When I began this website several years ago, I did so with the view that states, counties, and cities, as well as the federal government, were not doing enough to solve homelessness. I was troubled by the amount of useless and ineffective action, as well as the failure to address massive nuisance, such as widespread garbage-strewn homeless camps, and out-of-control vehicle dwelling which encroached upon residential neighborhoods as well as many commercial corridors.
In the last year, as I’ve observed government overreach turn into a march forward with vastly unlawful government actions and open tyranny, and and even complete totalitarianism in several nations such as Australia and New Zealand, I have had to question everything I’ve formerly believed about our government. With millions of others, I’ve come to realize that what we’ve been calling “government”, has in fact been an organized crime syndicate for many decades, with government fraud and crime stretching back, in our nation, at least 150 years, and perhaps longer around the globe.
Research on where things went wrong, and how, ultimately led me to find the work of Anna von Reitz, (see main national site for the American States Assembly, based in Anna’s work, here: https://tasa.americanstatenationals.org/ and see California State site here: https://california.americanstatenationals.org/ ) who’s done over 3 decades of research and work on uncovering the vast network of fraud, crime, semantic deceit, press-ganging, inland piracy, barratry and more at the very foundation of our entire “government” structure. One of the core realizations from her work, is that there are 3 jurisdictions in government — land, air and water — or “LAW” — and while our entire US government at present exists in the water and air jurisdictions, we the people, as living men and women, actually are located on the land and soil jurisdiction, and that’s where the original American government and original unincorporated United States of America was located. Though many may not realize it, this unincorporated American government, though it went dormant, still exists, and is being restored today by the American States Assembly, on every state.
More to the point, the water and air jurisdictions have no authority over us when we declare ourselves people on the land jurisdiction, except in instances where we are on federal property, or own a corporation, or are federal employees. Other than that, the codes, statutes, ordinances, regulations of the water and air jurisdictions (known as the Territorial Government, which is run by the British Crown, and Municipal Government, run by the Holy See or Vatican) do not apply to us at all. We just don’t come under those jurisdictions. Rather, living men and women, Americans, live under Public Law, or American Common law, and this kind of law is bare and minimalist. Within the land and soil jurisdiction, government has no other purpose than to protect people and our property. This was all government was ever meant to do, and it has very greatly overreached its original purpose, and to say government needs to be reined in is a terrific understatement.
So the upshot of all of this, is that there is no city ordinance, none whatsoever, which applies to living men and women, eg living people who’ve declared we are not corporations or legal fictions, unless we own a corporation or are a government employee, or (in the case of federal statutes) when we are in a federal jurisdiction such as on railroad land or in a post office.
Thus, city parking regulations apply to no one except government employees themselves and/or corporations, not to those who own or rent homes in any given city, and not to those living in vehicles in the city, and living in those on city streets.
Parking regulations apply to no one but government employees and corporations
From the standpoint of reducing RV nuisance all over cities, this wasn’t something I was happy to find out. However, this particular issue is very small when compared to the larger issue of the discovery of a completely fraudulent government, in essence an organized crime syndicate, running our whole nation. So suffice it to say that when viewing things from the proper perspective, my concerns about homeless living in vehicles on city streets has been considerably reduced, if not completely eliminated, compared to much greater concerns that have arisen regarding the way that we’ve all been preyed upon for decades by criminals pretending to be our government.
Thus, all those living in vehicles who are upset with Berkeley’s parking ordinances: https://thestreetspirit.org/2021/11/09/berkeley-parking-laws-will-force-vehicle-dwellers-to-roll-on/ Take heart, if you do what is called “correcting your status” to declare that you are not, after all, a legal fiction and corporate entity that as such would come under the jurisdiction of the water or air jurisdiction governments, but instead are a living man or woman on the land jurisdiction, you have lawful standing to declare that no city parking regulation whatsoever applies to you. You also have the basis to remove yourself from the DMV and no longer have to pay for car registration and license fees, because the right of Americans to travel freely is not a privilege and cannot be regulated. Americans who travel on the roads do not need driver’s licenses: those are only needed by those who use their vehicles for commerce, such as for doing grocery deliveries.
