Homelessness Standstill in California: Why We Can’t Get Out
According to the White House Council on Economic Advisors, homelessness is a “serious problem” caused by decades of misguided and faulty policies. In California, the epidemic persists, despite new taxes, new legislation, and increasing national attention. Why can’t we come together and solve the problem?
Politics at play
In California the scenario plays out like this. In addressing the issue, Ben Carson visits Los Angeles and acknowledges that people are suffering, and something must be done. People applaud, it makes headlines, and Trump boasts. Mixed in with the applause and news articles is the real message that Carson and most of our elected officials want us to know: “It is not the government’s responsibility to fix this problem.”
Carson seems to weave this message in every time he speaks about the homelessness epidemic. And the actions clearly support that message, as the overall budget is net down since Trump took office. See 4 Reasons the Script on Ending Homelessness Needs to Be Rewritten.
Even the budget to care for our veterans remains flat. While we all want our troops to be removed from harm’s way, we seem to fall short when it comes to what happens to them when they come home. Many of them end up on the streets due to untreated mental illness, including PTSD.
Trump pays a visit to Los Angeles and calls the city a disgrace. He shames it and all of its officials and people. His solution? Reject calls for funding and put it back on the state — a state government that he hates because many of California’s elected officials continue to play that hate, self-pity and victim card toward the president and our country.
What an example we have here, where hate is exchanged for hate and all the while the number of people living on the streets (many without shelter) is growing, along with the death toll which is expected to reach 1,000 people in LA this year — greater than the homicide rate in our nation’s second largest city.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom now proposes to declare a state of emergency in California and quickly approve more legislation that had probably been sitting on his predecessors’ desk for the last two terms. Voters already approved $1.2 billion for proposition HHH in 2016. The money hasn’t been spent as there were too many laws and environmental reviews in the way. It has taken nearly three years for a governor in this state to take action on legislation that was blocking this. Yet, California has accepted the additional tax revenues since 2016.
According to the LA Times, LA County claimed it took almost 22,000 people off the streets in 2018. In the last two and a half years only 477 emergency shelter beds have been added, even though an emergency shelter crisis was declared in 2018. However, the incomplete and inaccurate count shows the homeless numbers on the rise. In LA County, the politician’s debate about whether to build more public bathrooms at an estimated cost of around $385,000 each.
In San Francisco, the city spent nearly $2 billion for permanent and supportive housing (2004–2014) and now the streets are in decay with major outbreaks of Hepatitis A, typhoid and typhus around street encampments (San Francisco, Hostage to the Homeless, City Journal). Today, in San Francisco, a unit of affordable housing costs between $600,000 and $800,000 and building houses for all the homeless would run about $6.4 billion. Many drug courts have been closed with judges refusing to sentence offenders to jail time for fear of overcrowding the jail system.
And with Proposition 47 voted in for California in 2014, the police are rendered nearly powerless as many drug-related crimes do not carry the weight of a felony anymore (i.e., possession under $950 value). So, at a street price of $20 per packet of fentanyl, a dealer can make 47 transactions that could kill 47 people and it’s not a felony! The drug dealers, with the politicians’ assistance, have laid siege to this city (San Francisco) and have kept many homeless addicts disincentivized to seek proper treatment and care. The cost of drugs such as fentanyl remains cheap; however, a small dosage remains lethal.
Bipartisanship no longer exists in this country with the two main parties operating from a place of fear, hate, and resentment. They all proclaim they are for the greater good for all us. But when it comes to this nationwide crisis that just doesn’t hold true.
According to worldwide data, in Ukraine, about 1 million people per night are homeless. In the US, that number is about 550,000. Considering Ukraine’s average monthly income of $200, limited aid, corruption, and a failing economy, one could understand its bleak situation. Why does the US have any homeless at all with the world’s largest economy? The 2019 budget for HUD is $44.1 billion, which is still lower than it was a few years ago. SAMSHA and programs for veterans remain flat.
Meanwhile, back on the streets…
The problem lives on. On any given day in California, almost 130,000 people experience homelessness.Single moms are increasingly at risk. We have to put politics aside and get serious about solutions (like these 5 radical ideas). We have to accept that we all have a responsibility to look out for each other. Lives are at risk. We have to do better and that includes our government.