Many political promises have been made, many billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent and many programs have been launched, but the state’s homelessness crisis continues to worsen and Californians’ tolerance has worn thin.
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A few months ago, the Public Policy Institute of California took the public’s temperature on the issue and found that overwhelming majorities of the state’s adults want something done, pronto. It’s one of the few major issues that bridges the state’s otherwise wide partisan divide.
“Things have shifted, and everybody’s jobs are on the damn line, and they should be,” Gov. Gavin Newsom told a Dreamforce conference in San Francisco last week. “We’re only interested in real results, and that’s our commitment to all of you.”
Underscoring the situation’s fraught politics, Newsom has denounced a federal magistrate who blocked San Francisco’s plans to clean up squalid encampments, pledged that the state will intervene in the case and expressed hope that a very conservative U.S. Supreme Court might lift the ban.
“That’s a hell of a statement coming from a progressive Democrat from California that says we need help from the Supreme Court,” Newsom said during his Dreamforce interview.
Newsom said that during an unannounced visit to San Francisco – a city he once governed as mayor – he saw a disgusting level of drug abuse near a city police station.
“People aren’t giving a damn that any of us are there,” he said. “They were dealing, were using, were abusing, and there was a police department substation, and it was all happening across the street. All I thought was, how damn demoralized everybody must be. There go all our tax dollars and who the hell is running this place?”
Who indeed?
The social and political angst in San Francisco over how to do something effective about homelessness is not confined to that city. There are at least 170,000 people living on the streets in California and every large city faces its version of the syndrome.
Karen Bass was elected mayor of Los Angeles on her pledge to clean up its streets but has only been able to tinker at the margins, while the numbers of the unhoused have continued to climb.
The sidewalks of Sacramento near the state Capitol are packed with encampments of homeless men and women, sparking a sharp clash between the city’s mayor, former state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg, and Sacramento County’s newly elected district attorney, Thien Ho.
For weeks, Ho issued public denunciations of city officials for, he said, failing to enforce anti-camping laws and at one point even threatened to issue criminal charges against them.
Last week, Ho filed a civil lawsuit against the city, alleging its inaction is creating a public nuisance. A companion suit was filed by a coalition of city residents and business owners.
“Enough is enough,” Ho told The Sacramento Bee. “We need to address this public safety crisis for both the housed and the unhoused.”
The 36-page lawsuit describes Sacramento as a once-thriving city that faces “descent into decay and this utter collapse into chaos,” threatening both housed and unhoused residents.
“The frustration that members of our community feel is absolutely justified,” Steinberg said in a statement, defending steps the city has taken to deal with the issue, and criticizing Ho’s intervention.
Let’s face it. Our liberal/woke leaders, including Biden and Newsome, have essentially destroyed California as we have known it. The state is in a deep financial hole that is not likely to be fix by anything but a shut down on the massive spending, illegals, criminals, etc. That will likely take away much of the income sources of many that depend on the state for their retirement checks, which is based on an IOU note in place of money at this time while the state pays part or most out of the current employee contribution and your taxes. That means current employees are likely to to shackled by the same future situation, if they are lucky. That is not acceptable, but can you name other alternatives???
Sure. Cut half the spending, provide a tax cut of just 1 percentage point, eliminate half the regulations that contribute to the bureaucracy, shore up police so they can arrest thieves and murderers, and begin to return optimism to California.
So they are pointing the finger at themselves in the mirror! but not admitting to it?
Say a lie long enough & they think it becomes the truth-The Liars credo!
Our State has a growing number of homeless as it has become a homeless magnet. How many of the homeless are from other states? We have no idea.
Oakland looks like a war zone and the once beautiful San Francisco is becoming a crime-ridden slum.
If we truly cared about the homeless, how many resources that could be used for the homeless are being used for Illegal Immigrants?
Maybe it is time we had some expectations of the homeless and of the various programs and services designed to deal with homelessness.
For those who have forgotten the “CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY” regarding the breakdown of our civil services, well, it’s here, enjoy, you voted for it.
INTERVENTION is the ONLY answer to the homeless problem. Coddling never works.The billions spent so far have accomplished NOTHING except verify political ineptitude.
Build detention centers away from populated areas. Staff them with people who know how to treat druggies and the mentally ill. Treat them, find them work and monitor their progress.
Democrat policies turning our cities into ghettos should be a lesson for us all.
Vote these Marxist zealots out of office or get ready for a third world experience.
Solving the homeless problem with more money only brings more homeless. Give homeless people three strikes, urge those who are mental to go through psychiatric treatment and after the third strike, arrest the offending homeless individual and ship them to the Channel Islands or the Farallons with a box of Clif bars and a case of water and let them fend for themselves. Coddling doesn’t work. Tough love will.
Stop calling them “homeless” unfortunates. Studies show between 65% and 85% are bums, junkies, law violators and misc human trash and scum. That is why nothing changes no matter how much of my money you throw at them. The Boise ruling has to be challenged until it is changed. The $950 theft “Get out of jail free” pass has to be changed. Then the Gascon and Soros Mobs of useless DA’s must be obliterated. Then toss out Kalifornia’s Oil Slick Gavin Gruesome on his princely grease pressed hair and Patrician Pink Panties. That is only the beginning. It would give us a good start to reclaiming our state the way it is suppose to be run.