Where do you want them to go, governor?
The US Supreme Court ruled in June that it's totally fine to charge people camping on public property with a crime even if there is nowhere else for them to go, overturning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that it is wrong to criminalize people for sleeping outside when there aren't shelter beds for them. California Gov. Gavin Newsom was one of the elected officials asking them to do this. In late July he started urging city and county officials to start clearing homeless people's encampments. San Francisco is on board; Mayor Breed has told outreach workers to offer bus tickets out of the city to people who might be able to elsewhere before offering any other kind of help, and she's having encampments cleared out pronto.
The city and county of Los Angeles are not on board. City and county officials said they're going to keep doing what they've been doing (finding people housing and services, which is finally having some success - a 10% drop in homelessness over the last year in LA). Even the county sheriff said deputies will not be doing anything to homeless people unless they're committing actual crimes. So Newsom came to LA yesterday with a CalTrans (dept of transportation) crew to performatively clear out a homeless encampment on state-owned land in LA County. No heads up to local officials, just him and CalTrans and a camera crew. And he says he'll re-direct money away from cities that don't do what he wants -- the money cities are using to deal with homelessness.
Long Beach, the city in LA County where I live, has 1300 shelter beds, counting public and private offerings. The annual count of homeless people this past January says there were 3376 unhoused people in the city, so almost three times more people than beds. What will happen here I don't know -- the mayor said after the SCOTUS ruling that we'll keep doing what we have been doing (which, as in LA, is finally starting to show results), and after the governor's order he said we're already in alignment with it (which is to say, the city clears the state-owned land from time to time).
But what I want to know is this: where does the governor think unhoused people are going to go? How does he think hanging criminal convictions on people is going to help them get off the streets?
This fucker has two years left as governor, and he's decided he needs to get some press between now and leaving office so he can set himself up to run for president. So he's going to shift thousands of homeless people from place to place to place so he can look like he got something done.
Go back to The French Laundry, governor. You obviously have no idea how close so many people are to the edge and what they have to deal with once they've gone over it. Or been pushed. (Free link to NYTimes article about Newsom violating his own pandemic orders to eat in a super fancy restaurant.)
The city and county of Los Angeles are not on board. City and county officials said they're going to keep doing what they've been doing (finding people housing and services, which is finally having some success - a 10% drop in homelessness over the last year in LA). Even the county sheriff said deputies will not be doing anything to homeless people unless they're committing actual crimes. So Newsom came to LA yesterday with a CalTrans (dept of transportation) crew to performatively clear out a homeless encampment on state-owned land in LA County. No heads up to local officials, just him and CalTrans and a camera crew. And he says he'll re-direct money away from cities that don't do what he wants -- the money cities are using to deal with homelessness.
Long Beach, the city in LA County where I live, has 1300 shelter beds, counting public and private offerings. The annual count of homeless people this past January says there were 3376 unhoused people in the city, so almost three times more people than beds. What will happen here I don't know -- the mayor said after the SCOTUS ruling that we'll keep doing what we have been doing (which, as in LA, is finally starting to show results), and after the governor's order he said we're already in alignment with it (which is to say, the city clears the state-owned land from time to time).
But what I want to know is this: where does the governor think unhoused people are going to go? How does he think hanging criminal convictions on people is going to help them get off the streets?
This fucker has two years left as governor, and he's decided he needs to get some press between now and leaving office so he can set himself up to run for president. So he's going to shift thousands of homeless people from place to place to place so he can look like he got something done.
Go back to The French Laundry, governor. You obviously have no idea how close so many people are to the edge and what they have to deal with once they've gone over it. Or been pushed. (Free link to NYTimes article about Newsom violating his own pandemic orders to eat in a super fancy restaurant.)
Comments
But, this is not just happening in the US. What happened to all the homeless people in Paris? Could there also be some in London? Or Sydney? It is a worldwide problem.
Somewhere where they’re not his problem, presumably.
Well, if they’re in prison then they won’t be on the streets. That doesn’t make it the right answer, but it does make it an answer.
Yes, I read the document before I posted the link to it. I worked with a similar program in Spokane, WA. The homeless do have a choice. They can accept what is offered--if it is offered--or they face the consequences of being rousted every so often.
Harsh, I know, but the problem has to be addressed.
You are assuming that they are problems. Why are they more problematic than you? I bet your house takes up more space than theirs.
