In Less Than Human, philosopher David Livingstone Smith writes, “Dehumanization is a scourge, and has been so for millennia. It acts as a psychological lubricant, dissolving our inhibitions and inflaming our destructive passions.”
He’s describing the process that allows us—as individuals, communities, and governments—to look at another human being and see a problem, a threat, something less than ourselves.
We like to believe that dehumanization is something that happens in history books—in genocides, in slavery, in the darkest chapters of humanity. But it also happens in quieter, subtler ways, through the policies we make and the language we use about society’s most marginalized. It happens right here in Davis.
Last week, the Davis City Council voted to prioritize hiring a downtown beat cop over investing in homeless service coordinators. It was framed as a public safety measure—a response to concerns from businesses and residents about crime downtown. But scratch the surface, and this decision reveals a deeper truth about how our city is starting to see the unhoused: not as people to help, but as problems to manage.
The council itself acknowledged that law enforcement isn’t the answer to homelessness. Police aren’t mental health professionals. They aren’t social workers or housing specialists. They’re trained for enforcement, not care. Yet when it came time to choose—more services or more policing—the political winds blew toward the badge.
Why? Because the dominant narrative around homelessness in Davis has shifted over the years, shaped by voices less interested in solutions and more interested in driving unhoused people out of sight. For over a decade, we’ve heard the same complaints: homelessness is ruining downtown, aggressive panhandlers are scaring off customers, the city is failing to “clean up” the streets.
This rhetoric—echoed in recent public comments—is not subtle. One commenter dismissed the need for services, claiming the real issue is that advocates “just don’t care about the rest of us” and that criminals are being given a “free pass” because they’re homeless. Another sneered at the idea of rebuilding homeless outreach capacity, claiming the last coordinator “cared more about the homeless than us.”
This is the language of dehumanization—the flattening of a diverse group of people into one faceless, criminalized mass. It’s how we move from seeing unhoused individuals as neighbors in crisis to treating them as a public safety threat. And once we cross that line, the logical solution stops being care and becomes enforcement.
Smith writes, “What is it that enables one group of human beings to treat another group as though they were subhuman creatures? Thinking sets the agenda for action, and thinking of humans as less than human paves the way for atrocity.”
Davis, thankfully, is not on the brink of atrocity. But the underlying logic is the same—once people are “less than,” it becomes easier to justify policies that harm rather than help.
The beat cop is not, in itself, an atrocity. But it is a symptom. It is the latest in a long line of policy choices shaped by the belief that homelessness is primarily a law enforcement problem—not a public health crisis, not a housing crisis, not a failure of the system to care for its most vulnerable.
Moreover, it is not even really a good solution to public safety concerns.
And treating it that way has real consequences.
We know what happens when cities criminalize homelessness: cycles of arrest, incarceration, and release that solve nothing. People get fined for sleeping outside, ticketed for loitering, jailed for minor infractions—and when they get out, they’re still homeless, now with a criminal record that makes it even harder to find housing or work.
This approach doesn’t reduce crime. It doesn’t make communities safer. It just pushes people further into the margins—and makes it harder for real solutions to take root.
The irony is that Davis already knows what works. For all the complaints centering around the respite center—a temporary solution for the unhoused during the day—there have been no complaints centering around Paul’s Place, the type of model for permanent supportive housing.
The loudest voices defending this choice argue that this isn’t about homelessness at all—it’s about crime. That no one is trying to criminalize homelessness, just criminals. But in practice, the line is never that clean.
The same people who say they just want “the criminals off the streets” are the ones who also describe unhoused people as aggressive, dangerous, dirty—who talk about encampments as blights rather than places where human beings are struggling to survive.
One commenter on the Vanguard put it bluntly: “Because some of them are criminals. And I’m one of those local figures.” Another added, “We want the not nice, not polite, criminals criminalized.”
But where is the conversation about mental health services? About addiction treatment? About expanding Paul’s Place beyond shelter beds? Where is the recognition that many of the “crimes” associated with homelessness—trespassing, loitering, public urination—are not violent, but survival behaviors?
Nowhere. Because that would require acknowledging that homelessness is complex, that the people experiencing it are human beings with needs and struggles—not just “the criminal homeless.”
Instead, we get the usual dodge: that policing isn’t meant to solve homelessness, only to address its “effects” on the community. But when those “effects” are defined as the presence of unhoused people themselves, it’s a distinction without a difference.
Hiring a beat cop downtown will not solve homelessness. It will not make downtown safer in any meaningful way. It will not address the root causes—lack of affordable housing, mental health crises, substance use disorders, economic inequality. It will make some people feel better—the ones who want to see fewer unhoused people in public spaces. But it won’t change a thing for the people sleeping on our streets.
What it will do is reinforce the idea that homelessness is a problem of individual moral failing—that if people would just stop being criminals, stop being addicts, stop being mentally ill, the problem would go away.
That’s the real danger here. Not just wasted resources, but the hardening of a worldview that blames unhoused people for their own suffering, that sees their visibility as the problem rather than their poverty, their illness, their lack of support.