There are many other far-reaching consequences that would come from recognition of the proper role of government, restoration of American common law, and the removal of water and air jurisdiction governments from running things within the federal government, and vastly reducing their presence in states, counties and cities, where they should really have never have set up shop. In fact, once Americans see a restoration of proper government, as well as all our credit that the criminal government has been stealing from us for decades, and all the other thievery and predatory behavior of government over the years (eg, no one should have to pay for such things as utilities, mortgage, student loans, property taxes, federal or state income tax, sales tax, car registration fees, any type of permit or license, and certainly not parking fees and fines), it’s quite likely that virtually no one would be homeless again, because we’d all have so much of our collective wealth restored to us.
I haven’t added any new posts to this website for some time. There’s a reason for this…. Which is that after everything that I’ve seen happen in the last 1.5 years, my eyes have been opened. I now have a new perspective on homelessness. At the start, I thought the epidemic of homelessness we saw on our streets had to do with drug addiction, mental illness, and an inept government. Gradually, I realized that there was what I began to call a “homeless industrial complex”, which actually profited from NOT solving the homeless problem, but maintaining it, milking it as it were. So I realized that corruption and fraud were involved, as well as ineptness.
But after the Covid situation began in March 2020, and then in November 2020 I saw so many indications of massive election fraud…I began to search for more information. Because now a much larger and different context was visible to me, one in which previously unthinkable ideas now became plausible.
I began to realize that the growing epidemic of homelessness was not just a result of incompetence, or political correctness carried to insane extremes, such that “compassion” was now being defined as its opposite, the cruelty that would allow people to fester and die on city sidewalks. It was also not just the result of corruption and fraud. But something far more nefarious was at work. I began to realize that perhaps a majority of all government in our nation was involved in what amounted to fraud, treason, and crimes against humanity. I found more clues about how the whole system as we know it, has been based on fraud and several kinds of crime… virtually the whole government…and apparently, not just in America, but around the whole world.
Not just progressives, not just democrats, but a “uniparty” of people were working either intentionally or unwittingly in cahoots with this fraudulent government system. Some who looked into this situation, believed there was an effort to intentionally destroy our cities, pit groups of individuals against each other through ever more divisive identity politics, use the Covid situation and other faked emergencies to gradually deprive us of our rights, and eventually, deprive us of our property and assets, and ultimately, possibly also our lives as there were indications that “depopulation” was part of their agenda.
And where are the good “progressives” on all this? Those whose mantra, years ago, was “Question Authority“? Sadly it seems those same people have now adopted the mantra “Obey Authority without Question“, as good slaves of the corporate overlords and New World Order.
How these people ended up doing a 180 degree about face, and supporting a nascent totalitarian regime aimed at the decimation of all property rights and more via Agenda Twenty-One, https://thenewamerican.com/agenda-21-and-the-movement-toward-a-one-world-govt/ while now trotting around on sidewalks like a good flock of sheep, all obediently mask’d up, is beyond my comprehension.
I began to hear about “Common Law”, and when I did research into this, I was absolutely stunned with what I found about the crimes that our government has knowingly perpetrated against all of us, for over 150 years in America. I learned that the entire current system of government in America, as well as in many other nations, is totally illegitimate, as it is built upon identity theft, fraud, peonage, personage, slavery, barratry, press-ganging, theft, and more. Thus, with this criminal and fraudulent basis, it comes as no surprise that government officials at every level have broken multiple laws, violated the US Constitution, and that local government has brazenly continued to pass illegal laws and policies.
See Appendix below for more info on many laws that have been violated during the sk@mdemic, around the nation, by government and retail establishments, agencies, institutions who are supported by unlawful pronouncements, “mandates” and actions by governments. All this however, is only the tip of a vast iceberg of much, much more unlawful activity and unlawful laws, codes, statutes, rules, policies which have built up over time into a huge web of an unwieldy oppressive structure.
To just point to a couple recent examples of things that can be seen visually in the local area: you may have noticed these “street closures” popping up in Berkeley and Oakland. Oakland began setting up these “slow streets” last summer in 2020, and Berkeley has now begun doing the same. They try to pass these off as a benefit for pedestrians and bicyclists, or as some form of government assistance in a time of sk@mdemic, ( a place to walk while mask’d up), but it is wholly unlawful for a government to shut down or partly close the public streets, which belong to the people.