Which may be problematic, as there is a major loophole in the bit which allows the program to terminate clients who do something conflicting with the funder(s)--which apparently means "other funders," i.e. a church, community organization, etc. Which seem to have carte blanche to create rules which may lead to people getting kicked out of the program, and this document won't stop that.
So I can't not wonder: What if the funder(s) are anti-immigrant and want to make undocumented status a reason to leave people in homelessness? Wouldn't this document allow that? I think it's going to be a major issue in a border state.
Ah, I get it.
California has already spent something like $24 billion in the last five years alone trying to deal with homelessness. Imagine if we just handed out that money directly to poor people.
If you look right above what you quoted, you'll see that these funds come from the federal government: the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) Program and ESG-CV Program are HUD programs.
I am not calling homeless people problems. They are the victims of a the problem of not having adequate housing with wrap around service for them. Homelessness has many causes--the housing first plan addresses those causes.
The housing first plan wasn't supposed to include jail.
Isn't Dallas, like most cities, pretty blue? The 30th District (covering most of the city) is held by a Democrat. And most of the funding seems to have come from the federal government.
Yes, but are they the only funders? If so, there’s probably no problem. If private organization also fund a program, that might give them a veto power, the way it’s worded.
My superficiality knows no bounds.
But, a large proportion of those who are homeless (probably the majority) face many problems in addition to just poverty - top of the list being poor mental health, but also having a criminal record creates massive challenges with finding work or housing (which is another good reason why making being homeless a crime is counter productive). Housing first plans are supposed to circumvent the need to address the range of problems that result in people living on the street before getting them into some form of decent housing - but as @Gramps49 said these schemes do need to have the other services to help with all those other problems otherwise all you're doing is taking people off the street temporarily. And, you need those services available for those who have homes that they're struggling to stay in to reduce the number of people becoming homeless.
Of course, there needs to be more for the poor generally - jobs that are well paid and reliable, housing that's decent quality and affordable, affordable public transit to get to work and school, shops selling affordable healthy food and the time to cook that (rather than spending far more on food prepared by others), quality schools so that children can gain the qualifications and skills to get better jobs, etc. But, that seems to be a much broader task than the more specific questions of what the subset of the poor who are living on the streets or sofa-surfing need.
Newsom's photo op and threats to city officials aren't constructive, in either sense of the word.
I did find a comment that California is one of the few states that do not require housing for people who are being released from state prisons. That is about 36,000 people a year. If this is true, California should start using halfway homes to allow for a good transition that will help these people stay off the streets
California's parole re-entry program is a patchwork of outside contractors and no one knows whether it's doing any good or not because the state's data is a complete mess (link goes to reporting on CalMatters' year-long investigation of the program): Something else the governor can't be bothered to do well.
Sure -- where? The point is there isn't enough housing. There are more people than places because we have underbuilt housing in California for decades. There aren't enough shelter beds even, never mind actual housing.
Your experience is second to none @Ruth. And none comes near here it would appear. OK, what about shipping container settlements? That's an open question. And the US army must be able to build prefab camps better than that too. There must be brownfield and (better) 'grayfield' sites all over LA. It always amazes me that with a trillion dollar defence budget, the army cannot provide almost instant housing (and other infrastructure after weather disasters, New Orleans, Puerto Rico come to mind).
& @Gramps49. They have no choice. The concept is meaningless. And they should never be rousted. Re-located to accommodation only, ever. With wrap-around care as you say. If we elevate from the bottom up, everyone is better off.
(I was the longest serving volunteer in a church 'outreach' to the homeless and vulnerably housed in the one of the poorest inner cities in the UK (which has provision in The Dawn Centre, that many don't want). So what. But I have seen it all. And learned how virtually impossible it is to help many desperate people. A - non-church - friend did wonderful work during Covid and got every one off the street in to hotels, in at least one ward. Since Covid they are back in the river camps. My winning the lottery fantasy was to buy an industrial estate to accommodate, train, educate, detox, therapy everyone; wrap-around care. It would only need one hundred million pounds... to lift up a thousand people... In a city with tens of times that of children in poverty. One hundred thousand pounds per person. That's how much it would cost, order of magnitude, to provide the full service. I said that here some years ago and was laughed to scorn. Until someone authoritative agreed.)
Unfortunately, when there are not enough beds available, as you point out Ruth, it becomes a vicious cycle.
