Here in Los Angeles¹ we have a mayoral election coming up. The two main candidates are Karen Bass, a local member of Congress, and Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer. Caruso is running mainly on a platform of getting tough on crime² and fixing the homeless mess. He's gonna build build build homeless shelters; put in place lots of drug and alcohol rehab centers; force the mentally ill into treatment; and clear out homeless encampments.
In other words, the same thing that everyone says they're going to do but then doesn't because the public revolts. Take the mentally ill, for example:
Six weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a far-reaching effort to push more people into court-ordered treatment for severe mental illness and addiction, homeless advocates are calling it legally misguided and immoral as the proposal’s first public hearing at the state Capitol has been delayed.
....In their 14-page letter, the advocates blasted the proposal as involuntary and coercive treatment that would strip individuals of their personal liberties and “perpetuate institutional racism and worsen health disparities.” They said CARE Court “flies in the face of any evidence-based approach to ending homelessness” because it prioritizes mental health services — not housing — as the initial step toward recovery, which they said would deviate from California’s “housing first” principles.
Ah, this would deviate from our beloved "housing first" principles, which, it turns out, are also widely opposed. In theory everyone loves the idea, but in practice they only love it if it's done somewhere else.³ Plus there's the question of where you're going to hire the thousands of psychiatrists and therapists you'll need at state salaries, all of whom will probably fail anyway since no one really knows how to cure serious cases of mental illness and addiction.
Anyway, Caruso can talk big about homelessness and people will swoon, but all the talk in the world won't fix things. Ditto for money, which we have plenty of. Until residents are willing to accept homeless shelters across the street from where they live, your favorite policies are going nowhere.
¹I say "here," but of course I don't live in LA. However, Caruso is the developer behind The Grove, a high successful outdoor mall in the Fairfax district. I don't care much about that, but Caruso left intact the Farmers Market when he built it and I love the Farmers Market. So I'd probably vote for him regardless of anything else.
²The is a tried-and-true election appeal, even though crime rates were mostly down from 2019 to 2021 (aside from homicides). The increase from 2020 to 2021 is mostly an artifact of crime declines in 2020 thanks to the pandemic.
³And they'd really hate it if they understood that a big part of this program was originally about allowing homeless people to qualify for shelter with no rules at all. None of this "earning it" business, which generally doesn't work but appeals strongly to bourgeois morality.
It's not an easy problem, but I do agree that it has to start with providing shelter to everyone. But, then to keep the shelters livable you need to provide mental health, substance abuse, medical, counseling, and law enforcement services. I can understand why people are NIMBY's about this after we had a temporary shelter about a block away for many years. We supported the location, but it did mean nearly daily sirens blaring as police and ambulances came and went and frequently walking a gauntlet of people asking for money. The location was in the paper every week with crime reports.
Not just any sort of shelter. Individual shelter rather than institutional shelter… deinstitutionalization (which had its advocates on both sides of the proverbial aisle) is a gift which just keeps giving.
The goal is to find a proper place to live for each homeless individual, but where I live we have a "shelter" because homeless people die almost every winter. There needs to be a place they can get in from the cold even if it is temporary. You can't instantly move a person off the streets into an apartment. In my unprofessional opinion seeing the same homeless people on a daily basis for years, and frequently interacting with them since they hang out near where I live, many of them seem to be incapable of basic functional things they would need to be able to do to live on their own.
Credit where credit it due: Caruso not only "left intact" the Farmers Market, he designed the whole schlemiel so that the Farmers Market functions as the food court for the Grove... meaning, the Farmers Market thrived after the arrival of the Grove (now 20 years old!).
However, I'd say the Farmers Market -- which used to have a rule against any chain stores being in the place, creating the homey atmosphere -- has struggled a bit with success. For instance, there are some chains in it now, albeit Starbucks is the only big national one. There's Trejo's Tacos and one or two other places which have presences outside the FM. However, I really have no idea in today's economy how you staff a little restaurant or shop there. Your employees can only afford to live 50 miles away...
All in all, though, the godawful muzak and the dancing water fountain at the Grove counteract any good deed done in saving the FM. Vote for Bass, or Feuer if you must...
Credit where credit *IS due... of course
I work in housing and homeless services.