Berkeley and Oakland have illegally “closed” many public roads, using the fakery around the “pandemic” to justify this. These roads belong to we the people and government cannot “close” them to through traffic.
As well, the University of California at Berkeley, which is a public university, posted signage at some point in the sk@mdemic, to the effect that the Campus was closed to the public. This is wholly unlawful as well: this is a public university, and thus you cannot stop the public from walking on the grounds.
When I saw these things and much more, suffice it to say that it no longer seemed much of a priority to write about the homeless epidemic, or to try to organize locally to advocate for better approaches and real solutions to this problem. It became clear to me that the entire government system was so rotten and corrupt, and resting on such a fraudulent and criminal foundation, that even if all the current people serving in government could be purged and replaced with ethical and honest, reasonable individuals, even this would not be sufficient to restore our nation. Because the structure itself was illegitimate: government had become a monstrosity, to which the people themselves were quite secondary, and even increasingly superfluous, in the Orwellian eyes of the New World Order.
So, given all this that I had experienced, seen and discovered…. I realized I should not be putting any energy into writing about the plight of the homeless, or the continual ineptness of city, county and state governments to do anything at all to solve this problem, which so many reasonable people had explained how it could be relatively easily solved.
What then should I do?
As many of you who are intelligent and aware will have realized, there is virtually no “news” in the world now….or to put it another way, we the people are the news. We are getting “fake” news on every major media outlet, lies and propaganda, and teams of individuals, clearly under instructions from the NWO elites running things behind the scenes, that they must not let the truth get out.
You’d have to have your head in the sand to have failed to see how everyone who stands up to speak the truth, is smeared and attacked mercilessly: Twitter not only banned a sitting US president when they banned President Trump, but they then kicked off their platform thousands or even millions of people who were trying to tell the truth about what they saw happening regarding the election. Doctors who have impeccable credentials and are top scientists in their field, have had their videos removed from YouTube or Facebook, their research papers rejected, or even lost their jobs, all because they told truths about Covid and/or the vaxxes that the “powers that be” did not want publicized.
So, clearly…telling the truth was something that was needed, at a time of unprecedented attacks on truth. I joined groups where we shared news we heard, small groups where we kept each other informed.
But beyond simply trying to write the truth as I saw it, what could I do? What could I do to help restore a legitimate government to our nation? This is where my exploration into Common Law finally led me to some exciting discoveries.
I found that an entire system of law actually exists “underneath” our current “legal system”, which, like our government, is built upon fraud. This original and legitimate system of law, is called “Common Law”, and it was the law of our land up until about 1870, when some things occurred which had the result of our nation being stolen from under our feet, without any of us living then, being the wiser. An elaborate system of “semantic deceit” was used, whereby words or phrases that sounded almost exactly like the originals, but contained a few differences, were used in place of the original wording, and this allowed one legitimate thing to be replaced with something else, that was illegitimate.
And in this longer video, a woman who was framed and imprisoned for 8 years for a crime she never committed, speaks out about this fraud and its implications on many aspects of our lives:
So as it turns out, working piecemeal on individual issues is pointless right now. As is any attempt to “fix” the organized crime syndicate that we now have for a government. The nation needs to be wholly restored from the ground up. There are a few different ways one might go about trying to do that, and from my explorations, I find the approach taken by the American States Assembly to be the most well coordinated and most well founded. It’s based on 30 years of research and work. I’d urge folks to look into all the valuable research they’ve done. https://theamericanstatesassembly.net/
If this isn’t for you, maybe you’ll find something else…but whatever you do, don’t just sit in a corner and mope, complaining that the world is ending and there’s nothing that can be done. Good people are standing up all over the world and fighting back. We will do this! And God Wins.
