Yves here. This post givens some depressing examples draconian new anti-homeless ordinances and laws instituted in the wake of the Supreme Court Grants Pass ruling, which allows for homelessness to be criminalized. Some churches are defying these rules even though municipalities have tried to extend their reach to them.
This article sensibly argues for rental and other forms of housing support. However, with the US so long and resolutely being in the business of hating the poor, these punitive policies are likely to continue even when the citizens generally start paying the price via increases in communicable diseases like antibiotic resistant tuberculosis.
By Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Michigan State University. Originally published at The Conversation
Homelessness is a rare issue in American politics that does not cut neatly along party or ideological lines. It can be hard to predict who will support or oppose measures to expand affordable housing and services for people without homes.
San Francisco, for example – one of the most progressive U.S. cities – has adopted numerous policies that make it easy for opponents to slow or block proposed housing projects. In contrast, churches of many denominations across the U.S. have challenged local zoning ordinances by providing food and shelter to people without homes, even when city laws and codes ban sleeping or eating in areas where the churches are located.
The Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson allows cities to penalize individuals for sleeping in public spaces even when no shelter is available. It overturned the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ previous decision that anti-camping ordinances violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
California is home to half the nation’s homeless population, but not all officials there welcomed the Grants Pass ruling.
I am a researcher specializing in homelessness, and signed an amicus brief submitted by 57 social scientists in the Grants Pass case, supporting plaintiffs who sued on behalf of homeless people living in the Oregon city of Grants Pass. In my view, the outcome of the court’s ruling is both predictable and deeply troubling. Many U.S. cities now are moving aggressively to clear homeless encampments, often without providing sufficient shelter or support to the people they are displacing.
Cities Take Action
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in July that exemplifies this shift by calling for cities to “humanely remove encampments from public spaces.” This approach, which prioritizes clearing visible homelessness over addressing a systemic lack of housing options, often leads to forced displacement that makes people without housing more likely to be arrested and experience increased instability and trauma.
Newsom’s order opened the door for more punitive actions across the state. The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors is considering revisions to a local camping ordinance that would ban sleeping in a tent, sleeping bag or vehicle for over 60 minutes, and would forbid people from sleeping within 300 feet of a public location where they had slept in the past 24 hours.
The city of Fresno recently banned public camping at any time and in any location, regardless of whether shelter is available. The new law bans sleeping or camping at any entrance to public or private property along a public sidewalk.
It also prohibits sitting, lying down, sleeping or camping on “sensitive use” properties, including schools, child care facilities, parks, libraries, government buildings, warming or cooling centers and existing homeless shelters. Violations are punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
Other jurisdictions are following California’s lead. Grand Rapids, Michigan, has enacted new laws to criminalize activities associated with homelessness, such as loitering and storing unattended personal property. In Illinois, a government lobbying association drafted a model camping ban that enforces fines for initial violations and stricter penalties, including possible jail time, for repeat offenses. Several Illinois cities have adopted the ordinance.
Nearly three dozen new state laws in Florida on Oct. 1st, including regulations that limit where homeless individuals can sleep. #EndHomelessness https://t.co/0GP3wrtCwp
— National Coalition for the Homeless (@NationalHomeles) September 24, 2024
Ironically, Grants Pass has not been able to clear its homeless encampments because of a law Oregon enacted in 2021. This measure allows local governments to enact restrictions on sleeping on public property, such as time, place and manner, as long as they are “objectively reasonable.” It requires communities to consider local ordinances in the context of available shelter services and public space.
This approach, which strikes a balance between public concerns and the needs of people who are homeless, prevents the kind of punitive measures that the Supreme Court ruling now permits elsewhere.
The Housing First Approach
Many Americans are frustrated by the homelessness crisis. In their view, cities have made little progress on this issue despite substantial investments.
However, research overwhelmingly shows that criminalizing homelessness perpetuates the problem. It creates a cycle of arrest, incarceration and release, without addressing root causes, such as economic inequality, inadequate mental health and addiction services and a lack of affordable housing. People without housing are at risk of early death from violent injuries, substance abuse or preventable diseases.
