In the LA Times today, Anita Chabria reports that Gov. Gavin Newsom is sick and tired of California's lack of progress on homelessness:
On Thursday, Newsom hopes to shake up both our dissatisfaction and the status quo by rejecting every local homeless action plan in the state, demanding more intensity when it comes to getting people off the streets and into homes.
....If need be, he said, he’ll be the “mayor of California,” in places that can’t or won’t do it themselves — a sentiment that is going to throw down “a bit of a gauntlet” and make a lot of people angry (including mayors and other politicians who are “actually friends, like some of our friends that come over for the holidays”).
....What’s at stake is a delay in the next big round of funding that cities, counties and continuums of care are expecting — roughly at least $600 million set to be divided among 75 governments and service providers that applied for the grant money, either alone or in groups.
Newsom gestures here in the right direction—local control is a horror show—but then goes off course by using money as his primary leverage.
Money is always a problem, especially in big cities where building shelters is inherently expensive. But it's not the main problem. The biggest problem is that everyone wants shelters, but only if they're built someplace else. Unfortunately, "someplace else" doesn't want them either. And most communities will tie things up in court endlessly if you try to force shelters on them.
The only real answer is for Newsom to persuade the legislature to pass some kind of safe harbor law. This would override CEQA, our notorious lawsuit machine, and provide developers with a smallish set of essential conditions that would guarantee they could build with only minimal contact with the judiciary. At that point, local communities that want to build shelters would be able to do it, and with additional legislation Newsom could force recalcitrant communities to do it too.
Would the California legislature ever pass a law like this? The magic eight ball says "unlikely." But what else would work? California has 160,000 unhoused people, of which about 100,000 are unsheltered. It's just not possible to build that many beds without a very big stick, and that means money + the legal means to keep development out of constant legal purgatory.
Newsom could try flying the homeless to Florida. /s
Sorry about that. Sanat Rosa built a number of tiny homes for the homeless on county property nestled under Hood mountain and about a mile from where I live. There was some muted grumbling, but my neighbors largely took the situation in their strides. But, alas, the facility had to be evacuated first because of wild fire, and then because of Covid.
Santa Rosa
California should just build some new cities on ranch land acquired with eminent domain, and make them exempt from the get-go from CEQA and any zoning laws. It'll be easier to do that than to fight for that many homeless shelters, and possibly profitable for the state eventually.
A Field of Dreams build it and the will come sort of thing?
I say require all parking lots to be used as safe camping sites, with water, toilets, medical care.
That's a sure way to: solve the problem quickly; and immediately end the political career of anyone who calls for this. 😉
I've heard that people are already living in Wal-Mart parking lots. Minus the medical care, of course. Water and toilets only during operating hours.
It's an awful lot of space that we expect and/or require to be empty most of the time
We have an older Walmart that's been sitting empty for a decade. The state/county should buy it and convert the inside into tiny house units. Have communal bathrooms, the local food pantry there and health care too.
I have been assured by Rick Caruso - in six thousand TV ads - that he is going to solve the homeless problem in 300 days.
MY plan is to tell people I have a plan.
Hey, it's worked for the Qpublican Party for decades now! They have advanced from the "secret plan" to the "plan you'll see after you elect me" to just claiming what the Democrats have been doing is bad, so elect me! Trust me, it'll be great!
Caruso might win, though he's behind in the polls. Los Angelinos are fed up with the homeless. All the city council races have homelessness as a major issue. I've been exposed to some of the worst aspects of the homeless, having lived 1,000 feet from a large under-the-freeway encampment for over a decade.
Re the encampment: While I was walking by, someone from a homeless support organization (either city or city-funded) showed up to give sandwiches to the homeless. Only handed out the food. There was no engagement whatsoever (in fact, I was offered a sandwich, which I politely declined). It was obvious that this "support" organization wanted to do the minimal and then get the hell out of there.
I am convinced that some city officials and homeless advocates actually like some of them on the streets. Local color, like the favelas in Brazil. Look at those colorful tents! See those bicycle parts stacked ten feet high! Oooh, there's someone who made a fire on the sidewalk - how inventive!
On Twitter I asked a conservative how they planned to solve the homeless crisis without taxes to pay for shelters and treatment. The answer was, "but not here!"
I have to say, this cognitive dissonance also applies to the left and center, too. So many rich liberals do not want homeless shelters in their neighborhoods, either.
"You can be homeless, just not here." -- Majority of Americans
I don't my kid to step on a used needle coming down our steps.
Shorter Newb:
"Not in my back yard!"
No one wants to be around these useless people. In earlier times, they would have been banished from the tribe and left to starve. We'd like to pretend we are more civilized now, but really we are not. If you allow these pitiful people to gather into a place they will surely wreck it and render the surrounding areas uninhabitable by others. This is just a fact of life. No one wants to be around them. And, really, why would we?
