'We didn't succeed': the homeless crisis in California has already escalated into a humanitarian disaster - ForumDaily
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'We didn't succeed': the homeless crisis in California has already escalated into a humanitarian catastrophe

The humanitarian catastrophe of homelessness is worsening in California - all measures have proven insufficient, reports TheGuardian.

Photo: Shutterstock

During the California lockdown in March 2020, homeless advocates thought the state might finally be forced to address the homelessness crisis. They hoped that to slow the spread of Covid, officials would have to provide people living on the street with stable and private shelter and housing.

But over the next two years, the humanitarian catastrophe in California worsened: the number of deaths on the streets increased; college students live in their cars; more and more older residents are becoming homeless. Camp settlements sprawl along beaches, parks, underpasses, allotments, and sidewalks.

California has the fifth largest economy in the world, a budget surplus, the most billionaires in the US, and some of the richest areas in the country. However, the wealth of the Golden State has not produced solutions to match the scale of the crisis that has raged for decades. Pandemic-era programs have had some success for part of the homeless population, but many measures have been insufficient.

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Meanwhile, homelessness has become a major issue in political races. Polls in Los Angeles, home to 40% of the state's homeless population, show that most voters want their governments to act faster and that residents are outraged by the massive human suffering caused by a seemingly intractable crisis.​

Of California's 20 largest cities, most legislators have either passed or proposed new laws to ban camping in certain locations or stepped up camp sweeps. Los Angeles and Oakland have passed laws prohibiting camping in certain areas. The mayor of San Francisco pushed for a police crackdown on homeless people who use drugs in the Tenderloin area. Fresno passed a law providing for a fine of up to $250 for entering certain restricted areas; and Modesto, Bakersfield and Riverside are pushing for more park rangers to enforce anti-camping regulations and related restrictions.

Some homeless people and civil rights activists warn that the escalating effort to push people off the streets is only hurting the most vulnerable more.

“We have failed in many ways,” said Theo Henderson, a Los Angeles homeless advocate who until recently lived on the streets himself. — There are families with children who live in cars. There are old people and the infirm on the streets... It’s a dark time and the homeless people are very scared.”

"Unacceptable" numbers

While the homeless remain concentrated in major metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles, San Jose, the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego, communities from north to the Mexican border are facing emergencies of their own.

California counted 161 homeless people in the state in January 548, the most recent count available. The count is a "point in time" estimate that counts people living on the street or in shelters. These figures are considered to be significantly underestimated.

At least 113 of those counted were classified as "homeless". More than half of all homeless people in America are in California and it is the only state where more than 660% of the homeless population is homeless.

The consequences of so many people living on the street are serious and fatal. In 2015, the Los Angeles County Coroner's office recorded 613 homeless deaths. That number has been steadily rising every year, rising to 1609 deaths in 2021, a spokesman said. These numbers are low because the coroner only tracks deaths that are considered sudden, unusual, or violent. Overdoses were the leading cause of death for homeless people during the pandemic, according to a UCLA report last year.

Data analysis revealed other worrying trends: One UCLA study estimated that at least 269 kindergarten through 000th grade students in the state were homeless before the pandemic; in Los Angeles County, black residents were four times more likely to be homeless; and also in Los Angeles, the number of homeless seniors has increased by 12%, with almost 20 seniors living on the street before the arrival of Covid.

“This is simply unacceptable,” said Wendy Carrillo, a state legislator who represents parts of Los Angeles and chairs the homeless budget committee. As a child, she said, she walked past Skid Row and struggled to understand why so many people had to live on the street. Since then, the crisis has grown: "We have become so divided as a society, so cold about the problem, that it has become the norm for people to step over someone who passed out on the floor."

$14 billion investment and fight against camping

The disaster in California is partly related to a longstanding statewide housing affordability crisis. Californians spend significantly more of their income on housing compared to the rest of the country. More than 1,5 million renters spend half their earnings on rent, potentially leaving them one medical emergency or crisis away homeless. Income inequality has only worsened in recent years.