In my view, supportive Housing First approaches are more effective than punitive bans. Housing First is a strategy that quickly provides permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, without requiring them to be sober, employed or in treatment for mental health disorders.
This approach recognizes stable housing as a basic human right and a foundation for addressing other challenges that people without homes often face. By meeting their immediate need for housing, it helps people recover from the stress of being homeless and leads to better long-term results. Research shows that Housing First programs are more effective and cost-efficient than requiring treatment for issues such as addiction as a condition for housing.
Critics say that Housing First is expensive and that providing housing without mandatory support services leads to inefficient use of funds. Some studies highlight challenges in ensuring that services match individual needs. Another critique calls Housing First a “one-size-fits-all” solution that may not adequately address the homeless population’s diverse needs.
Rental Access and Assistance
In 2024, the federal government awarded US$3.16 billion to communities nationwide through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program, the largest investment toward ending homelessness in U.S. history.
This HUD program provides funding and support to local communities to coordinate efforts aimed at ending homelessness, such as providing rapid rehousing and support services to homeless people. This is a crisis-response strategy designed to minimize trauma associated with living on the street by moving people into housing as quickly as possible.
Making a serious and lasting dent in this problem will require scaling up proven solutions, such as rental assistance and access to affordable rental housing. A study published by HUD in 2016 found that giving homeless families permanent housing subsidies, such as housing choice vouchers, was the most effective way to ensure long-term housing stability.
Housing choice vouchers cover most of a family’s rent costs, leaving families to pay about 30% of their income on housing, with no time limit as long as participants follow program rules. The HUD study found that compared with other short-term programs, this approach improved participants’ mental health, stabilized families, supported child development and reduced the likelihood of participants becoming homeless again.
Homeless encampments raise legitimate public concerns about health and safety, including the welfare of people living in the camps. But clearing them and banning public camping won’t solve homelessness. As I see it, providing permanent housing subsidies, expanding access to affordable housing and implementing Housing First approaches, paired with supportive services, is a more effective and humane approach.
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I’m sorry but arguing for total lawlessness in democrat run cities is not a good strategy. After watching the mayor and city council in austin totally destroy the city with insane policies that push real estate prices sky high, while simultaneously rounding up people living in the creeks and greenbelts and dumping them under all the highway overpasses in the city (under the guise of ‘you can’t crimialize homelessness!!!!!!!11’), I cheer the supreme court for finally bringing sanity back to the discussion. I’ve watch people go to these dangerous encampments and offer people housing. Almost none of them take the housing. What democrats seem to completely misunderstand is that there’s a large population in america that wants to live on the street and do meth/crack/fentenyl until they die. And it can take over a decade for these people to finally die, having terrorized the community they camp in all those years, day after day. And helping these people (homelessness activists and non profits that need large crouds of homeless people looking extremely desperate so they can get more donations) make bigger and bigger dangerous encampments, refusing to enforce the law when these people attack others and terrorize the community should be and now rightly is considered criminal. It would be great if there was more housing available at lower prices, but the same people creating these huge hazardous camps are the same people running up housing prices. Bust up the dangerous encampments. It’s far past time we stop letting bleeding heart liberals terrorize everyone else. Homelessness needs to end, but I would argue stopping the lazy democrats from creating huge, dangerous encampments is a higher priority. Most cities have zero large encampments, stop the activists and non profits from concentrating them all in large camps in democrat cities. Encampment problem solved. Now we can all stop worrying about being attacked at the stop light on the way home from the grocery store, stop worrying about the weird neighbors that welcome dangerous criminals taking over a community, and start working on putting all the real estate industry people in jail or worse.
Your comment (or should I say rant) reminds me of people trying to say that slaves liked their masters because they were treated so well.
