Rising homelessness is tearing California cities apart

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/21/california-authorities-uproot-
homeless-people-00057868

Democrats are under pressure to fix the state's most pervasive problem —
or at least move it out of sight.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A crew of state workers arrived early one hot summer
day to clear dozens of people camped under a dusty overpass near
California’s Capitol. The camp’s residents gathered their tents, coolers
and furniture and shifted less than 100 feet across the street to city-
owned land, where they’ve been ever since.

But maybe not for much longer.

The city of Sacramento is taking a harder line on homeless encampments,
and is expected to start enforcing a new ban on public camping by the end
of the month — if the courts allow.

As the pandemic recedes, elected officials across deep-blue California are
reacting to intense public pressure to erase the most visible signs of
homelessness. Democratic leaders who once would have been loath to
forcibly remove people from sidewalks, parks and alongside highways are
increasingly imposing camping bans, often while framing the policies as
compassionate.

“Enforcement has its place,” said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, a
Democrat who has spent much of the past year trying to soothe public anger
in a city that has seen its unsheltered homeless population surpass that
of San Francisco — 5,000 in the most recent count compared with San
Francisco’s 4,400. “I think it’s right for cities to say, ‘You know, there
are certain places where it’s just not appropriate to camp.’”

Steinberg is one of many California Democrats who have long focused their
efforts to curb homelessness on services and shelter, but now find
themselves backing more punitive measures as the problem encroaches on
public feelings of peace and safety. It’s a striking shift for a state
where 113,000 people sleep outdoors on any given night, per the latest
statewide analysis released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development in 2020. California’s relatively mild climate makes it
possible to live outdoors year-round, and more than half of the nation’s
unsheltered homeless people live here.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced the state had cleared
1,200 encampments in the past year, attempting to soften the message with
a series of visits to social service programs. But without enough beds to
shelter unhoused people, advocates say efforts to clear encampments are
nothing more than cosmetic political stunts that essentially shuffle the
problem from street corner to another.

Steinberg, a liberal Democrat who resisted forcibly removing people until
more shelters can come online, has for more than 20 years championed
mental health and substance abuse programs as ways to get people off the
street. But such programs have been largely unable to keep up with the
rising number of homeless people in cities like Sacramento, where local
leaders are now besieged by angry citizens demanding a change.

He and many of his fellow Democratic mayors around the state are not
unsympathetic to their cause. San Diego has penalized people refusing
shelter. Oakland upped its rate of camp closures as the pandemic receded.
San Jose is scrambling to clear scores of people from an area near the
airport or risk losing federal funding.

“No one’s happy to have to do this. ... We’re doing everything we can to
provide people with better choices than the street.”

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria

“No one’s happy to have to do this,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria said
earlier this summer as he discussed ticketing people who refuse shelter.
“We’re doing everything we can to provide people with better choices than
the street.”

Other Democratic leaders around the country, facing similar pressure, have
also moved to clear out encampments and push homeless people out of public
spaces. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain who won
his office on a pledge to fight crime, came under fire this year for his
removal of homeless people from subways and transit hubs. The city’s
shelter system is now bursting at the seams.

In California, where the percentage of people living day-to-day on the
streets is far higher than New York, the shortage of shelter beds has
caused friction and embroiled local and state officials in court
challenges.

A recent court decision requires local governments to provide enough beds
before clearing encampments — a mandate that does not apply to state
property. But that’s easier said than done in a state where there are
three to four times as many homeless people as shelter beds.

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California’s homelessness problem has deep, gnarled roots dating back
decades, but has become increasingly pronounced in recent years. Tents and
tarps on sidewalks, in parks and under freeways have become a near-
ubiquitous symbol of the state’s enduring crisis. A pandemic-spurred
project to move people from encampments to motels has lapsed, and eviction
moratoriums have dissolved. Homelessness is a top concern for voters in
the liberal state, and as Democrats prepare for the midterm elections,
Newsom and other leaders have been eager to show voters they’re taking
action.

But the practice of clearing out camps can be a futile exercise,
particularly when the people being forced to pack up their tents have
nowhere else to go or simply end up doing the same thing just a few blocks
away.

Weeks after state transportation workers cleared the space under the
Sacramento highway, people are still camped out along a city sidewalk
across the street, with blankets, chairs, tires and shelves spilling out
onto the street and, at times, blocking driveways.

