Direct link to Newsom's tweet: https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1816497533772038507
Surprised by how brazen the message is.
Surprised by how brazen the message is.
1. California was ground zero for some of the more supposedly 'enlightened' approaches to the homelessness problem with both substantial, sustained funding and strong local political support for non-enforcement. After nearly a decade of such experiments, the evidence they've made the situation dramatically worse is obvious and undeniable, even to those who were open-minded and supportive of trying these approaches.
2. Newsom clearly has national political ambitions as the next step in his career and much of what he does lately is in service of optics in that direction.
Homelessness has been polling as urgent in California for over a year, particularly among Democrats [1]. It's why Prop 1 narrowly passed despite being a bond measure [2].
[1] https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3868
[2] https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/03/election-r...
Most European countries have worse homelessness rates than California but you would never believe it because they heavily police camping in major cities. In comparison, San Francisco used to be an international gem but its reputation is too well known.
I'm particular curious how really large European cities compare to their west coast equivalents and also the midsize equivalents compare.
https://www.slowboring.com/p/they-have-homelessness-in-europ...
It's hard to put a number on how much reputation damage the homelessness issue has caused California, but it's probably some amount over $1.
The city-by-city comparison I think is really the interesting metric. Homelessness is not equally distributed in America and I to my understanding European countries as well.
Paris: 150,000 (~8%) homeless people [1], total population: 2.161M (2019) [2]
Berlin: 30,000 (~1%) homeless people (with about 6k living in the street unsheltered) [2] , total population: 3.645 million (2019) [3]
Los Angeles: 75,000 (~2%) [4], total population: 3.822 million (2022)
New York: 350,000 (~4%) [5], total population: 8.336 million (2022)
San Francisco: 8,000 (~1%) [6], total population: 808,437 (2022)
San Luis Obispo: 1,175 (~2%) [7], total population: 48,341 (2022)
Rome: 8,000 (~0.2%) [8], total population: 2.873M (2017)
SF & LA are both well below NY & Paris, even as a rate; yet seemingly LA & SF have a worse reputational problem. I was told the big difference in NY vs West Coast is that NY has made a lot of shelter space and has a more functional shelter system. I suspect this is perhaps the big difference - adequate and a functional shelter system, rather than enforcement & sweeps. The two perhaps go hand-in-hand, sweeps are not effective if there is nowhere to go. If there are lots of shelters, a functioning shelter system, then sweeps conceivably have a chance to have a lasting (and positive) impact.
I'm having a tough time finding good counts of available shelter space.
Rome is for sure a standout. Trying to find shelter space counts there, there are lots of hits for things like "A new shelter for the homeless in the heart of Rome" [9]
I think overall there is evidence here to suggest it is more a functioning shelter system that has a bigger impact on homelessness compared to sweeps. What is more, there is evidence as well that homelessness rates are a function of both sweeps and the shelter system.
We're still also not getting into some other variables, like healthcare costs (a big driver for homelessness in the US, per my understanding), social safety nets, etc..
Overall, given this data, I don't think it is just a matter of enforcing sweeps/camping vs not. Do you still hold that opinion? If so, what function do you think shelters have in the equation? (The biggest problem with the data I presented is teasing out how much of that homeless population is sheltered vs unsheltered. It appears that places in Europe, like Berlin & Rome that have large shelter systems, fare the best. If it were a matter of just sweeps, then seemingly Paris would do much better than it does)
[1] https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/social-cleansing-to-make...
[2] https://www.german-times.com/with-the-us-as-a-role-model-ber...
[3] Google search: Berlin population
[4] https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/2024-greater-los-an...
[5] https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-ho...
[6] https://www.sfgov.org/scorecards/safety-net/homeless-populat...
[7] https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article289037219.ht...
[8] https://www.feantsa.org/download/it-proof-read-new-template1...
[9] https://www.orderofmalta.int/news/new-shelter-homeless-heart...
It's not about the absolute number of homeless as it is about the public perception of homeless. The reason California has a "homelessness" crisis and France does not is that France keeps it at the periphery and tourists never see it.
Paris homeless point in time count of 4,227 in January 2024 [1] France for individuals living rough 141,500 [2]
[1] https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/news/in-paris/articles/24790....
[2] https://redcross.eu/projects/mobile-teams-assisting-homeless...