There aren’t people who simply like to live in the street. There are people who need health care, mental institutions and housing. It is the combination of all. You cannot solve the problem by providing just one of them. Housing, healthcare and mental care are all human rights, minimal conditions for survival in this world, and they all became “markets” for the church of capitalism – and the results are seen in the streets. It is a shame that the richest country in the world spends billions on wars and weapons but do not invest in their citizens.
Perhaps we can use their camps to concentrate them.
More seriously, while I don’t share most of your priorities, and oppose your view, the concerns you bring up about crime (and comfort) need addressing in “bleeding-heart” arguments. Real people’s experiences with crime – the homeless are disproportionaly victims of this, so we include them, but also the concerned neighbor – are needed to bring some reality to the issue so that we can actually address it. I’d suggest looking for an explanation for why so many people face a life without hope and merely want to do drugs and die. One reason is the structure of our economy.
You say “the same people creating these dangerous encampments are the same people running up housing prices “. Do you refer to Democrats, who in municipal politics are in bed with landlords? There, I would agree – the landlords, by commodifying housing, create homelessness. If you refer to the homeless themselves, I fail to see how they’re driving real estate costs. I agree with you that real estate industry people ought to be jailed, or worse.
We with our system are all creating the housing shortages by “investing” in real estate we raise the prices. it’s all of us, by taking care of ourselves and investing not only in real estate but allowing PEs to do it in a bigger scale we raise the prices of rent and housing.
Hi Jake….I saw this first hand when visiting my sister in Portland, OR. The highway cloverleafs were full of tents, and crime had soared in her once peaceful neigborhood. And as you state, many of the homeless don’t want to be “housed”.
https://apnews.com/article/homeless-deaths-portland-oregon-f68a73ce13718ffdca4b130dcdb7a0c8#:~:text=At%20least%20315%20homeless%20people,and%20fentanyl%20contributed%20to%2074%25.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/north-portland-arbor-lodge-kenton-homeless-shelter-not-open-grand/283-6ef63dad-e7b2-47ad-99a7-a7f7f9f6851d
PORTLAND, Ore. — Four years ago, Multnomah County bought a former Rite Aid off North Lombard Street and Denver Avenue. It was briefly a severe weather shelter and a site for COVID-19 vaccination, with the goal of making it a long-term homeless shelter for up to 120 people. The county even held a grand opening for the shelter this past June.
However, as first reported by the Willamette Week, it’s the end of September and still sits empty, having served no one since that summer celebration. On Monday, the county’s website read: “Arbor Lodge Shelter is currently closed for renovations, and will be re-opened as a permanent shelter when renovation is complete (planned to re-open in Summer 2024).”
A spokesperson for Multnomah County said there have been “several road bumps” with construction leading to the delay, and that it is typical to hold a grand opening celebration at a site before it opens.
“It would have been clear to attendees at the event that more work needed to happen — for example, there still wasn’t a front door at the time. There were unfortunately further delays after the grand opening event that have caused a later opening date than we’d hoped,” the county spokesperson said.
“It’s stupid. It’s supposed to be a shelter for people, but there’s nobody there,” said Ralph, a homeless veteran who lives about a half-mile away from the empty shelter. “The lights come on once and a while, but that’s about it.”
“I want to be there. I want to go there,” said Ralph’s friend, Andrew, who said he was recently kicked out of the Sunderland RV Safe Park in Northeast Portland.
Once the renovations are complete at the North Lombard Street shelter, Do Good Multnomah will run it. A spokesperson for Do Good Multnomah told KGW there will be 24/7 services on-site, including housing navigation, case management and three meals a day. They are already building a list of who will stay in the shelter, with a focus on homeless people in the Arbor Lodge and Kenton neighborhoods.
Along with the congregate shelter, there are also 18 tiny homes reserved for women, veterans, and trans or non-binary individuals.
A county spokesperson told KGW that site construction is complete, and they are close to opening sometime in October. When a KGW crew was there Monday, there were still construction workers on site.
