This is a question many people have been asking for several years; so far, the progress has been minimal when compared to the scope of the problem.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently visited California in response to a request for more federal funding to solve the problem; a letter “Homeless in California” from the HUD secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, explained what the federal government is doing and specifically highlighted the growing problem in California.
The letter starts by defining the problem, “Almost half the unsheltered homeless people in the United States are in California, a level about four times as high as California’s share of the overall U.S. population.” That’s a startling statistic.
So how is our state handling it? A letter from the state recently requested more funds from HUD. The response was that the request “fails to admit that your state and local policies have played a major role in creating the current crisis. California’s unsheltered homeless population has skyrocketed as a result of the state’s overregulated housing market, its inefficient allocation of resources and its policies that have weakened law enforcement.”
They go on to say that the average HUD subsidy per voucher in California is “38 percent higher than the national average” due to the overregulated housing market.
“California cannot spend its way out of this problem using federal funds. A recent CEA (Council of Economic Advisors) report notes that it takes 10 permanent supportive housing beds to reduce the homeless population by one person. Therefore, providing 50,000 more Housing Choice Vouchers targeted to the homeless would be expected to decrease California’s homeless population by just 4 percent (5,000 people).”
HUD goes on the say that by reducing regulatory burdens “CEA estimates that homelessness would fall 54 percent in San Francisco and 40 percent in Los Angeles.”
HUD cites undercutting “the ability of police officers to enforce quality of life laws, remove encampments, and connect our most vulnerable populations with the supportive services they need to get off the streets” as another factor in the escalating problem.
A case a couple of years ago involving a law enacted in Boise, Idaho, which tried to get the homeless camping problem under control, came before the 9th District Court of Appeals in San Francisco. This court is noted for three things: One, it makes very convoluted interpretations of constitutional law; two, it is extremely liberal in the application of laws; and, last, it is often overturned by the Supreme Court.
The Boise law was designed to clean up their downtown areas by forbidding sleeping on the streets, much like the shiftless do elsewhere. But, the 9th Circuit somehow determined that this was a violation of the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Recently, the city of Lompoc removed several camps from the Santa Ynez River, including the residents and the trash and biohazard waste they left behind. The cost: $500,000. Within weeks, the homeless were back in the riverbed and new camps had been established in other areas of the city that were designated as “open space.”
Meanwhile, the lawmakers in Sacramento are busying themselves “advancing legislation to protect homeless people who live in their cars and/or recreational vehicles from fines and vehicle impounds. This legislation has limited the local governments from citing illegal camping on city streets.”
There, that will fix the problem; just enable them to clutter our streets, dump their sewage and garbage wherever they feel like it, and generally thumb their noses at established rules and the public.
Fixing the “homeless problem” is illusive. One homeless man once described it this way, “we are like cars; you can tow us away, but until you raise the hood, you’ll never know what’s wrong with us”; and, police chiefs say “we can’t arrest our way out of this problem.” And now HUD is on record saying more funding won’t fix it either.
They are all right. This is a multilevel issue requiring not only housing, but also additional mental illness and drug/alcohol treatment programs that don’t currently exist. Simply changing laws to allow “urban camping” and constructing large housing projects won’t solve the issue until someone “raises the hood.”
President John F. Kennedy and then-Governor Ronald Reagan both closed mental health institutions five decades ago. These were basically lockups with no real treatment provided to patients. The second phase of this process was supposed to create new state-of-the-art treatment centers; however, the only part that got completed was the closing of the inadequate institutions.
The current practice to allow the homeless to simply sleep on the streets isn’t a very humanitarian way to address the problem of the mentally ill; and it certainly isn’t fair to people who want a clean and healthful public space. There have been several reports of disease-ridden camps in several large cities throughout the U.S. that have taken a hands-off approach to the problem.
There has been a lot of talk, but no meaningful action to resolve the issue. Until legislators stop increasing the cost of housing by mandating costly construction and appliance changes and start addressing the systemic needs of the homeless population, this issue will only grow.
Ron Fink writes to the Sun from Lompoc. Send comments through the editor at clanham@santamariasun.com or write a letter for publication and email it to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 24-31, 2019.