• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Valley Citizen

Nature, Environment, History & Politics

The Valley Citizen

  • Arts
  • Education
  • Environment
  • History
  • Nature
  • Politics
  • Wit
  • About
  • RSS Icon

Before Corona, there was Homelessness

March 28, 2020 By Eric Caine 10 Comments

Downtown Modesto, March, 2020
Downtown Modesto, March, 2020

The pandemic isn’t the biggest news everywhere, no matter what people think. Out in the streets it’s still about who died, who’s in jail, who’s got a cigarette, and where the next deal’s coming from. Self-isolation is nothing new for the most desolate of homeless people, and those lucky enough to have formed small communities and camps aren’t about to give up the comfort and safety of friends for a bug they’ve barely heard about.

Downtown Modesto—like many California towns—has been a disaster area for years, so that’s old news too. The prone bodies under what look eerily like shrouds, the people in wheelchairs, the mentally ill mumbling or shouting to tormentors no one else can see, and the men and women who’ve picked up enough survival skills to live in the shadows between the cracks are still there, only a lot of the faces are new, now that some of the old regulars like “Pops” Yarber have left the streets for the new low-barrier shelter in the Salvation Army’s Berberian Building.

News that the state’s Homeless Coordinating and Financial Council has released $100 million to California cities, counties, and continuums of care as an emergency response to the Covid19 crisis may have led some to believe the worst is over, but people familiar with the true scope and nature of homelessness aren’t reassured; they know the problem is far too big to be solved even with an additional $100 million.

The distribution of money throughout the San Joaquin Valley presents a sobering realization of what it’s going to take to make real progress against the extreme poverty that will persist well after the Coronavirus has been subdued. Of the millions available, the City of Fresno leads the Valley with an allocation of $1,012, 869.44. Fresno County will receive an additional $382,080.59.

By comparison, the Stanislaus County Community System of Care has received $374,758; the county itself was awarded another $344,787, for a total of $719,545. The money will help, but no one who’s been on the ground with homeless people thinks it will provide a solution.

The numbers are daunting. According to its 2019 Point in Time count, Stanislaus County had around two-thousand homeless people last year; the City of Modesto had approximately fourteen-hundred. Since then, 182 homeless people have entered the county’s low-barrier shelter in the Salvation Army’s Berberian Building on 9th and D Streets in Modesto. Though it’s reasonable to expect a net reduction in homeless people as a result, it appears to many observers that there are as many or more people in Modesto’s streets, parks, and alleys as ever.

Moreover, very little’s been done to address mental illness and disability among the homeless. Most estimates figure between thirty and forty percent of homeless people are mentally ill, so even a “housing first” approach won’t provide the services they need, and their numbers don’t include all the physically disabled people who’ve wound up outside because their incomes are far too low to provide shelter.

Mentally ill and disabled people present special problems any time, but the degree of difficulty increases during a pandemic. Often resistant to care of any kind, mentally ill people will almost certainly have to be isolated against their will if they’re expected to avoid contagion. Disabled people will at the very minimum need special transportation and handicap-equipped facilities, needs that will persist well after the virus has been controlled.

Streets of Modesto, March 2020

Alan Davis, March, 2020
Downtown Modesto, March 2020
Alan mug near Muse resize
Modesto Courthouse, March, 2020
I Street Modesto March 2020
Alan Davis, March, 2020 Downtown Modesto, March 2020 Alan mug near Muse resize Modesto Courthouse, March, 2020 I Street Modesto March 2020

The conventional wisdom argues all homeless people need is a chance to “get on their feet” and they will become productive members of the community. It’s a belief based on the notion that homeless people themselves are the cause of homelessness, and all we have to do to end homelessness is “fix” the people. Anyone who’s worked extensively with people experiencing homelessness knows such thoughts are wishful thinking—like believing we can fix our roads and freeways by changing the tires on our cars.

In fact, most of the problems we have with homelessness are structural; they’re the result of a breakdown in our health care system and decades of neglect of social services.

Just consider the following numbers from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,

“Funding for housing, health, and social services block grants has fallen significantly over time, as an examination of several decades of budget data demonstrates…For four of the block grants, funding plunged by significantly more than half.  For example, funding for the job training block grant, focused on improving employment and earnings prospects, has fallen by 69 percent since its adoption in 1982.”