“We are working with the city of Portland inspectors to obtain a temporary certificate of occupancy, which will be the last step before shelter operator Do Good Multnomah is able to move into the site,” the county spokesperson said. “After they move in, it will take Do Good Multnomah about 30 days to move into the site (which is the typical amount of time it takes for a shelter operator to move in) and after that, they will start welcoming guests.”
However, the city of Portland told KGW that they are waiting on the county to schedule all of the requested inspections and provide them with more documents in order for the city to grant them the needed permit to run the shelter.
“Portland Permitting and Development has been very responsive in working with the county on this and other important facilities. The recent proposed deflection center in Southeast Portland is another example of the quick action we can provide when we have open communication and quick responses from the county,” a city spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, neighbors in North Portland are losing patience with the ongoing delays.
“I think we need homeless shelters. We need to do something about the fact that there are encampments everywhere,” said Jason, who’s lived in North Portland for 10 years.
“It seems like if they wanted to expedite this, if it was really a priority for the city, they would expedite those kinds of permits or planned farther ahead not had a grand opening and done a head-fake on everybody,” said Eric Marentette, who has lived across the street from the empty shelter for nearly five years. “I’m not quite sure how it’s going to play out, so we’re a little nervous.”
One other thing, housing first is a terrible, horrible idea. What it means is that you are going to have to build or find housing somewhere where numerous people with very serious drug addiction problems are all going to live together. It turns into pure hell. These people know they can’t be kicked out of their housing, and they won’t be held responsible if they break the law. The libs will scream about meth addiction being a symptom of homelessness, when a lot of the time, it’s the other way around. If you happen to own or rent near one of these places, you live in hell. People trying to open your door at all hours, looking in your windows, stealing anything that isn’t welded down, and that’s all the minor things. Once one of these people decides they don’t like you, they can terrorize you all day and night indefinitely. Housing first is a dangerous mistake. People need to be help accountable.
When our city put homeless and immigrant people in hotels to try to help, the police department was definitely taxed with so many calls coming in I almost couldn’t believe it. The overwhelming majority of the 911 calls came from the hotel housing the homeless population (immigrant population was in a separate hotel), many of whom were addicts, and not from the immigrants. This is according to the police department’s own stats.
That being said, when I lived in Seattle in the 90s there was definitely a drug problem then, as there still is. The difference was even junkies could afford a place to live then, and now they can’t. Instead of OD’ing in the privacy of their own home, now people are dying in the streets and creating public health problems. While neither situation is good, I much preferred the 90s.
So I do think the answer is to build housing first, but not necessarily dedicating whole buildings to housing just homeless people. There were definitely addicts in apartment buildings I lived in back in the day, as there would be pretty much anywhere a lot of people are housed together, but it was a small minority and not everyone in the building so I didn’t see any major problems.
One type of program I see a lot is requiring new apartment developments to have a certain percentage of “affordable” units, and often the affordable ones are substandard compared to the rest, which attaches a stigma to the occupants. I’m also fairly sure nobody is actually enforcing these affordability percentages because when I ask city officials if anyone is actually monitoring this over the long term instead of just taking the developers at their word when they apply for their permits, I get blank stares.
But I have heard of a different type of plan, and while I don’t know the results, it sounded promising to me. One nearby town has redeveloped massive old abandoned mills and turned them into nice apartments. Some are “affordable” units, but every single apartment is the same – they don’t put the “affordable” ones in the basement or out by the dumpster, they are interspersed with the market rate units so there is no stigma attached. This seems like a much better model to me. People get a decent place to live that they can afford and get to retain their dignity.
Homelessness is the most clear example that this government/country does not care about the homeless or poor. How many people are close to having no where to live?
Honest question: do you actually have any desire whatsoever to learn about how Housing First actually works? Or do you just want to rant about how you think it works and why it’s evil?
Because nothing you say about it remotely lines up with how the approach actually functions. You’re raging against a strawman.
Quick search gives that 15 million homes are vacant in the US, mostly rentals. Less than a million people are homeless in the US.