Syeda Inamdar, who owns a small office building on the block, said her
tenant is afraid to come to work because of the camp. A nearby Starbucks
abruptly closed earlier this year, citing safety concerns.

“This is not safe for anybody,” said Inamdar, who is sympathetic to the
people in the camp but says she’s nevertheless thinking of just giving up
and selling the property.

Jay Edwards, a homeless man in his 60s, said he and many of his fellow
residents felt safer under the overpass, where their tents didn’t block
footpaths and people didn’t bother them. Newsom and others have described
living situations like his — in a blue tent, with a dirty mattress,
surrounded by piles of random belongings and trash — as inhumane. Edwards
disagreed.

“It’s not inhumane,” he said. “It’s the people’s attitudes that make it
inhumane.”

The state has given more than $12 billion in recent years to help local
governments build housing and shelter. But it could be years before those
units are built.

In Sacramento, city and county leaders just made it easier for authorities
to clear tents from sidewalks and along a popular river trail. But some
want even tougher laws. Earlier this year, a coalition of Sacramento
business owners approached city councilors hoping to put a measure on the
November ballot that would compel the city to move camps blocking
sidewalks and create more shelter for those they moved. The Council, whose
members run without party affiliation, voted to put the measure on the
ballot, with some caveats that enlist the help of the county.
Councilmember Katie Valenzuela was one of two members who voted against
it.

“It’s not inhumane. It’s the people’s attitudes that make it inhumane.”

Jay Edwards, a homeless man in his 60s who felt safer under an overpass

She said moving the camps won’t help the root of the problem, and the city
can’t afford the amount of space that would be necessary to house people
cleared from encampments.

“People are saying ‘oh you’ve got the space to do this, just put them all
on 100 acres.’ That’s not how this works,” she said.

Newsom appears to be feeling the pressure as well, channeling voter
frustration by calling proliferating encampments “unacceptable” and
pointing to the litter-filled highway underpasses he cleans during press
events as evidence the state has become “too damn dirty.”

Historically, California governors have been reluctant to funnel
significant resources to combat the homeless problem. But Newsom, a former
mayor of San Francisco, has made it a centerpiece of his administration.
The governor has secured hundreds of millions of dollars to help local
governments address encampments by offering residents services and helping
them find shelter, on top of the billions of dollars California has poured
into homelessness more broadly and a state program to convert hotels and
motels into low-income housing.

But those efforts aren’t happening fast enough for many in California,
including merchants who are languishing in downtowns that are inundated
with tents, tarps and other refuse from the people who have taken up
residence on sidewalks and street corners. Business owners in San
Francisco’s historic Castro District threatened to stop paying taxes last
month if city officials didn’t do something about the vandalism, littering
and frequent display of psychotic episodes that are a result of the
neighborhood’s homeless population.

The governor has also personally weighed in when those efforts collided
with resistance from courts and local governments. Earlier this year, he
decried a federal judge for “moving the goal posts” in an order that
blocked CalTrans from removing a camp in San Rafael. The Newsom
administration and Oakland also clashed over a sprawling encampment where
a July fire menaced a nearby utility facility that stored explosive oxygen
tanks.

A judge blasted both the state and the city for trading blame while
failing to find shelter for camp residents, accusing the parties of
wanting “to wash their hands of this particular problem” and blocking the
state’s plan to clear the site. Newsom excoriated the judge’s order and
subsequently threatened to pull funding from Oakland, arguing the city was
shirking its obligations. The judge ultimately allowed the clearing to
proceed despite camp residents outnumbering available city beds.

Those tensions illustrate a larger test for the housing first philosophy
that Newsom and other Democrats espouse. The basic premise is that long-
term housing is the starting point for getting people off the streets. But
it would take years to address California’s chasmic housing shortage while
people are clamoring for solutions to street homelessness now.

The governor’s top homelessness adviser, Jason Elliott, said it was
“impossible to say” if the state had sufficient short-term shelter for
everyone living outside and conceded that “we don’t have enough money to
afford a home for every person who experiences homelessness.” But he
argued the state could and should move swiftly on “the most unsafe” sites,
calling it a first step to help people.

“The criticism that we should not do anything about dangerous, unsafe
encampments until we achieve millions of more units, I think, ignores the
seriousness of the problem,” Elliott said. “Street homelessness is deeply
dangerous and unsafe for people in the community and for people living in
those tents.”