You are completely incorrect about housing first principles being widely opposed. That couldn't be further from the truth. Where are you getting these notions? Housing first is widely SUPPORTED, not opposed. I suppose you might be referring to opposed in the context of residents who aren't homeless and who haven't worked in housing services, but if you said "housing first" to someone who isn't in the sector, are they even going to know what you're talking about? Some will and some will be able to figure it out, but most won't know and won't care to figure it out.
Also, please switch to person-first language, i.e. "those with mental illness" rather than "the mentally ill." This fucking matters because when you say "the mentally ill" you are writing them off/giving people an excuse to just write them off.
Further, the advocates cited here are completely correct in opposing mandated treatment, for the exact reasons they cite. It's a hairy issue - those we serve who have serious and persistent mental illnesses are hard to house, but forcing them to comply with treatment except in the most extreme cases where there is a possibility of harm to self or others (i.e., involuntary commitment during a psychiatric or somatic health crisis), including neglect/self-neglect - it's not only wrong, but it's counterproductive. When you force someone who already doesn't trust the systems that helped result in/perpetuate their homelessness into treatment that they don't want, it results in more distrust which makes it harder for case workers to get these people into housing and to keep them housed.
It's completely unsurprising that a white middle-aged person from Irvine who's worked remotely for decades wouldn't understand this, but I really wish you would make more of an effort at empathy here.
“Housing first is widely SUPPORTED, not opposed.“
So are abortion rights and pornography consumption rights, and yet somehow very few people seem to want an abortion provider or porn shop directly across the street from their home.
Housing First is widely supported but that support is only a few inches deep. It evaporates entirely when a Housing First building is proposed for a specific piece of land if that land is anywhere near another home, office, shopping center or school.
"Also, please switch to person-first language, i.e. "those with mental illness" rather than "the mentally ill." This fucking matters because when you say "the mentally ill" you are writing them off/giving people an excuse to just write them off."
Really, no. Or, at least, if that's what you're worried about, "those with mental illness" does nothing to correct the issue, and just becomes code for who is doing things "the right way" and who is not. Yay for language policing!
...yes, it does.
If I label you as "Total is mentally ill", rather than "Total is currently suffering from a mental illness", it's more permanent and stigmatizing.
Get real.
Roger that, will now write off those with mental illness instead of mentally ill.
To a random voter "housing first" means wasting a home on a drug addict crazy who will trash the place at best, when the rent is already too damn high.
" Until residents are willing to accept homeless shelters across the street from where they live, your favorite policies are going nowhere."
Thinking in terms of "homeless shelters" guarantees that the problem will never get batter. Why not get homeless people into regular apartments? There is already housing for poor people. More housing might need to be built if there is indeed shortage, but you don't need to build a "shelter" in Brentwood or whatever. Just start paying rent in small apartments in neighborhoods where people with low incomes already live. Don't concentrate them all into one place. I'm not saying it's easy but continuing to try to warehouse the homeless in "shelters" is a guaranteed way to fail.
Just start paying rent in small apartments in neighborhoods where people with low incomes already live.
Uh huh. And which neighborhoods/zip codes, exactly, would you recommend for this humanitarian endeavor? "Dear resident: because it has been determined that you lived in a run-down shithole, we are locating transitional housing in your neighborhood. Let us know if you have any concerns."
Yeah, that's going to go over great, particularly among people of color who look at their property values just like anyone else.
Who said anything about "transitional"?
Which neighborhoods/zip codes?
All of them.
Isn't this kinda typical of activists? Find someone generally sympathetic to your side, then language police them, insult them, tell them that solutions to an issue are impossible because the entire system is somehow unjust, and then demand they support you even more enthusiastically? That's the formula, right?
Sorry, but posts like yours make me MORE in favor of mandatory treatment and institutionalization, because your approach appears to be doing NOTHING.
I'm sorry you just didn't get it.
That's not the formula, and not what I was saying at all.
Call it language policing if you want - I call it basic respect and decency.
A few years ago, I had friend who was president of a small bank in a liberal town down the road. She had a homeless person camp out in her parking lot. When she tried to have the homeless person removed, she was immediately attacked by some of the more "progressive" factions in town. Her protests that she ran a small bank which lacked the skills and resources to function as a social outreach organization were dismissed. Eventually a merchant down the road agreed to allow the homeless man to camp out on his roof, and of course eventually regretted it.