Examples of illegal laws/rules/policies now being deployed by government, and many agencies and institutions in California and around the nation:
MASKS ARE NOT REQUIRED BY LAW AND CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM IS GUILTY OF VIOLATING CAL. PC. § 118 PERJURY OF HIS CAL. GOV. CODE ARTICLE 4 OATH OF OFFICE FOR FRAUDULENTLY ISSUING AN EXECUTIVE ORDER THAT EVERYONE IS REQUIRED TO WEAR A MASK IN VIOLATION OF THE SEPARATION OF POWERS DOCTRINE; CALIFORNIA STATE CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE V, SECTION 1; ARTICLE VI, SECTION 1, ARTICLE XI, SECTION 1; CAL. GOV. CODE § 11135; 42 U.S.C. 1396f It is undisputed pursuant to Cal. Civ. Proc. § 431.20(a), that the California State Legislature has NEVER passed any laws requiring anyone to wear “face masks” in public and it is also undisputed that the criminally corrupt California Governor Gavin Newsom has no authority to make any “Face Mask Wearing Laws” on his own authority, and therefore, California Governor Gavin Newsom is guilty of Cal . Penal Code § 118 Perjury of his Oath of Office at Article 4 of the California Constitution, Cal. Gov. Code § 1360-1369, for fraudulently issuing an Executive Order requiring everyone to wear a Face Mask in violation of the “Separation of Powers Doctrine”, California State Constitution, Article V, Section 1; Article VI, Section 1; Article XI, Section 1; People v. The Municipal Court for the Ventura Judicial District, 27 Cal. App. 3d 193, 103 Cal. Rptr. 645 (1972); People v. Smith, 53 Cal.App.3d 655 at 660; 126 Cal.Rptr. 195 (1975); State v. Osloond, 60 Wash. App. 584, at 587, 805 P(2d) 263 (1991); State v. Blilie, 132 Wash.2d 484, 489, 939 P.2d 691 (1997); Carrick v. Locke, 125 Wash.2d 129, 134-35, 882 P.2d 173 (1994); State v. Moreno, 147 Wn.2d 500, 505, 58 P.3d 265 (2002); In re Petition of Padget, 678 P.2d 870 (Wyo. 1984); Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926).
The constitutional structure of the United States, as well as the State of California, requires a tri-partite form of government. This form maintains the independence between the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branch. “If there is a principle in our Constitution, indeed in any free Constitution, it is that which separates the Legislature, Executive, and Judicial powers.” Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 47 S.Ct. 21, 71 L.Ed. 160 (1926). This separation of powers and independence of all branches is a “security for the people” in the preservation of liberty. Myers, 272 U.S. at 116. Rule of law is preserved under this system by requiring that the people who make the law differ from those who execute and apply the law. Myers, 272 U.S. at 123. Governor Gavin Newsom’s fraudulent Order also violates Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31, Cal. Gov. Code § 11135; 2 CCR § 11060; article 1, section 4 of the California Constitution and the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the decisional laws of the State of California. “Now when Jesus heard it, he said it unto them, The whole need not the Physician, but they that are sick. Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17 and Luke 5:31. See also Cal. Gov. Code. § 129.26(o). “SEC. 4. Free exercise and enjoyment of religion without discrimination or preference are guaranteed. This liberty of conscience does not excuse acts that are licentious or inconsistent with the peace or safety ofthe State. The Legislature shall make no law respecting an establishment ofreligion. A person is not incompetent to be a witness or juror because of his or her opinions on religious beliefs.” Article 1, Sec. 4 of the California Constitution. See also Cal. Gov. Code § 11135. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Amendment 1, U.S. Constitution. See also Title III Reg. 28 CFR § 36.104 and 28 CFR § 36.202 “Religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection. Thomas v. Review Bd., 450 U.S. 707, 714, 67 L. Ed. 2d 624, 101 S. Ct. 1425 (1981). Courts “have nothing to do with determining the reasonableness of the belief.” State ex rel. Bolling v. Superior Court, 16 Wn.2d 373, 384, 133 P.2d 803 (1943) (quoting Barnette v. West Va. Bd. Of Educ., 47 F. Supp. 251, 253 (S.D. W. Va. 1942), aff’d, 319 U.S. 624, 147 A.L.R. 674 (1943)). The trial court held that Dr. Backlund’s beliefs are sincere. Dr. Backlund’s beliefs, being sincere, warrant First Amendment protection.” Backlund v. Board of Commissioners, 106 Wn.2d 632, at 640, 724 P.2d 981 (Sept. 1986); Malyon v. Pierce County, 131 Wn.2d 779, at 784-785, 935 P.2d 1272 (April 1997); Perry v. School Dist. No. 81, 54 Wn. (2d) 886, at 897-898 (October 8, 1959); Southcenter Joint Venture v. NDPC, 113 Wn.2d 413, at 438-439, 780 P.2d 1282 (Oct. 1989). Free exercise clause forbids government from adopting laws designed to suppress religious belief or practice. American Life League, Inc. v. Reno, 47 F3d 642 (4th Cir. 1995); Protection of free exercise clause extends to all sincere religious beliefs; courts may not evaluate religious truth. Ferguson v. C.I.R., 921 F2d 588 (5th Cir. 1991). See also 2 CA ADC § 11060. If Governor Gavin Newsom entered or filed any False Proclamation containing any Materially False Statements in the Office of the Secretary of State as required by Cal. Gov. Code §8567(d), he could be charged with Cal. PC § 115 Offering False Instrument for Filing or Record or Filing a False Report in violation of California PC 148.3. C