We also know that landlords are collaborating to keep prices up, through apps.
A part of the homeless may primarily need help to function, but step one looks to be to use the empty homes to house the homeless. This can be done in various ways, but preventing the hoarding of empty homes to push up the price needs to be adressed if there is a political will to solve this problem. Since this is rather obvoius, I suspect that there isn’t a political will to solve this.
The threat of homelessness is yet another mechanism the system leverages to keep people compliant. Behave, or else. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Friends of mine had a business near a beach with quite a few homeless during the summer months. They are kind people but tough, having had hard lives, and when the destitute came by they would give them a free meal in exchange for doing a chore, like sweeping or cleaning tables. They had a couple trailers in the back parking lot, and if one of these people were actually able to complete tasks they’d offer spending the night in the trailer. Some of them would stay for weeks or months; I met a few and heard their stories. Over the years they helped a handful of people get back on their feet, but many, many more preferred to go back to the drugs and the beach and their freedom, such as it was. What I have learned is that you can help some people who choose to help themselves, but the majority are not going to profit from housing availability or assistance programs. The majority of the unhoused are in that state by their daily choices. The solution is to make a path for improvement available, and focus efforts on the people who choose to stay on that path.
“but many, many more preferred to go back to the drugs”
Having been an addict for about ten years, I can tell you straight up that it’s far from a preference. Addicts can and will tell you that they “prefer going back to their drugs” but we will often say anything to keep doing them at the height of our addiction. We like it, or we deserve it, or we do it for revenge on a loved one (who was likely trying to help) or push them away to save them from you, the nasty, awful, weak, horrible addicted person. I can list all of the reasons given, because I gave them.
If you haven’t been addicted to the point of self-destruction, or been close to someone who has, then please don’t tell me they “like it”.
I never said they “like it” — that is a straw man. I said many people prefer to stay unhoused, which means they choose it given freedom to choose. People make choices among alternatives, some better than others. I applaud those giving the unhoused more and better options, but do not agree that all can or will take advantage of them. Save the energy and resources for those who choose to profit from these opportunities.
The Housing First program in my county has something like a 98% retention rate. The vast majority that we house stay housed. No, the homeless are predominantly not people who want to be homeless because they want ‘freedom’.
I’m sorry, but this kind of thing is a meme, at best born of extreme cluelessness built on extrapolating from a handful of anecdotal encounters. I know literally hundreds of homeless; it’s part of my job. The number who like it and want to keep doing can be counted on at most two hands.
“Like it” is a straw man that I never said. I characterized not taking advantage of alternatives as a preference, or a “choice”, if you prefer. People make choices in the face of adverse conditions. That is true for most of humanity. The people in the Housing First program in your county probably have nowhere else to go, not even a beach. So of course it has a high retention rate, because people prefer that to the alternatives. That doesn’t mean it “works”.
They have plenty of places to go, and plenty of resources to keep them going if they choose to stay homeless.
Very few are choosing that option. The vast majority come to us weekly wanting to know if there’s been any update on their housing prospects.
As far as I can see there are two different forms of unhoused folks requiring two different solutions.
The first is the obvious unhoused – the schizophrenic drug addict pushing a shopping trolley full of their meager belongings. These folks need significant mental health and drug addiction assistance – both on an early intervention and on going basis. Barring a revolution in American political economy and social understanding, we’re never going to get the necessary social services.
The second form of unhoused are the less obvious – the folks crashing on friends couches, the subtle sleeping bag and pillow neatly bundled up on the back seat of a car in a CVS parking lot. These folks need limitations to be out on housing as a commodity or at the very least significant subsidizing of rental costs. Again, it’s never going to happen in this selfish greedy country controlled by the riches scumbags in history who should be grateful to still have their heads.
