Times editorial as the only program that could end the problem.
While Chronicle readers have been handed the fiction that a two-bit “Good Samaritan” program is the answer to chronic homelessness, most of America has heard the truth. That’s why a bipartisan group of elected officials from across the country are fighting to save Section 8.
According to the Times, Bush’s proposed cuts to Section 8 housing has already caused some builders to back away from affordable housing projects.
We previously reported that on April 22 the Bush
Administration changed the rules for Section 8,
a shift likely to soon put thousands of families on the streets.
But the Chronicle’s editorial board and news editors have heaped nothing but praise on Bush homeless staff. The paper not only refuses to cover Bush’s harmful actions, but it has used its voice to try to give credibility to the Administration’s “lip service” about ending chronic homelessness.
There is a jury instruction that states that a witness willfully false in one area of testimony should be disbelieved in others. The Chronicle’s knowingly false coverage of Bush homeless policy undermines its credibility in all of its news coverage.