In yet another blow to poor and working people, the real value of the federal minimum wage was 17% less in 2019 than in 2010, and a whopping 31% less than in 1968. These declines were somewhat offset in states like California, where minimum wages rose above the federal limit, but the gains for working people were too often wiped out by steep rises in costs for housing and health care.

In another telling statistic, we find that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding dropped from 68 poor families per 100 in 1996 to only 23 per 100 in 2014. Most anyone could have predicted that among the direst consequences of such precipitous declines in money for poor people, homelessness may be the worst.

Those who defend cutting assistance for poor people rely on mind-numbing thought routines to defend their actions. They repeat ad infinitum hackneyed bromides like, “government can’t help,” and, “you can’t just throw money at it.” Yet when faced with a pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the economy, these same people look to government for help and justify spending trillions of dollars to prevent a recession.

8th Street Modesto March 2020
Cold comfort in Modesto

Those who think there’s no comparison between the economic stresses brought on by a pandemic and the stress of poverty are mistaken. There is voluminous research showing the harmful effects of poverty on brain function and health. And for those who don’t believe in science and research, there’s the evidence of our eyes.

Look closely at any homeless shelter or at the homeless people on the streets and you will see illness, both physical and mental. Some will argue drug use is the driving force behind the illness and the homelessness, but if that were the case we’d see far more homelessness than we do now. The opioid epidemic has affected people throughout the nation, but the professional football players, celebrities, high-income earners and professionals who became addicted didn’t become homeless, nor did the vast majority of wage-earners.

In fact, in the cases of drug addiction among people with money, the affliction is treated as a health problem. It’s only among poor people that drug use is seen as a character flaw and cause of homelessness.

When we see disabled and mentally ill people on our streets day after day, month after month, and year after year, what we’re really seeing is evidence that the richest country in the world can’t take care of sick people—unless they’re rich.

And just as the wealthiest among us will be the chief beneficiaries of a government that “can’t help” during a pandemic, so will the streets continue to fill with homeless people when the pandemic is over. Only when we realize that homelessness is itself an epidemic of our own making will we begin making real progress to end it. When we see homeless camps and wretched people in public in other countries, we blame their systems of government. When we see our own streets strewn with human wreckage, we blame the victims. And so our descent into the third world will continue, at least until we apply the same principles of science and learning to homelessness as we have to Covid19.

Filed Under: History

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tom Portwood says

    March 28, 2020 at 5:13 pm

    Powerful piece, Eric!

    Reply
  2. Dan Onorato says

    March 28, 2020 at 8:25 pm

    Thanks, Eric, for your consistently thoughtful articles on homelessness.

    Reply
  3. Lonny Davis says

    March 29, 2020 at 11:14 am

    Thanks for continuing to spotlight this crises even as media understandibly shifts to Covid19. Vaccine will be discovered, Coronavirus will be banished, but in the aftermath of this pandemic, our homeless will remain (particularly the mentally ill) if not provided compassionate custodial care.

    Reply
    • Eric Caine says

      March 29, 2020 at 2:56 pm

      Thank you, Mr. Davis, for a lifetime of compassionate care for people everywhere. You are a true humanitarian and model for us all.

      Reply
  4. Duane Nelson says

    March 29, 2020 at 1:52 pm

    Report well written .

    Reply
  5. Sheila Benner says

    March 29, 2020 at 2:43 pm

    Well written and great advocacy. I am reposting in hope’s of enlightening more people to take a stand on this continuing issue that affects our brothers and sisters throughout our state and country. And have been enduring more hardships than the general population is today.

    Reply
  6. frank says

    March 29, 2020 at 4:02 pm

    Tx Eric for yet another great article on the local scene of a macro issue driven by underlying operations of the power base that runs the county. Ran across an article today[link below] that speaks to what is going on in relation to Covid19 and lack of support for it as well as anything in general that is social in nature. In Trumps case, anything that is anything, disrupt it!

    “What makes Mr. Trump particularly dangerous is that he is not acting alone. He is backed by the Republican Party, which translates his natural apathy to suffering into malicious policies. Mr. Trump is surrounded by brutal plutocrats such as Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross, who, like Mr. Trump, are protégés of the infamous corporate raider and former White House adviser Carl Icahn, who set the standard of destroying companies for profit.. Mr. Trump is also flanked by a number of religious extremists, such as William Barr, Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence, who use biblical imagery to cloak their brutal goals. The overall effect is a group that will sacrifice human lives to lift the stock market. Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick of Texas stated that grandparents should die for the U.S. economy. In that mentality, the U.S. exists to be raided and razed, its citizens disposable and inconvenient.”