Addiction and mental illness can drive people into homelessness and keep
them there, which has fueled Newsom’s push for a civil court system that
would create treatment plans for those with the most critical needs and
allow involuntary commitment for people who do not participate. The CARE
Courts program, which Newsom is expected to sign into law soon, is
estimated to help between 7,000 and 12,000 people — a small portion of the
more than 160,000 Californians without stable housing.

Outside of interventions in critical mental health cases, policymakers
broadly agree that poverty and a dearth of affordable housing are still
driving more Californians to live on the street and that, on any given
day, more people may become homeless than find housing.

Wary advocates are responding with legal challenges.

Oakland amended an ordinance barring camping near locations including
homes, schools and businesses after advocates for the homeless sued,
calling the policy inhumane. Advocacy groups in Sacramento unsuccessfully
sued to block a ballot measure they called cruel and unusual.

In Los Angeles, a sprawling lawsuit over encampments endangering public
welfare has produced a vow to build more shelters — and created the legal
authority to clear people from public spaces. Last year, the LA City
Council prohibited people from sleeping in sensitive public spaces
selected by council members in a move the city of Riverside emulated.
Then, Los Angeles bolstered its prohibition in early August by banning
camping near schools and daycares, acting at the behest of school district
officials who warned children were being traumatized and threatened by
people in a growing number of encampments.

A backlash erupted as protesters filled the City Council chambers,
chanting and shouting over speakers as they accused council members of
inflicting death and violence on homeless people. Authorities ultimately
cleared the chambers before lawmakers could return and vote. The proposal
passed overwhelmingly with the blessing of Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat
running for LA mayor. But dissenters accused the Council of displacing the
problem.

“When you don’t house people, when you don’t offer real housing resources
to people at a particular location, the best outcome that you can hope for
from a law like this is that people move 500 feet down the street,”
Councilmember Nithya Raman said in an interview. “I’m up against a wall. I
don’t have any available shelter, and I would imagine other council
members are feeling the same way.”

Seventy percent of California’s homeless population is unsheltered,
according to a recent Stanford University study, compared to New York,
where the figure is 5 percent. The same study found that a large portion
of the California homeless population have either a severe mental illness
or long-term substance abuse problem, or both.

State and local officials have feuded for decades over who bears
responsibility for housing and caring for people with severe mental health
illnesses — those who might have been institutionalized a half-century
ago, before the national closure of state-funded psychiatric hospitals.

Steinberg, the Sacramento mayor, has been trying to solve this problem for
decades. In 2004, as a state legislator, he authored a landmark ballot
measure, the Mental Health Services Act, which charged a 1 percent income
tax on earnings more than $1 million to provide funding for mental health
programs. Steinberg and others have praised the measure as a success, and
some reports show that those who participate in the programs funded by the
law see a reduction in homelessness.

But nearly two decades later, Steinberg is now dealing with a sprawling
homeless population. Sacramento’s bans on camping along sidewalks and
along the scenic river trail are set to go into effect at the end of the
month. The city ban would classify a violation as a misdemeanor, but
homeless people are not supposed to be automatically jailed or fined
unless there are extraordinary circumstances, per a companion resolution
Steinberg introduced.

With the upcoming ballot measure, championed by business leaders, the city
is prepared to put tougher enforcement laws to voters in November, despite
fierce criticism and legal challenges from advocates for homeless people.
Steinberg said it’s still worth a shot.

“It is not perfect and it is not the way I would write it,” he said of the
ballot measure. “But it is progress toward what I believe is essential:
that people have a right to housing, shelter and treatment and in a very
imperfect way.”


--
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Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in"
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Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
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Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.

[Steve Brown]

On an other subject..

Biden must secretly bear the brunt of crimes (murders) ordered 32 years ago

Biden must secretly bear the brunt of crimes (murders) ordered 32 years ago by another government, at the behest of a corrupt Canadian Prime Minister.

The murders were to be done in the context of a great scandal. They had even involved the media.

The set up failed, bribery is not legal in Canada.

Follow the link and look at the bottom of the page for the number of likes.

The population of the place where it happened is not yet aware.

https://charbonneau-gomery-corruption-canada.blogspot.com/2021/10/oka-crisis-quebec-canada-in-summer-of.html