Longtime San Francisco activists will remember Matrix, Frank Jordan’s sweep ‘em off the streets homeless policy. Although started with the intention of pairing lifestyle crime enforcement with social services, it ended up just being a ticket factory. Homeless folks were barraged with tickets for things like sleeping on the parks and pissing in the bushes, when many of them weren’t able to pay these tickets, they ended up with bench warrants, which made it harder to get services or find housing.

According to Chris Daly’s office, rumors indicate that Gavin Newsom’s decided to kick off a similar program Monday morning.

Phil Ginsburg, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, admitted to the new program, but said that the effort would be “mostly service related” and referenced the City’s Homeless Outreach (HOT) Team.

Captain Gary Jimenez of the Tenderloin Station claimed to have no new orders in writing but said that he has heard the rumor and that “it may be a good rumor.” He went on to say that the rumor included some effort to “clean up” identified “hot spots” of homeless people.

News of the launch of this initiative comes just days after the release of the 2007 Homeless Count showing an increase in homelessness.

“Using the police to crack down on homeless people is a common election year tactic for Mayors with no results in reducing our population of homeless people. The Mayor will try to cover-up his failures by resurrecting Frank Jordan’s Matrix program,” said Daly. “The city should be working harder to uproot poverty and despair, not harassing people who live in the streets simply because they are poor and have no place to live.”

The fight against the first Matrix program led to a short-lived organization called MASS (which at various times stood for “Movement Against Stupid Scapegoating” and “Movement Against Stupid Shit”, if I recall correctly), which included, among other people, Van Jones, Chris Daly, and myself.