Davis has an opportunity to lead. To reject the easy, punitive path and invest instead in what we know works—outreach, housing-first models, mental health care. To stop responding to the loudest, most fearful voices and start acting with compassion and courage.
Because when we frame homelessness as a crime problem, we’re not just failing to solve it—we’re making it worse. We’re ensuring that the cycle continues: criminalization, marginalization, suffering.
It’s not too late to change course. But it starts with seeing the people on our streets not as threats, but as neighbors. As human beings. As part of our community—not a problem to be solved, but people to be helped.
Anything less is just managing misery—and mistaking it for progress.
From article: “Not just wasted resources, but the hardening of a worldview that blames unhoused people for their own suffering, that sees their visibility as the problem rather than their poverty, their illness, their lack of support.”
Sometimes, it is “their fault”. Just as it is in regard to those who choose a life of crime.
Both of these “categories” of people (homeless, and those who choose a life of crime) create negative impacts for other people who didn’t go down those paths.
But that doesn’t mean that society shouldn’t continue to provide opportunities.
As I’ve previously-mentioned, there’s a new “tiny home” community for the homeless on the outskirts of North Woodland (just off of Road 102) that looks pretty good. I recently took a closer look at it (and know someone who’s in there, for that matter).
That’s exactly the type of location (close to town, but away from residential neighbors) where these type of things should be located. Also, more cost-effective than trying to do so in densely-populated, more-expensive areas.
https://www.cityofwoodland.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=751
“That’s exactly the type of location (close to town, but away from residential neighbors) where these type of things should be located.”
Experts would disagree. You’d be putting a group of people without reliable transportation far away from services.
Well, if you read the link – it appears that a lot of “expert” organizations were involved with this.
I witnessed more vehicles than I expected there, but I don’t know if they also might have some kind of shuttle service, or if the bus line goes out there (yet?).
Truth be told, there is no centralized “employment center” in Woodland. (Or within Davis itself, for that matter.) So there’s nothing in particular to be located “next to” in the first place.
Another facility that I do like the look of is Creekside (in Davis).
Cottonwood – you have your services, health center, psychological services all in the same area. But it looks like they are actually building the services into the location, so it’s not bad. This is actually what we need in Davis, permanent supportive housing.
It appears that they’re bringing support services “to” the facility, instead.
“The units come fully furnished along with support from on-site staff and regular case management from project partners Fourth & Hope, Yolo County, and its service partner Hope Cooperative.”
But even on Cottonwood, you seem to be assuming that a facility would/could be located right next to services. (Maybe possible, but still not an employment or education center, etc.).
If they are putting all the services there – and the big service providers like Fourth and Hope are in on it, that’s what Davis needs to do. As I pointed in my piece, there haven’t been problems around Paul’s Place, it’s just Paul’s Place is small.
David says: “This is actually what we need in Davis, permanent supportive housing.”
That’s where you and I have a difference of opinion. I’d say build these places where it’s cheaper (and less-impactful to neighbors) to do so – more “‘bang for your buck”.
You could probably fit the entire town of Davis just on Woodland’s undeveloped lots.
Wouldn’t be us if we didn’t disagree on something
I think you need to double check on the number of police calls to the area around H Street and Paul’s place. I think that the community should have a right to enforce parameters on behavior, such as vandalism and littering, assaults, fighting, shoplifting and theft, trespassing, drug use and sales, etc.
Not to mention the 1000′ radius around the Respite Center / 5th & L
I like the way your A.I. of a so-called ‘homeless’ camp shows a clean, tidy encampment, when you know a real one would show piles of garbage, stolen bike parts, and buckets of human poop. Maybe the human poop wouldn’t even be in buckets.
Why should the person in the house shown next to the camp (my version, the real version) take one for the team (Davis) while those far away suffer no consequences. How are those next to the camps going to be compensated for their sacrifice by the rest of Davis? When will Districts 1,2,4&5 pay District 3 for our sacrifice to their ideology?
“I like the way your A.I. of a so-called ‘homeless’ camp shows a clean, tidy encampment, when you know a real one would show piles of garbage, stolen bike parts, and buckets of human poop.”
I was thinking the same thing. What if the homeowner’s daughter had the rear bedroom facing the encampment? How could anyone feel safe knowing that 37% of the campers were drug addicts (David’s number) lingering next to their daughter’s window?
How does a cited statistic from a peer-reviewed paper become *my* number?
Okay, David’s cited number from a homeless people survey that he defended.
My more serious response – the irony here is that Keith, you are perpetuating the exact point I am trying to make in this piece.
In choosing your humor – it’s interesting that you decided to go straight to fear—“what if the daughter’s bedroom faces the encampment?”—but let’s be honest about what really puts people, especially kids, at risk.
Yes, some in the encampment no doubt struggle with addiction—just like one in four people in the general public do. Addiction isn’t confined to the unhoused. It’s in homes, neighborhoods, and yes—often behind those same bedroom windows.
