“About Last Night” is a 1986 movie remade in 2014 based on the 1970's play “Sexual Perversity in Chicago”. A summary of the play: “intimate relationships as minefields of buried fears and misunderstandings.”
This morning I was thinking about last night at DLANC.
The Executive Committee put this Motion on the agenda: “The Board asks that there be a moratorium on development of additional SRO units
(permanent supportive housing) and a ban on the establishment of more social service programs beyond what already exists within the Central City East boundaries”.
Some Skid Row folks and orgs were there last night to weigh in against the motion. Almost all the Board spoke on it and everyone was against it ranging from passionate denunciations to embracing the spirit behind wanting to say something but not liking the words moratorium and ban.
No one seconded the motion and then a straw poll taken by President Patti Berman showed around one-third wanting to move forward with the agenda and two-thirds wanting to continue the discussion. I walked out in the middle of the discussion on the merits of a Working Group versus an Ad Hoc Committee.
To me, both the Motion and the process by which it came to be were so deeply flawed that continuing discussion gave it a credibility it didn’t deserve.