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What do a small, solidly Republican city in Oregon have in common with California’s largest liberal enclave? This year, everyone breathed a sigh of relief thanks to the far-right U.S. Supreme Court.
In June, the court’s conservatives ruled in favor of the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, overturning an important lower court ruling on homelessness and allowing local governments to close public spaces without regard to housing availability or availability. paved the way to crack down on sleep. shelter. California’s response to the ruling was a stark reminder not only of the intractability of the homelessness epidemic but also of the tension between national liberal politics and local policy in Democratic-majority states and cities. .
Approximately 186,000 people across California lack stable shelter. About 84% of voters in the state think homelessness is a “very serious” problem, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, with Democrats and Republicans broadly speaking about that assessment, at 81% and 85%, respectively. They were in agreement. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that since Grants Pass, California officials have wasted no time implementing desired “solutions” to homelessness.
From San Diego to San Francisco, state and local officials have begun dismantling makeshift shelters and camps and evicting the homeless people living there. Within days, entire blocks were rebuilt across the state. Residents rallied on social media platforms like Reddit and Nextdoor to exchange strategies for removing homeless encampments from their neighborhoods.
Other Californians see the Supreme Court’s decision and enthusiastic co-signing by Democratic officials as further evidence of America’s growing contempt for society’s most marginalized people. There have been reports of humiliating incidents in which homeless people have been kicked out of campsites with little or no warning, pets have been taken away and medicines have gone missing.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups condemned the Grants Pass ruling. The chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness said this set a “dangerous precedent”. But the precedent California Democrats set was perhaps far more dangerous.
During the early waves of the Golden State’s housing crisis in the late 1970s, Democratic politicians were openly hostile to the state’s homeless population, many of them veterans of the wars in Vietnam and Korea. I didn’t like being seen as a target. But as the homeless population grows and becomes more diverse, officials say it’s not just California’s wealthy, liberal cities that have the highest rates of homelessness and Democratic-leaning workers who face related issues like loitering and loitering. Class communities are also facing a deepening NIMBY sentiment. Plague. As a result, anti-homelessness policies have become more politically appealing, even though they are painfully at odds with the inclusivity and other virtues Democrats display on the national stage.
Addressing the housing crisis is a typical and enduring social justice cause for Democrats, and includes themes that tend to unite the party, such as health, the economy, and racial equity. One study found that 82% of homeless adults in California have experienced a serious mental health condition, and 65% have used illegal drugs at least once. Black people in the state are disproportionately affected by homelessness, making up about 25% of California’s homeless population, even though they only make up about 5% of California’s total population. Such statistics have helped liberals frame homelessness as a product of Republican policies that undermine social services and promote unchecked capitalism.
But that view has fallen out of favor as homelessness has become more dramatic and visible over the past decade. In some of California’s liberal enclaves, homeless encampments have become full-fledged tent cities. Scenes of filth, drug use and petty crime have spawned a subculture of gonzo-style documentary videos, racking up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. San Francisco and Los Angeles are facing the most notable crises, with scrutiny turning to whether the latter city is ready to host the 2028 Olympics.
The difficult question for Democrats is whether authorities should evict, fine, and jail people living in public spaces to address concerns about the quality of life in the broader community. Critics argue that such criminalization is a cruel distraction and that more affordable housing is the only way to meaningfully address the crisis.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his predecessor, Jerry Brown, have committed billions of dollars to homelessness prevention and affordable housing, even as the homeless population generally continues to grow. Mr. Newsom quickly took advantage of the conservative Supreme Court’s permission to prioritize punishment over housing, warning cities that they risk losing state funding if they don’t clear encampments. San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who recently lost reelection over concerns about homelessness, similarly promised to be “very aggressive” in clearing encampments. Never mind that people displaced by the state’s homeless sweeps often end up occupying other spaces nearby and returning at a later date.
So how did we get here? California’s ruling Democratic Party is expanding its booming high-tech industry, which attracts workers willing to pay top dollar for homes, and dramatically driving up home prices, while enforcing bureaucratic and highly bureaucratic housing development standards. Most have tried to get by in every way possible, including nurturing and tolerating. And while Newsom and others have heralded emergency housing and other measures to address the crisis, total capacity falls far short of the unhoused population. Part of the reason is that new facilities are often rejected by cities such as the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk, which recently enacted a moratorium on homeless shelters.
Whatever the underlying motivation, reducing and preventing homelessness is one of the few civic concerns that unites political parties in a time of severe polarization. Beyond the obvious moral merits of this cause, it has the potential to provide a roadmap for reaching bipartisan solutions to other challenges facing the state and nation. Unfortunately, the consensus on homelessness is congealing around prescriptions that have little chance of long-term success.
Jerel Ezell is an assistant professor of community health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
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