Other than the legal cover provided by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass vs Johnson, there’s nothing new about Gavin Newsom’s statewide orders to clear homeless camp. Sweeping homeless camps has been California’s default tactic for managing homelessness for years.
By now, most anyone even remotely familiar with the state’s severe housing shortage realizes that sweeps just move homeless people from one location to another and, oftentimes, back again because there’s nowhere for them to go. Still, there’s another element to the sweep tactic that has gotten far too little attention.
Virtually any report on sweeps inevitably contains the words, “and connect them to services.” Using these words in connection with homelessness amounts to political malfeasance and journalistic malpractice.
For politicians, “and connect them to services” offers the opportunity to hide their failure to manage homelessness in the comforting camouflage of tough love and compassion. “After all,” say public officials, “homeless people who are displaced from sleeping sites are offered ‘services.’” Journalists do a disservice to the public when they help spread the services canard in print.
The fact is, the situation with services for the homeless is not unlike the situation with housing: There isn’t enough housing and there aren’t enough services. Use of the word “services” implies homeless people have access to whatever assistance might enable them to escape life on the streets.
A corollary to this kind thinking is that homelessness has been caused by character flaws and bad habits, especially drug use. Too few people reflect on the reality that there is far more total drug use among housed people than unhoused. If every drug-using homeless person were to quit using tomorrow, the vast majority would still be homeless.
As for the “services” of drug treatment programs, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle, by 2023, the number of licensed residential drug treatment facilities statewide had dropped by 100 units since 2021. As the number of facilities dropped, so did the number of beds, from 20,600 to 18,000. There are over 180,000 homeless people in California.
As the number of treatment facilities and beds dropped, fatal overdoses increased. In 2022, “70% of California’s 58 counties said they urgently needed residential treatment services at all levels of care, and 22 counties reported not having any residential treatment facilities at all.”
The shortage of drug treatment staff and facilities has many negative effects, including shorter stays for treatment. The shortage is especially acute in the San Joaquin Valley, where Stanislaus County ranks 15th among California’s 58 counties with a death rate from fentanyl of 22.37 deaths per 100,000 residents. Farther south, in Kern County, the overall death rate from all opioids is 37.08 per 100,000. The statewide average is 15.62 deaths per 100,000 residents.
In another 2022 study, almost two-thirds of the state’s homeless population reported a mental health problem. In the period between 2008 and 2019, the overall rate of serious mental illness in California increased by more than 50 percent. There has been no corresponding increase in mental health facilities.
So exactly what services are provided for California’s homeless people? There are two few beds, too few facilities and staff to treat substance abuse, and far too few qualified professionals to treat mental illness, even if there were enough rooms and beds.
Still, the “connect them to services” canard persists most everywhere, and there are political reasons why. From the beginning of the surge in homelessness, shortages of housing and services have been blamed on the people suffering from them. “They don’t want help,” has become a standard response to widespread homelessness, when, in most cases, there is no help.
Blaming victims is nothing new. What’s new is the scale of an emergency that includes too little shelter, too few services, and too much obfuscation about the structural and systemic factors that continue to drive homeless numbers upward.
California fails on homelessness in large part because its leaders and influencers have avoided facts in favor of scapegoating people who have been victimized by forces beyond their control. Homelessness is an emergency without emergency rooms.
Ordering cities to clear encampments is just one more case of wishful thinking. California has been clearing encampments for years. Homelessness not only did not go away, it got worse, and as long as Gavin Newsom continues to ignore the hard facts of homelessness, it will continue to get worse.
The way Gavin Newsom thinks, along with how the majority of the alleged services directors think, is baked in. These types stick to a certain code, etched in. If one who happens to get a foot in the door, thinks different, they will single that one out, circle the wagons, and, it will not be long before that one is on the outside looking in. Sorry to seem all doom and gloom.
The current fixed system needs to be questioned by close observers, that are willing to listen to those who had bad experiences, gather names of service providers involved, and escort the homeless person back to find out why the experience happened as reported.
Then these issues must be taken back to a designated person, if done so in front of the public all the better.
A group of different, like-minded, persons, is what it will take for any real change to take place. This city, and all in this county, needs to know they are being observed and information is being logged into a different system. They will not appreciate it, YET, something has to change.
SCOTUS’s order stated the word, “compassion”: to be carried out with “compassion.” In order for that to be, compassionate people must step forward, to see to it being so.
Hi Lou. I found this article very insightful as to why CA and others have a housing propblem. It was a long time in the making and may not get resolved anytime soon, especially the bottom sector. https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-california-turned-against-growth?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=104058&post_id=147463027&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=59dqc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Good day, Frank. I read every last word of the thorough article you linked for me, and, hopefully, other Valley Citizens to glean from. TY!
What stood out the most was the timing of when some Californians took on a mindset of concern for the environment. The subject matter was the necessity for de-growth all across the Earth, at that time, approximately late 1960s- 1970s and beyond. Unfortunately, how to go about making a smooth transformation into de-growth is still very much a subject of discord. Too many cooks in the kitchen comes to mind, yet it is going to take every single one of us to set aside the American Dream to take on a much more important endeavor of fulfilling the reality we all must come to appreciate.