One of the most widespread misconceptions about homelessness, particularly about homeless living in tents on the sidewalk, is that these are regular people who just lost a job or apartment and then ended up this way. Yes, this may happen in some cases, but only a small fraction of all cases. Most people don’t lose a job and then show up the next day in a tent on the sidewalk, pooping in plain view, injecting heroin or taking fentanyl, babbling incoherently. Yes, it is surely stressful to be homeless, but not so stressful that people lose their mind within a week.
People who are poor and lose their way, or lose a job or an apartment, generally can get at least enough help from friends or family that they aren’t in a tent on the sidewalk. Addicts have a different situation, because their friends and family may have begun to refuse to help them, having seen that the help does nothing but enable them in their addiction.
So, for those who have lost a job or their housing, or are on the verge of losing these things, perhaps as a result of the pandemic, the good news is that if you do not have a serious mental illness or drug addiction, and you put in the effort to figure out a plan, it’s likely that you can succeed at being a “Nomad” rather than homeless.
What’s the difference, you may ask, between “Nomad” and “Homeless”?
Nomads and “homeless” people both live in vehicles. The main difference is that Nomads have options, and do not bring nuisance and problems to cities, while “Homeless” vehicle dwellers experience few options, and do bring nuisance and problems to cities. The difference is not necessarily one of money: it’s often one of attitude, and willingness to make an effort.
Nomad
There’s a man named Bob Wells, who has been living in a van in the US for the last 14 years, and he’s created a website, a YouTube channel, and written a book to help others do the same. He lives inexpensively, for free on public lands in the USA, and has tips on how others can do the same. You can’t set up a permanent home on public land: generally you can stay only 14 days at the most, then you must move on to another spot.
This way of life does require some compromises, and it generally can’t be lived near large cities as those areas do not have public lands near them. But it is a good option for the true “Nomad”. It allows people to live free and on their own terms, in ways that are legal and do not create problems and nuisance for others, which we cannot say about those who seek to live in vehicles in cities, something that if not illegal, often causes problems. ( see my article about many of those kinds of problems: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/the-sudden-neighbor-the-problem-of-vehicle-dwellers-on-residential-streets/ )
He has videos on every aspect of van life, and has videos specifically on how to cope with eviction and move into a vehicle and become a nomad.
The nomad life is not all peaches and cream, however, and just because one lives on public lands, doesn’t mean one isn’t capable of causing problems, or even being perceived as causing problems. For instance this article describing some pandemic related problems of vanlife. https://www.budgettravel.com/article/vanlife-how-a-pandemic-affects-life-on-the-road
One can search online under “vanlife” or “living full time in a van” or “living in an RV” or “Places to live in an RV” or “places to camp for free” to get some tips. There are just hundreds of videos and blogs about people’s experiences living full time in a van or RV or other vehicle, either as a Nomad or retiree or surfing or rockclimbing bum. https://fulltime.hitchitch.com/Mar2019-2.html
There are many options, but if you live as a “nomad”, it’s important that you follow the law and camp where it’s legal to do so, and don’t leave garbage, harass others, or create other nuisance or problems, because living for free on public land is a privilege, not a right, and it can be taken away. And the increasing destruction and trashing of some areas, as well as problems like wildfires caused by campers, or drug use, can lead to federal authorities closing some areas to all camping.