On a personal note, I find it hard to balance my sympathy for the schizophrenic drug addict homeless that are everywhere in my town. Recently on a Saturday morning, a homeless man was passed out in front of my kids martial arts gym. He had thrown up everywhere literally outside the front door – everyone had to navigate around the disgusting mess. I saw that same man the next weekend screaming F-bombs at a family walking passed him down the street. Two weeks ago, another local homeless man was screaming and threatening in a grocery store parking lot that was full of kids. When I told him to knock it off he blew his stack and had a run at me. By 4pm our town square is full of aggressive drunk homeless men. This country has given them a raw deal and I sympathize with how they ended up in their position – but it is incredibly frustrating having to deal with their violent and threatening behavior.
The public policy that created the homeless has brought us to this situation. JFK and [Governor] Reagan closed the asylums without providing alternative housing, Nixon stopped the Feds from building affordable housing, Reagan cut HUD’s affordable housing budget by 75%. The fact that these policies make the public divided (and ruled) is just a bonus.
You don’t have to like the homeless to understand this is as much a structural as an individual problem. Individual homeless people can’t solve it. An LA study says 58% of homelessness stems from rents rising faster than incomes. The drug addiction and mental illness are much more prevalent after losing a home, too.
Seems to be lots of complaining about “those” homeless people in the thread. Perhaps instead of complaining, take action and work at getting the USA, USA, USA out of Ukraine, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Bangladesh, Haiti, Taiwan, Serbia, Syria, etc., etc., etc.
Put your money where your mouth is.
There is no shortage of money. The US makes all it needs. Here’s something no one said, ever “The Japanese just attacked Pearl Harbor, but we’re a little low on cash, so we won’t respond.”
During WWII, the government took over 50% of the US economy. The Green New Deal would only take 5%, incidentally.
So…there’s no shortage of money. And there’s no shortage of resources–there are more vacant homes than homeless. In San Francisco, five times the homeless population is vacant. The problem has nothing to do with wars or foreign policy consuming the money or resources.
It continues because the public continues to believe in “labor discipline”–that sends the message that “You had better take whatever crappy job is on offer, or suffer the indignities of poverty–and poverty will be plenty undignified–even homelessness and starvation. And if you rebel, we’ll put you in a cage.”
Currently, the US is the world champ at incarceration — at five times the world’s per-capita average.
So much this.
Housing first has not worked in San Francisco. There are many deaths from drugs in supportive housing, and the residents of the Whitcomb Hotel did enormous damage to the place. We need sober housing, and to compel drug treatment for those who would otherwise slowly kill themselves out on the streets.
We also need to build like crazy to bring down the price of apartments so that minimum wage earners can rent a place.
First step to solving a problem is to properly define the problem. Lets look at language. Housing is a box with walls, usually having some amenities such as a kitchen, and a bathroom. Home is something else.
Home is a place of belonging, where people know you, and you have relationships of love. It is often associated with communities. Home is a complex idea and not easily defined but we all know it when we are at home.
As long as the problem being solved is putting people in boxes, no progress will be made on houselessness. Creating home is something different, and it is a life’s work, but it the only real solution.
When millions of homes stand empty and, millions are homeless – that in itself declares an economy gone wrong.
When the homeless are accused of overusing emergency services; how does that comport with the fact that homeless die 30 years earlier? and, Does this 30 years of extra life by the housed lead to 30years more of emergency services? How does one overuse emergency services when in fact, by definition, emergencies are what they are…emergencies.
Of course, the quickest solution to the homeless problem at the city level would be to move them to another city, and at the state level to move them to another state. Therefore, the federal government must take the lead in addressing homelessness.
My parents were career advocates for homeless and also developmentally disabled adults. Any solutions that involve housing people in blocks tends to intensify negative or criminal behaviors while trapping working people, elderly, single parent families etc in the same environment, as prey. It reminds me of NYC Robert Moses era out of sight, out of mind developments. Even as a generational Dem I have to say this type of governmental public housing fails residents more than helps them. Would spreading housing out be a better way to resolve involuntary homelessness?
The root of this problem is:
The Economy..