The land is adversely affected by people across the land who are dissatisfied with the idea of contentment. What does it mean to be content? Our lives, and, the lives of ecosystems, all across the land depend on such.
The lives of the homeless depend on us, just as much as people in other precarious positions depend on each other. People every where need an attitude adjustment, and a values clarification.
When I spoke above of government and services agencies having a baked in code, it was of attitudes they project onto others, whose shoes they yet walk in. I say “yet” because disaster is on the rise. Because even SCOTUS who spoke of ‘compassion’ have yet to own the meaning, or live it out. They could not have made the disastrous order if they truly knew ‘compassion.’
As for Governor Gavin Newsom, I listened to him on the news in LA, numerous times, and have yet to know what specific directions he expects county supervisors to follow out, so they do not forfeit funding come January 2025. I can guess, but I want to know distinctly. Multiple news channels carried his over 20 minute rant on Thursday, 8/8/2024, and re-aired it since.
The only facts I did glean was that Governor Newsom gave billions of dollars out to counties, who are, only now, complaining to him that they have not the money or time to proceed on what Newsom made clear to them they received the funding to do. Counties spent funds on other than what the funds were for, or, they did a very poor job of dispersing the funding where it was able to do the homeless the most benefit. We knew that, YET hearing it out of Newsom’s own mouth was the proverbial nail in the coffins of multitudes of supervisors, come election time, and, in court suits to be filed, and, of the homeless they stabbed in their backs, acting self-righteous in front of the public.
They would call this exercising their agency. We must exercise our agency to call for an audit of how much funding came in, what it was allotted to fund, and, where it ended up. The state may have done a partial audit for Stanislaus County, as done usually for all counties. If something does not pass snuff, Valley Citizens press for ANSWERS!
Without mentioning names, I regularly attended many local meetings in a near by county seat.
The mayor, at the time, had an ugly habit of calling the drug centers, alcoholics anonymous, and narcotics anymous, including the people who frequented them for help: ‘blight.’ She was obsessed with gossiping about the ‘blight’ at each and every meeting she held. She could not help herself by holding back her biased thoughts.
She did no one any goodwill. One of the drug centers was well known for counseling dual diagnosed individuals (drug addicted mentally ill individuals) one-on-one and in group settings. I was one of the counselors. I cringed each and every time she started in on the people who were actively working to be off drugs. I cringed when she bad-mouthed the mentally ill. I cringed when she had nothing at all good to say about the addicted or the unaddicted homeless having the nerve to exist in her city, literally.
Personally, I loath when any person
thinks they are better than any one else. In my experience, I can count on my fingers the counselors I have met who showed me reason to think they were capable of forming a trusting bond with those who needed help getting beyond what ailed them. There are many filling service positions, on payrolls, or volunteering, who do more harm than good, due to pushing their own narrow minded agendas.
Myriads of mentally ill, including the addicted, who are a portion of the mentally ill who self-medicate on drugs and alcohol, suffer from complex post traumatic stress disorder and poor nutrition. Their past negative experiences, if nothing else, taught them about hypocrisy and how to size up hypocrites. They will steer clear.
In my opinion, the majority of the homeless have given up hope, a long, long time ago. They may group together in encampments, out of self-survival, but for the most part they are loners, lonely in a crowd. They were written off by family, community, society, and the only thing they know is how to avoid hypocrites who feign caring.
This is why you do not see them protesting and marching on city hall. It is ludicrous to assume they want to be without a place to call home. The cardboard, tarps, and tents being swept out from on top and under them is the closest to home they can do for themselves yet state, county and city gov’t want them to do what is, to the chronic homeless, the impossible.
We are correct, they do not belong on the streets and sidewalks, they belong in homes, or shelters with their own private rooms, with doors and keys. All staff, up through the ranks, has to be vetted, trained, and supervised so hypocrisy and its cohorts cannot reign supreme.
The comments are very intelligent and I agree to the extent I totally understand what is said. What I do see and think of the process is basically this: The upper Gov. officials were given a task to achieve. They may or may not have talked to those really in the know about homelessness. Usually I would say not. They, by habit or time, seek out those in levels comparable to theirs. Info is watered down a bit and so are solutions. Money usually rears its ugly head to the extent that the fixes, even if good, will be lesser.
States get that same info, hopefully the money to implement solutions, and the watered down version of the possible fixes. They, States, now consult with their experts, who may or may not be knowledgeable on the subject, are taxed with coming up with fixes within the money range. Workers all trying to do a good job within the restrictions they are bound by, usually money and time, Also without the true reality of what the problem/s are and how fixes need to be applied and where.
Info goes to Counties and Cities.
The same problem/s exist, money, knowledge and time frames. The watered down info from the higher depts. is now mostly a suggestion and more of an edict. The result of this ruling, fix the Homeless problems became, what is the fastest, cheapest way we can comply. We’ll use the info handed down. No real attempt is made to refine the knowledge they have received and they go for the product they are handed with procedures and rules.
Then comes the almighty biased Supreme Court who says “ok to remove Homeless camps compassionately”. How do you uproot people with nothing but what they can carry somehow, compassionately? They now have nowhere they can rest without someone making them move or be jailed. How do you make this compassionate?
I guess when the reality you perceive of a problem is extremely different than the ones living it have, you GUESS wrong most of the time.