A UCLA study of residents of one camp in Los Angeles found that people cited a number of factors that led to them being homeless, including eviction, job loss, domestic violence, former incarceration, family conflicts and low wages in the gig economy.

In response to the crisis, California is investing billions of dollars in housing and related services, but the success of new programs to expand affordable housing and transitional housing has been mixed.

“One of the problems with housing policy is that it's like a giant ship turning around. It's a slow process,” said Shamus Roller, executive director of the National Housing Law Project. He noted that in recent years, the state has made significant progress in investing in housing construction, but sometimes it can take more than a decade to reap benefits.

There are also systemic and historical issues that housing programs cannot address, including the loss of social safety nets, the cessation of renovation programs, and a controversial government taxation measure in 1978 that created serious barriers to new housing purchases, Roller said.

Advocates say some regions have invested more in temporary housing programs than in permanent housing, making it more difficult for people to move out of shelters, especially as the housing market is deteriorating and more people are becoming homeless again.

Symbolic of the challenges is California's signature response to homelessness during the pandemic: Project Roomkey. The program temporarily provided motel rooms to approximately 50 people living on the streets. But the program was implemented locally, and some counties did not reach their goals or could not meet the demand in their regions. Participants reported struggling to find accommodation after their hotel stay ended, with some returning to the streets due to the program's strict rules, advocates said.

This year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is promoting a $14 billion investment in solutions for the homeless. Money intended to create 55 new housing units and places for treatment. His Homekey initiative, the successor to Project Roomkey, allows local governments to purchase motels to use as temporary or permanent housing for the homeless. As of last week, the state has committed $000 million to more than 695 units.

While the programs may be life-changing for some participants, advocates fear their impact on many may be too late to show, especially as statewide eviction protection expires at the end of the month and efforts to reduce rents in a pandemic era are winding down. . Even with a partial moratorium on evictions, sheriffs forcibly placed thousands of homes on lockdown in the first year of the pandemic, according to CalMatters analysis.

“We're getting a lot of calls from tenants who are being evicted,” said Jovana Morales-Tilgren, housing policy coordinator for the Central Valley-based organization Justice and Accountability. “Many undocumented people do not have the resources to fight an eviction notice.”

Meanwhile, advocates warn, conditions for those living on the streets are only getting worse amid tightening restrictions on camping. The proposed state law would also allow courts to enforce treatment for some people with severe mental illness.

Human rights activists say crackdowns on tent living and fear of possible forced treatment could lead to people being dispersed to more hidden locations where it may be harder for them to access services and participate in programs.

“Using law enforcement to fight homelessness is counterproductive and ineffective,” said Eva Garrow, a political analyst and attorney for the Southern California ACLU. According to Garrow, the expansion of criminalization has been overwhelming. “And people are feeling compassion fatigue, and they want something to be done. Local government officials are responding with what they consider “quick fixes” that are not fixes at all and are completely wrong,” she says.

"I don't want to die on the street"

People living on the streets or in makeshift shelters while waiting for housing say they are worried and tired by increasingly hostile rhetoric from politicians and the public.

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“Every social ill is blamed on homeless people,” said Henderson, who regularly talks to homeless residents on his podcast. — A surge in burglaries and then the response: “Can we remove the homeless?” Every homeless person has stories like this - as soon as something happens, the police look at them as the main suspects."

Kenneth Stallworth, who has lived in a group shelter since his Venice Beach camp was closed in a scandal last year, said he doesn't mind the shelter and appreciates the electricity, but also said he saw several people who died or did not receive emergency medical care in the institution.

Dawn Tofty, 57, used to live in a campsite near the Los Angeles Super Bowl Stadium last month until she was forced to leave before the big game. Officials said residents were offered housing, but a month later, Tofty camped outside and is still waiting for a housing voucher that could subsidize rent.

"I'm getting old and I don't want to die on the street," she said, adding that she doesn't think officials care if people like her get housing: "They just want us out of the picture."

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