Yes, housing the homeless is "widely supported" in principle. As Kevin said "In theory everyone loves [housing first], but in practice they only love it if it's done somewhere else." Kevin describes reality. Actual homeless shelters are opposed almost anywhere they are located. And if they are in remote locations, the shelter residents revolt.
I agree with both you and Kevin that mental services should not be forced on the homeless - just because therapists exist doesn't mean they cure people. But if treatment doesn't work or if it is not available then the people will remain mentally ill.
This was supposed to be a reply to cmayo
Homeless advocates like to promote just getting people into shelter first, and then helping them with their mental health/addiction issues later (the more radical ones believe thousands of people have the God-given right to sleep all over the streets, and if they shit on your doorstep and use drugs in the alley behind your building you can just stfu, but that's another debate). I think a lot of people might be more open to having transitional housing or treatment facilities in their neighborhoods if the city could guarantee that the only people allowed to live there were getting help and not going to be allowed to shoot up or deal meth or loudly rant at invisible beings on the street corner during the day. But the fact is, many homeless people decline offers of housing if one of the conditions is that they stay sober or take medicine. Some don't think they can do it. Others don't want to. I'm not sure what we can do about that.
Not sure how to include this in your analysis, but here in Los Angeles, during 2020 and 2021, almost all the homeless were masked. So they can follow orders, but somehow not those regulations about defecation, garbage, and being a nuisance (noise, music, shouting).
Just as homeless shelters are needed in inconvenient places, forced treatment of the mentally I’ll is also necessary to address these issues. An unwillingness to discuss the later reveals an unserious interest in actually solving the problem.
See my comment below on Michael Schellenberger. The problem is, you can't just haul everyone in to some center and hand them a pill, a housing voucher, and then send them on their way. Treating mental illness and addiction is *enormously* complicated, time-consuming, and expensive and often takes many, many years of consistent treatment and therapy depending on the individual and the kinds of issues they have. Since when has California, or any state, had the resources (or public patience) to commit to that? Millions of people live with mental illness, some quite severe, and lead productive lives, raise families, and pay their rent/mortgages. Solving the homeless problem involves figuring out how to create a safety net that catches people with mental health (or other health/addiction) issues before they reach a point where they lose their jobs, their homes, and end up on the streets self-medicating with whatever hits they can score.
I agree with virtually everything you say yet without forced treatment many of these individuals will remain where they are. The unwillingness to discuss this as an option is comparable to the gun nuts sharing their “hopes and prayers” while insisting guns are not the problem.
So wait dealing with mental illness and addition is enormously complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, something which no state will have the resources or patience to handle but solving it will require them to do something enormously complicated, time-consuming, and expensive for which they are unlikely to have the resources or patience?
Did you read the first part of what you wrote before you wrote the second part?
Or give them guns and tell them to grab some old property......Max Stirner's solution.
Yes, that's correct. Which is why this is essentially an intractable problem in our current political climate. Even in California.
One of the candidates challenging Gavin Newsom this year is self-described liberal Democrat-turned-Independent Michael Schellenberger who is running on a clearn-up-the-homeless-problem platform. His thesis, outlined in his best-selling book San Fransicko: How Progressives Ruin Cities, is that homelessness is fundamentally a mental health/drug addiction issue, and not a matter of affordable housing. As you might imagine, it's been getting a lot of amens on the right and a lot of Bronx cheers on the left, because the former is supposedly a personal failing you can blame individuals for while the latter is a failing of the capitalist economy and social safety net. So Schellenberger's solution is to basically sweep the homeless off the streets and into treatment centers. What about the ones who don't want that? Well, he's a little vague on that, but the cops will figure it out, or something. And then there's Kevin's question about where the thousands of new social workers are going to come from...
Capitalism is a failure. Under a Authorized leftist era, homosexuality and homelessness will be banned. My guess it's a mental issue coupled not getting "the job" during younger days. When the capitalist system collapses, we all will be homeless.
What on earth are you talking about
Maybe you should understand what occurs when capitalism dies. Ignorance is your friend.
Don't feed the troll.
Pasadena invited homeless to speak at a city council meeting. Four attended, spoke and stated that some 25% wanted to be homeless, no address or P.O. Box, much less phones. Another one I knew, a Viet. vet. living close to the Rose Bowl on a hillside just below quite a few very wealthy people, just wanted to be left alone. I learned, after taking him to a VA hospital for appointments that he was an honest and good person. Loved my dog, who seemed to enjoy his company.