Meanwhile, your other fellow citizens are happy to give up on all this liberal BS. The police endorse the rioter for congress. What he didn't destroy that day, he'll surely destroy come January 2023.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/police-back-republican-candidates-us-midterms-even-those-jan-6-riot-2022-11-03/
"More than 100 police officers were injured in the storming of the Capitol that day. But despite running ads highlighting Van Orden's presence at the rally, the Democrat failed to win the state police union's endorsement."
So again... the liberal project which you love (and I used to) is now over. The well of compassion is dry.
Thank you for your insight on the "useless" and "pitiful" people. Most people "like to pretend we are more civilized" than you, and we are.
Hey, guess what? Thursday night at 8:30 pm PDT (during game 5 of the World Series) a 75 year old woman called me because she was being menaced by two homeless guys at a bus stop. She asked if I could drive her home, which I did immediately. (Told her to call me anytime that happens again.)
Those guys are useless. Also those who collect garbage. And those that steal (I did IT support at an apartment and processed perimeter security cams. Saw a woman take out a bicycle. I had clear picture of her. We told the police where she went, but they wouldn't even look for the bicycle without a warrant,) The nearby homeless camp - only 1,000 feet away - was site of 3 shootings in 4 years.
There are homeless that are reasonably tidy and law abiding.. They aren't the issue. The issue is that homeless advocates fail to categorize, especially the "problematical homeless" which are responsible for the overwhelming number of complaints. They BS about how all homeless are meritorious, which is a lie.
The homeless negatively affect poor people much more than those better off. The refusal of homeless advocates to recognize that shows me that they are not in touch with the situation. They "pretend to be civilized" when they don't care about those who are negatively impacted by the problem homeless, especially the poor and elderly.
Had everyone attended a Pasadena city hall meeting last year about the homeless (four officially attended and spoke) they would find out that a quarter to a third do not want an "address". I regularly took two homeless living in the Arroyo, who were veterans, to the VA in Santa Monica.
The ignorance about their "situation", to me, is astounding and elitist, pretty much out of touch with reality. Yes, there are those who are (hopefully temporarily) financially disadvantaged. Some are fighting to get back on their feet.
Flying many to Florida might be appropriate as many seniors are dead from Florida disease policies, leaving empty housing.
Thanks for trying to help.
Cheaper housing, though needed, won't alone won't deal with homelessness--it's more complicated than that.
"The only real answer is for Newsom to persuade the legislature to pass some kind of safe harbor law."
The question then would be, so you can do this to build housing for the homeless but not for say, middle class Californian's?
That's all pre-COVID numbers since the PIT/HIC was in January of 2020 before there was a COVID impact. I don't think there's 2022 national data out even though HUD has confirmed all of the PIT and HIC data nationally already. SF looks like they made some progress in the right direction in 2022 - https://hsh.sfgov.org/get-involved/2022-pit-count/ but I'm not sure if there's any statewide data sharing in CA that has the 2022 trends yet. My impression from news coverage is the LA area it's kept getting worse but none of that coverage has that much data to back it up.
Speaking from near-total ignorance, outside of some Ezra Klein op-eds and similar, I think we Libz have locked down major construction projects with so many regulations and mandatory reports and requirements for public hearings and public input, with the honest and well-meaning goal of making past atrocities impossible, that now we can't build anything anymore.
This bites on the homeless ("un-housed"?) situation, sure. But it will also make converting from fossil fuels to renewables hard to impossible as well. National regulation is near impossible, with the dysfunctional Congress we currently have (and will get worse if the Republicans seize one or more Houses). The Qpublican Supreme Court is on the verge of declaring that no regulatory agency is allowed to regulate, per the 1700-vintage Constitition.
We have backed ourselves into a cull de sac and it's going to be hard work and a lot of time to dig out. Trouble is, our technological civilization -- and our democracy -- might not have that much time left.
Here me out, how about Sanctuary Districts!?
It seems like Kevin's saying Newsom has simple answers to complex questions that led to an action plan that costs lots and achieves little. In my experience, that's a symptom of the 'disrespect' thought process: [everything] - [everything I know] = [irrelevant].
If my thinking is correct, and if Kevin is also correct, then the other things Newsom's doing include: providing his allies with a bad example, angering his adversaries, and driving a wedge between the two.
One alternative would be to adopt the 'respect' thought process: [everything] - [everything I know] = [infinity], but that would make him an outlier and unelectable. That is, unless enough people adopted the 'respect' thought process.
What conservatives have done for us, --what was once urban legend is now urban hysteria.
"The biggest problem is that everyone wants shelters"
I think everyone wants housing. It's hard to see how increasing the amount of housing by 1% is a huge ungamable problem. e.g.:
Buy 1% of existing housing and have the state own and operate that housing. Socialism!
Place a tax of 1% on all new construction, which might be waived if sufficient affordable local housing exists in the community.
While my dream is of a large affordable housing apartment complex near the Atherton train station, I don't really care if Atherton gives money to neighboring cities to have them house Atherton's share of the homeless population.