The Elites have destroyed US industry, small and medium sized businesses with the end results of Homelessness & Violence, with millions of citizens in DEBT to the tune of Trillions of $$$s.
.
We now have low wage, part-time work for much of society.
Only those connected to Finance/Capitalism are doing well.
Keep your eyes pivoted on those facts, and if you’re truthful with yourself, you won’t blame these destructive habits poured upon the poor, and the homeless.
so so so well said!
Its said that 59% the population is one paycheck from homeless. Hard to believe its a bug in the system rather than a feature. This implies any good solution will not be implemented, even if others show the path. Its not as if homelessness bothers Jamie Diamond or Bezos.
https://www.muindifoundation.org/59-of-americans-are-just-one-paycheck-away-from-homelessness/
It’s a feature that provides cheap labour that doesn’t complain too much. What more could a Bezos wish for, except maybe replacing all the workers with AI and machines.
the inevitable results of bill clintons fascist economics. next stop, concentration camps with forced labor, work shall set you free.
of course more slave/sweatshop labor, will bring down the wages of those that are not in the concentreation camps.
thus forcing more onto the streets. a self licking ice cream cone.
under bill clintons free trade, whole nations were in concentration camps. today the inmates have rebelled.
We can’t address the homelessness problem until we dispense with grand fantasies about giving everyone a house, or convincing drug addicts to enter treatment and turn their life around. These ideas are quite frankly ridiculous and it’s alarming so many people take them seriously.
It’s simple: Enforce that people sleep in a government-provided shelter, or in jail – not on the street. They can either choose to sober up and sleep in a shelter, or they can be forced into jail. That’s both practical and humane. People who are actually willing to stop hitting a meth pipe and live in a tent on the sidewalk can have a roof over their head, everyone else can sit in jail. And our cities can be returned to the people who wake up every day and go to work.
Something that’s so frustrating about the topic of Housing First is that the most vocal critics don’t seem to understand any of the basics of it, and show little interest in learning. I’ve both observed attempts, and at time’s attempted myself, to engage with them, and it’s usually like talking to a brick wall. In all honestly I don’t see the opposition on this matter as at all operating in good faith.
No one is being ‘given a house’. What happens Is people get on a prioritized waiting list, and may have to wait literally years, to get a rental voucher. If and when they finally get the voucher, they then have to go apartment hunting, and almost invariably get rejected on their first application to any place, after which their overworked case manager has to write an appeal letter. Homeless with vouchers are like any other renter. No one has any obligation to house them, nor are they given any special protections to avoid eviction.
After actually getting housed they aren’t abandoned either, as their case workers keep a constant eye on them.
People with severe problems (who are absolutely a minority, and I will die on the hill of asserting that) are screened out of the normal voucher approach and other opitions, if they exist, are considered for them. Housing First fundamentally focuses on people who have a high probability of being able to hold it together long term. We don’t have the resources for it to work any other way. We cannot micromanage people who are, for lack of a better word, insane, whether with some permanent mental illness or induced through severe drug use.
Honolulu jumped on the housing first bandwagon (we grab every west coast progressive idea that comes along). I don’t see that it has any impact.
Never underestimate how much the powers that be will do to sabotage ideas that work elsewhere. Finland did housing first (first) and did fine.
Oregon decriminalized drugs, but let the police enforce the tickets-not-jail penalties. The tickets would provide rehab to their holders. The druggies weren’t sufficiently compliant by the police’s lights. They defied the police (their previous adversaries) and the decriminalization got rescinded as a failure.
Why do things half-assed? Because public policy makers can shrug and say “See! We tried!” and then do business as usual.
We need actual new approaches, implemented by those committed to them working, not nice tries.
The decriminalization was a failure. I’ve attended enough memorials to fentanyl ODs to tell you that.
We took step one, decrimnalize, but never took step two, which was to build a meaningful number of treatment places. People weren’t going to rehab because rehab largely doesn’t exist, and what there is has long waiting lists.
You have to try very hard indeed to place the failure at the feet of the cops.