Guest what, statistically, the greatest threat to children isn’t strangers outside the window—it’s people they know: family members, caregivers, friends of the family. That’s not conjecture – it’s backed by data.
So why are you trying to fearmonger homeless people?
If safety is truly the concern, we should focus on real risks and real solutions, not fear-based hypotheticals designed to dehumanize people who are already marginalized. Housing and services make everyone safer—including that hypothetical daughter.
David, would you buy that house and put one of your children in that back bedroom right next to the homeless encampment where there is no fence separating the camp from the window?
Now be honest…
You’re talking to someone who hangs out with people who murdered people and I bring my kids. You think a few homeless people are going to bother me?
You didn’t answer my question. Would you make an investment in that house right next to a homeless encampment?
I did answer your question. I have no problem doing so. You know nothing about me to be asking that question, I’ll tell you that.
I asked AI about people saying they wouldn’t mind living next to a homeless encampment:
“virtue signaling is common—people claiming they’d be totally fine living next to a homeless encampment, but in reality, they’d likely have concerns about safety, sanitation, and overall quality of life. It’s easy to take the moral high ground when it’s a hypothetical situation.
At the same time, the issue of homelessness is complex, and there are people who genuinely support solutions like more housing, shelters, and resources in their communities. The problem is, a lot of folks who say they’d be okay with it wouldn’t actually want to deal with the real challenges it brings to a neighborhood.”
“From: Jenny Tan
Date: Tue, Mar 18, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Subject: Notes and Thoughts from the Respite Center Meeting on March 2
Hello everyone,
Thank you again to all of you who attended the March 2, 2025, meeting at the DaVinci Tech Hub to discuss the Daytime Homeless Respite Center and its impacts on surrounding neighbors. Also thank you to those who responded to the survey distributed during January, as well as those who have continued to provide comments after the meeting. More than 150 neighbors responded to the January survey and more than 50 community members attended the March 2 meeting.
It was clear from the comments and suggestions we received from the survey responses and at the meeting that the surrounding neighbors feel very impacted by the Davis Respite Center. We also heard that neighbors support having a Respite Center but believe that the burdens arising from it should be shared by the entire community. It was also clear to us that many residents were frustrated and angry and felt that the City was not transparent when establishing the Respite Center and continuing to fund it in its current location. We also heard from many participants that they understand the importance of providing assistance to those who are unsheltered.
Attendees at the meeting offered a number of specific ways to address the impacts, including the importance of police enforcement and patrols to help keep businesses and the public safe; the need for funding for a variety of improvements or resources, such as overnight services, trash removal, security or cleanliness; and the necessity for more information and transparency from the City. We were also urged to look at alternative locations for a Daytime Respite Center.”
Were you at this meeting, David?
DS say: “Were you at this meeting, David?”
He wasn’t
“… the dominant narrative around homelessness in Davis has shifted over the years, shaped by voices less interested in solutions and more interested in driving unhoused people out of sight.
… a long line of policy choices shaped by the belief that homelessness is primarily a law enforcement problem—not a public health crisis, not a housing crisis, not a failure of the system to care for its most vulnerable.
But where is the conversation about mental health services? About addiction treatment? About expanding Paul’s Place beyond shelter beds? Where is the recognition that many of the “crimes” associated with homelessness—trespassing, loitering, public urination—are not violent, but survival behaviors?
Nowhere. Because that would require acknowledging that homelessness is complex, that the people experiencing it are human beings with needs and struggles—not just “the criminal homeless.”
………..
Everything about this analysis is not just misleading, it’s false. Dozens of people came together to talk about this issue. They acknowledged the complexity of it and spoke of possible solutions.
You’re arguing with a caricature. You are refusing to acknowledge the complexity of the subject and the spectrum of views. The people in that room were residents who have dealt with the effects of the respite center for five years. They were frustrated and some were angry. Nevertheless, their views were collectively nuanced, the discussions were civil, and most were seeking solutions to two problems: the needs of the homeless, and the impacts on the neighborhood.
“You’re arguing with a caricature.”
No kidding, exactly right! But . . . and . . . it’s too much. DG and the homeless-advocates extremists are destroying their own cause. If you acknowledge my problem, and I acknowledge yours, we can work together. I never called for homeless services, of which there are many in Davis, be de-funded or ended or even shrank. I am extremely dubious about some approaches such as ‘housing first’ and ‘harm reduction’, but that doesn’t mean I want homeless services ended. But if you come at me and say ‘there is no crime problem’, ‘I bring my kids to hang out with murderers’, ‘most so-called homeless are polite’ and ignore the issue is those that aren’t, ironically, denying people’s ‘lived experiences’ (a term that makes me puke), then you haven’t created a political rival who will work with you so we both get what we want — no, you have created a nemesis, an enemy who will work to destroy your wants/needs/interests and you try to deny their issues and destroy their wants/needs/interest. And so, David Greenwald and the Homeless-Advocate Extremists, you have me the enemy, and it me.
*you have met the enemy, and it is me.