Governor Gavin Newsom following the controversial Grants Pass ruling by the US Supreme court has ordered the sweeping of homeless encampments.
On some level I get the temptation by the Governor. Homeless encampments are unseemly reminders of failed housing and social safety policies. It’s an election year and there is a temptation to do something – really anything – to show that you are taking the public’s concerns seriously.
The problem is that without the resources to actual house the unhoused, what is the cosmetic clearing of encampments going to accomplish?
I am disappointed – and maybe I shouldn’t be – that we are not following evidence based approaches here. For those who will push back and argue that homeless are refusing services – true that does happen – but two points against that argument.
First, most homeless advocates will tell you need to build relationships with the folks on the street to get them to accept treatment. There has to be trust developed. Remember a lot of the unhoused are also suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders and that homelessness is just a symptom of a broader problem of lack of access to mental health treatment, substance use treatment and affordable housing.
Second, under the previous law, nothing prevented communities from clearing encampments so long as there were sufficient beds to house and shelter the homeless.
The fact that Governor Newsom waited for the Grants Pass ruling ought to tell us that the real problem is lack of beds and space.
Will this policy work – even if it’s a crude and blunt instrument?
Jenny Friedenbach, Executive Director of Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco noted that previous attempts to clear encampments have failed to reduce the numbers of people forced to sleep outside.
It is their belief that “Displacing, destabilizing, and dispossessing people without real offers of permanent housing makes homelessness worse.”
In a statement on Thursday, the ACLU noted, “Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to displace and dispossess unhoused people, even though the state does not have enough housing, is a cruel tactic that only masks the problem.”
They were critical of the fact that lawmakers “appear more concerned about optics and the visibility of homelessness” than they are with providing services and tackling California’s affordable housing crisis.
“Punishing people for being unhoused won’t address underlying issues driving homelessness and skyrocketing housing costs in California,” the ACLU stated. “In fact, it will make homelessness worse. Without stable and affordable housing, people are more likely to experience job instability, have health issues, and cycle through emergency public services, such as hospitals and shelters.”
The ACLU called on state leaders to “act decisively to expand affordable housing for all income levels, provide rental assistance to keep people in their homes, and implement stronger eviction protection measures.”
Osha Neumann, Board Member and Attorney at Where Do We Go asked, Why is Newsom adopting the Trump playbook demonizing the most vulnerable and helpless victims of society’s heartlessness? Has he decided that the politics of cruelty is his ticket to higher office?”
The problem once again: “We see firsthand what happens when homeless encampments are swept and people have no place to go.”
Neumann added, “Those encampments are their safety net. Scattered, separated from their support system, they can die. We’ve seen it. The government should be in the business of preventing harm not causing it. Newsom’s order will cause a world of harm.”
Neumann commented: “Where are homeless people supposed to go? They can’t float in the air. They can’t tread water. They need what we all need. Sweeping encampments will not make them go away. Newsom is adopting the leaf blower approach to homelessness – find a pile of homeless, blow it down the road, wait till homeless people collect together again, and blow them away again. It’s cruel and it’s an exercise in futility.”
This is the main problem. This isn’t a real solution. It’s a cheap, election year, political gimmick. We know how to solve this problem – it’s not going to solve overnight. The solution is permanent supportive housing.
Again this isn’t rocket science. If we had enough shelter space, the Governor didn’t need to wait for the Grants Pass decision to act. This solution represents a longer term solution and will not immediately clear the encampments but in the long run it will solve the homeless problem.
Smart Cities Dive ran an article on a new federal study which, not surprisingly, found “homeless encampment sweeps costly and of limited long-term effectiveness.”
“A sweep has a cost that day and can have longer-term cost in terms of [eliminating] whatever stability the people living in the encampments were able to attain,” said one homelessness policy expert.
As many experts have noted, “For the residents living in them, encampments may be the best of several bad alternatives. They often cannot find affordable housing and may be deterred by some shelter requirements.”
“A shelter space or shelter system’s requirements, such as sobriety requirements, separation from partners or pets, and/or strict entry and exit times, may not be [compatible] with an individual’s current circumstances,” said Lauren Lowery, director for housing and community development with the National League of Cities, as reported by Smart Cities Dive.
Rather than focusing on clearing encampments, finding ways to transition people to permanent housing a far better solution.
In fact, the Urban Institute published a study, “Policing Doesn’t End Homelessness. Supportive Housing Does.”
As the report notes, “Instead of addressing the issue’s root causes—a lack of housing and supportive services—many cities have leaned into punitive responses that criminalize homelessness, such as arresting people for sitting or sleeping in certain public places. But this approach is costly and ineffective. Police don’t solve homelessness, they only move it around—to other neighborhoods, jails, and emergency rooms—rather than connecting people with the housing and services they need.”
Instead the Urban Institute recommends a Housing First Approach.
They found “supportive housing significantly reduced people’s interactions with police and reduced the number of times they were arrested.”
The bottom line is: encampments sweeps don’t solve the actual problems, they just move them and perhaps disperse them.
That is the point. Clearing out the encampments isn’t meant to solve the problem. It’s to clean up the problem.
I think the easiest temporary solution would be to designate a place where the homeless can camp that isn’t a nuisance to the community. A dedicated encampment would also help focus community resources and administration to the homeless. If they choose not to camp there, they can leave the city/community.
There’s no block quote editing function. I tried to use an HTML tag and that didn’t work. So my comment looks like a run on paragraph starting with two of the articles’ sentences.
The blockquote function appears to be there for me as moderator, but it isn’t working. So I just italicized your quoted portion.
Thanks Keith – keep posting these notes, I’m sending them on to the web folks.