My understanding is that a number of jurisdictions saw no point to round up a person's few possessions and put them in jail for a month. Places that have paused and/or resumed that model (and many places on west coast never paused sweeps at all)- all really saw no difference. The people are going to be somewhere. My perspective, few root cause solutions were even attempted and the problem has just gotten out of hand. Which is to say, the enforcement is a surface level action, experimenting with pausing that was also a superficial experiment as well.
San Francisco has open hard drug use. There was a time when suggesting that at some point in the intervention chain arrest should be at least be considered was treated as abhorrent.
One correction if I may, SF had open hard drug use - that policy was reversed. Is that correct? I'm looking at: [1]
> There was a time when suggesting that at some point in the intervention chain arrest should be at least be considered was treated as abhorrent.
I acknowledge this. I think I understand the perspective. I would tend to agree too. It's one thing to say "hey, criminilization is a whack-a-mole game, we're really just wasting money and not helping anyone" vs a very extreme version of that with zero enforcement in-all-cases no matter what.
One thing I've learned recently though is that CA has dumped some pretty serious money into the problem. It reads as those attempts were ineffective for a number of other reasons.
My perspective, from Seattle, where the whack-a-mole policies have been lessened & there has been no serious money to back a sustained solution. It's seemingly a very different situation.
Though, even still, we may have the possible biggest difference in perspective in viewing the desired intent from whack-a-mole criminilization. I don't think anyone was really calling the pause of that type of enforcement as an actual solution. Yet, CA was backing up the rhetoric with money for other programs.
So, namely, putting a person in jail does not really alter behavior & a criminal record arguably worsens the situation. I'm not aware of anyone claiming that to be a true solution. Yet, to your point, an extreme view of no-enforcement I would agree has unintended consequences.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-francisco-crac...
"53 people were arrested for public drug use. Eleven were cited for misdemeanors and 42 were booked into jail for temporary detention. The mayor's office said none of them accepted offers of treatment upon their release."
> CA has dumped some pretty serious money into the problem
It's terribly tracked [1]. Like, the transient homeless population is both sympathetic and solvable. They should be the priority. Unfortunately, it's been impossible to say that until recently because you'd get shot down for leaving the drug addicted and mentally ill homeless behind. So you wind up with processes and facilities that are all hardened for the 10% most extreme, expensive and damaging homeless. (Plus, of course, corruption.)
[1] https://calmatters.org/housing/homelessness/2024/04/californ...
Can you give references/citations and/or examples of these programs? Particularly the ones that received sustained funding and how much funding that was per person? I'm aware of small anecdotal examples, but the funding was always just minimal. My understanding is it requires at least around $10k/person/year, a couple hundred per person does not move the needle.
My 2 cents, I feel like the West Coast could solve the problem if there were appetite to raise & spend the money. A 1% wealth tax on the value of cars over 100k and homes over 10M likely would solve the problem overnight - but is there political appetite to do that? No.
The 10B number is even low! It appears that CA spent 20B over the last 5 years [2], $42,000 per homeless person. [1]
The part I find really interesting, is the per-capita spend amount. California has a population of 39M, and spent 20B per five years, that is a $1000 per capita (per year) amount. In contrast, that number in Seattle is a meager $148, and across the lake from Seattle, in Bellevue that drops to $21 [3]
I'm really shocked at the per-capita spend difference. My impression was that in Seattle the policies don't work because there is no money behind it and an inadequate and broken shelter system. The data from CA - shows that money alone is not enough.
My takeaway, actual housing first, a well functioning shelter system do still seem to me to be biggest key to the problem. Clearly though, throwing money at the issue is not sufficient.
[1] https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/07/something-clearly-...
[2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-09/state-au...
[3] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/does-seat...
"More than 69,000 homeless residents live in Los Angeles County, for instance, but that county has just over 21,000 beds in shelters and temporary housing programs. It’s a similar story in Sacramento County, which counted nearly 9,300 unhoused residents in its last census, but has just over 3,000 shelter and temporary housing beds." (https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/05/california-homeless-h...)
I'm not sure what's 'enlightened' about not providing spaces for homeless people before you bulldoze over their tents and what few possessions they have.
He says "We’ve provided the funds." but clearly they were either inadequate or went into someone's pocket and not towards giving these people somewhere to go.