Yes, there are people who need help who are "homeless". Please, just be careful to not lump everyone into categories you, likely, will not be able to support.
Definitely, there are just a certain number who are like "hey, leave me alone, I don't mind living out here. I can take care of myself so just butt out..." And I suppose most of those folks are mostly harmless. Then there are the people who refuse help, but are also (or will be soon) a danger to themselves and others. Where to draw that line is a really tough question, and by the time the cops get involved, it's too late.
"I love the Farmers Market. So I'd probably vote for him regardless of anything else."
This is the dex talking, right?
Sometimes it's not so hard. My neighborhood was very supportive of adding a shelter for homeless families waiting to get their more permanent housing. The biggest concern among the locals was making sure the kids had easy access to a playground. Luckily the shelter was already figuring that out.
But in a nearby suburb the locals freaked out about a proposed in-patient treatment center for young women with eating disorders. I have no idea what they thought girls with anorexia would do to their neighborhood. Talk about rabid Nimbyism!
In another neighborhood that has long had homeless shelters, the changing structure of the day shelters caused a lot of issues. Instead of busing elsewhere during the day as most had in past years, many people stayed nearby, spending a lot of time outside on the sidewalks. Some used the bathroom outside, some decided it would be fun to grope women walking by. That wasn't very good for business, and a lot of female renters in the area got sick of it pretty fast.
In the comments section of this weekend's NYTimes article about homeless deaths on the streets of Los Angeles, was this:
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We need to recognize that there are two distinct homeless problems: 1) ordinary people who are simply down on their luck and unable to make ends meet, and 2) the mentally ill, addicted and other antisocial people who can’t function. We need different approaches for these different groups.
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Homeless advocates like to portray everyone on the streets as meritorious. There because of physical health problems, financial turmoil, lost employment, and escaping domestic violence. There are many of those and they respond to offers of temporary help and shelter. That's good and should be supported.
But the majority are not like that. I live 1,000 feet from an encampment under the 405 freeway. There have been three shootings in four years and - since I help one apartment with security cameras - six instances of trespass, theft or broken car windows, by nearby homeless in one month (this March).
We have one homeless person on camera stealing a bike. Good picture of the culprit. The location where she hangs out (behind a blue plastic tarpaulin). We call the police, they arrive, but will not search the encampment without a search warrant, They also wanted footage of the actual theft from their balcony (impossible without cameras everywhere - all we had were perimeter cameras). All we had was her wheeling the bike out through the lobby which fails to identify the bike as stolen from that particular tenant. The management and the affected tenant gave up on retrieving the bike. A few days later one apartment manager saw her walking down the street pulling the handles on all parked cars.
As far as "Until residents are willing to accept homeless shelters across the street from where they live, your favorite policies are going nowhere" is concerned. There is no problem. There's plenty of open space in the Antelope Valley for the homeless to stay. Clear out the camps under the freeways (and elsewhere) and bus them to a desert facility, where there would be toilets, clean water, shower facilities, and whatever it takes to insure safety from other homeless or intruders (e.g. fencing).
Karen Bass is my representative and I really like her. Pragmatic progressive. She'd easily win if not for the homeless issue. I think Caruso will win the mayoral election.
This is a good example of the problem. There aren't two populations, because the one population is caused by being homeless. Forcibly relocating people to a new isolated environment is not the way to solve the problem.
https://www.hcd.ca.gov/grants-funding/active-funding/docs/housing-first-fact-sheet.pdf
I think every community should be able to provide affordable housing for at least 1% of its population. Especially when the community is near transit. I advocate the state government mandate this. I really really want to see the homeless housing near the Atherton train station.
The Woodside and Portola Valley afforable housing should be interesting as well. They might have to build a bus station to provide transportation for that housing. 😉
There should be three tiers of housing. Dedicated areas with toilets where people can camp without being pushed along by the cops; these are intended as emergency areas. Emergency shelter to provide a warm place to sleep out of the snow and rain. Housing first. A bed and a bath with a lock on the door widely available to anyone who wants it and can't afford it. Every community should be required to provide this type of basic accommodation to house 1% of its population.
And mental health services, etc, with free public transportation, to serve and support the community should also be present in each community.
The irony here is how you keep reminding us that most of America is apolitical, and yet homelss solutions are "widely" hated.