California, and other states need to make sure beds are available first before they resort to draconian measures. I concede that.
Do US local governments have powers to buy vacant lots to put social housing on? Or, to require developers to include social housing within the mix of properties they build?
I think your brownfields are worse than ours. We just put people up in hotels too. Thanks to Musk our fascists recently objected to that, but only if the people are brown.
Surely there is a conservative argument for cleaning up brownfields for arcologies for the homeless? No children of course. The Tories here had a penchant for converting inappropriate office blocks even for poor families.
Is zoning de-regulation politically possible in So-Cal?
Do people get housing benefit in the States?
I imagine there is no political-economic tipping point to actually do something.
I can't help fantasizing that inner city arcologies will be needed when that point is soon reached. In China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan (hmmm, quakes) first.
Homeless people tend to have a bunch of problems. They often have problems with drug and alcohol abuse, and by virtue of the fact that they are homeless, end up getting drunk or high in public. Drug habits also tend to accompany petty crime in order to feed the drug habits. Nuisance begging.
Most people don't want to live next to that. You can find plenty of support for providing a secure place for the homeless to sleep, as long as it is somewhere out of the way.
We've only recently started to use the phrase "greyfield", the Labour party in the recent election made a lot of noise about encouraging housebuilding on greyfield sites (especially in the greenbelt). Basically, it's any land that has previously been built on that's not classed as brownfield - so that could include where there has been housing, but also old commercial sites (shops or offices), schools etc.
-- a 1500 sq. ft. lot zoned for dense housing - a small house burned down, and the listing says the owner was told by the city they could get a permit for a small two-story house
-- 2 lots zoned for single-family housing
-- 1 zoned for a duplex (2 families)
-- 1 for mixed use, allowing 4-11 units of housing, according to the listing
-- 3 contiguous lots included in the "Midtown Specific Plan," where the city is trying to encourage development of both businesses and "transit-oriented housing." The zone runs along Long Beach Blvd, a major thoroughfare with two lanes of traffic each direction and in the middle the light rail line that goes up to Los Angeles. This property is on Pacific Coast Highway, a cross street with LB Blvd that has three lanes of traffic each direction. PCH is not owned and maintained by the city but by the state, which doesn't give a rat's ass about us so it's one of the most dangerous roads in the city: 8 people died in traffic accidents on it last year. But an apartment here would beat living in a tent under a freeway overpass. Everything around it is commercial, and the listing is for $11 million, so I'm guessing it will end up as a commercial development. The most expensive house for sale here right now is going for $3.5 million.
Yes. The LB city council passed an ordinance in 2020 (or 2021? not sure) requiring that 11% of rental development be set aside for very low income households and 10% of owned development (condos) be set aside for moderate income households. Development under 10 units is exempt. It applies only to small area of the city along major transit corridors -- 4% of the total land in the city. The city is currently looking at proposals to expand the requirement to the whole city. There are forums later this month and in September asking for public input. Home owners will go and yip about how housing poor people nearby will destroy their homes' value, but there are good organizations in the city representing low-income renters too.
All this is to say it's an enormous problem that's been in the making for decades, and the solutions are hard and expensive and will take a long time. Clearing encampments of unsheltered people from public land will do nothing and is complete bullshit.
It is my understanding this vacant land had been cleared when the freeway was built in the 60s and 70s. I believe this would have been what was considered undesirable neighborhoods. A few years ago, a homeless encampment developed in one small section of this land much to the chagrin of the city. The State Transportation Department owns this land. The city wanted the encampment removed. The highway department said, okay, but you have to find suitable housing for these people.
The city tried to put people in an old warehouse as a general shelter, but the people would not go there.
Then they worked with Catholic Charities and other not for profit agencies to rehabilitate an old, abandoned motel and several other properties that had been apartments. They finally got everyone placed and the encampment was finally closed.
It would seem to me; this strip of land would be a great place to put tiny houses to shelter the homeless.
I am sure the highway department is holding on to this vacant land to eventually add additional lanes to the freeway, but considering other alternative forms of transportation that are developing, maybe the department can sell with first option the land to a developer to build a village of tiny houses. It would give the city more space for the remaining homeless people.
Eventually, if the transportation department wants to use the land it can terminate the lease. Considering how slow the highway department moves around here, though that would be 30 years down the line