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-plague-of-donald-trump/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

    Reply
  7. Richard Anderson says

    March 30, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    Eric,
    ” It’s only among poor people that drug use is seen as a character flaw and cause of homelessness.” is such a piercing, meaningful statement . Thank you.

    Reply
  8. Keith Law says

    April 4, 2020 at 6:04 pm

    Thank you, Eric.

    As mainstream media outlets from right to left focus our attention on the deaths and suffering of celebrities, you have turned our attention once again to those whose suffering is chronic, hidden in shadows and doorways, and now compounded by the pandemic in ways most celebrities couldn’t imagine.

    Reply
  9. Keith Dawson says

    April 7, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    Thank you Eric, very informative. It’s sad but true the old saying; “The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer!”

    Reply

Leave a Reply to frank Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Note: Some comments may be held for moderation.

Primary Sidebar

Off The Wire

Californians: Here's why your housing costs are so high
Californians: Here’s why your housing costs are so high
Half the state’s households struggle to afford the roof over their heads. Here’s what you need to know about one of California’s most vexing issues.
calmatters.org
Las Vegas Pushes to Become First City to Ban Ornamental Grass
Las Vegas Pushes to Become First City to Ban Ornamental Grass
A desert city built on a reputation for excess and indulgence wants to become a model for restraint and conservation with a first-in-the-nation policy banning grass that nobody walks on. Las Vegas-area water officials have spent two decades trying to get people to replace thirsty greenery with desert plants, and now they’re asking the Nevada Legislature to outlaw roughly 40% of the turf that’s left. The Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates there are almost 8 square miles (21 square kilometers) of “nonfunctional turf” in the metro area, grass that no one ever walks on or otherwise uses in
www.voanews.com
Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot-Reuters/Ipsos poll
Half of Republicans believe false accounts of deadly U.S. Capitol riot-Reuters/Ipsos poll
Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event that left five dead and scores of others wounded. His supporters appear to have listened.
www.reuters.com
Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century
Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century
On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation, even among Republican voters.
www.newyorker.com
New Zealand raises minimum wage to $20 an hour
New Zealand raises minimum wage to $20 an hour
Taxes on the richest New Zealanders are being raised
www.independent.co.uk
The Invisible Asylum | City Journal
The Invisible Asylum | City Journal
Olympia, Washington, is a microcosm of the problems created by the emptying of mental hospitals.
www.city-journal.org
California needs affordable housing. Could these bills help? | CalMatters
California needs affordable housing. Could these bills help? | CalMatters
Key legislators push duplexes, looser regulations and more money to boost housing supply.
calmatters.org
The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let's fix it – here's how | Bernie Sanders
The rich-poor gap in America is obscene. So let’s fix it – here’s how | Bernie Sanders
While working people toil, the richest have never have it so good. It’s time to fight back – our democracy depends on it
www.theguardian.com
Sen. Bernie Sanders' Next Progressive Frontier: Reshaping A 'Rigged' Tax System
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Next Progressive Frontier: Reshaping A ‘Rigged’ Tax System
Sanders will introduce legislation Thursday to restore the corporate tax rate to 35% and add a new progressive tax on the estates of the wealthiest Americans.
www.npr.org
Perspective | Five myths about poverty
Perspective | Five myths about poverty
No, it’s not just an inner city problem. And it’s not the result of individual failure.
www.washingtonpost.com
Los Angeles police clash with protesters in fight to evict major homeless encampment
Los Angeles police clash with protesters in fight to evict major homeless encampment
Echo Park Lake site has become a battleground in the city’s worsening housing and homelessness crisis during the pandemic
www.theguardian.com
The High Stakes in the Amazon Union Fight in Alabama - The Bulwark
The High Stakes in the Amazon Union Fight in Alabama – The Bulwark
It’s about workplace democracy, and could affect not just the tech giant’s employees but those of other firms.
thebulwark.com

Find us on Facebook

The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Footer

The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Subscribe for Free

* indicates required

Search

• Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 The Valley Citizen

Dedicated to the memory of John Michael Flint. Contact us at thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Editor and publisher: Eric Caine

Website customization and maintenance by Susan Henley Design