The problem of homeless encampments and tents and vehicle dwellers all over cities seems to be getting worse across the nation, and one of the results of this, is that people in cities or towns that previously did not have any significant problems created by homelessness, are now seeing problems. Often, because of lack of experience with this phenomenon, and not knowing what the city laws are on this issue, or how they are enforced, residents can end up figuratively “banging their head against a wall” and expending a lot of effort and/or making a lot of “noise”, to no avail. Lack of understanding of city policy can also lead to the opposite: people thinking that “the city won’t do anything” about homeless camps, when in fact they do have policies and don’t allow camping just anywhere, or any kind of behavior.
I’m writing this article in part because I have seen a lot of people fail to address this issue in an effective way.
So, this article will present a brief overview with tips on how to address homeless problems in your city, and then a detailed explanation of different types of situations and how they can be addressed.
Some tips or guidelines:
(1) Work to understand the politics in your area and the views on homelessness held by (a) the city leaders, (b) sizeable numbers of city residents. Very often, effective action on problems created by homeless camps, is weakened by overly permissive approaches by city leadership to homeless camps, open drug use, theft and crime associated with homeless camps or drug addicts. If this is the case, consider banding together with other residents to pressure or vote out current city leadership.
(2) Seek to understand the city, state and federal laws or case law (court rulings) which may set limits on laws/enforcement as to homeless persons/camps. Unlike what many think, federal law does not provide a civil right to “camp anywhere”, and the Martin vs Boise case does not mean cities cannot do anything about problem homeless camps. City leadership often uses Martin vs Boise as an excuse to take a negligently passive approach to problems created by homeless camps, addict camps and criminal camps in the city.
(3) Seek to understand what laws the city or other agencies choose NOT to enforce, and which they choose to enforce.
(4) Try to understand what “enforcement” of local law/policy means, eg, what are the consequences for violating various laws about camping/occupying sidewalk or street areas or the privatization of public spaces. In particular, find out if there are any changes in enforcement due to the pandemic.
(5) Talk with local residents and assess what kinds of problems others have experienced or observed, and, if those problems were resolved, how that was done.
Now let’s follow our hypothetical city resident, Danielle, as she goes through the city on an average day, and see how she deals with problems she witnesses, based on what she knows about city law and enforcement.
First of all, Danielle has read the news on this subject and thus she knows that policy on homeless camps and vehicle dwelling has been shaped by court cases in recent times, notably by Martin vs Boise, but also by other cases. See this article for info on those: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/court-cases-on-homeless-issues/
Thus, she realizes that people with nowhere else to sleep, do have a legal right to sleep in public places if there is nowhere else for them to go. She realizes that cities cannot “ban” homeless people or have police cite them for simply trying to sleep in a public place.
However, she also knows from her study on the subject, that while cities cannot tell homeless that there is nowhere for them to be, this doesn’t mean that homeless people can sleep or camp anywhere, or that they are not subject to any laws at all.
Danielle has investigated what are the laws on homeless camping or vehicle dwelling in her particular city (ask your councilmember to explain these to you if you can’t find the information) and understands that in her city the following laws apply:
(1) Homeless are allowed to set up tents or camps in commercial and industrial areas of the city (but not in residential zones), but they are limited as to the size of the encampment they can set up. The city has passed a law, intended to prevent blockage of sidewalks with huge encampments, that restricts camps to a certain size, and prohibits tents being set up during daytime hours.
(2) Tent camps are not allowed to be put on private property, where doing so involves trespassing on private property.
(3) Tent camps are not allowed in public parks or county parks.
(4) Even though the city has a law on the books prohibiting tents being set up during daytime hours, it does not do proactive enforcement of this law. It only acts on complaints. When there is a complaint about a certain encampment, the city’s practice is to engage in a drawn-out process of enforcement which results in homeless campers being given over a week to take down their tent or move…which in effect makes the law pointless. They can simply take the tent down once, then start the whole process over again.
(5) The city will not remove ANY homeless encampment, but for those which create repeated or serious problems, such as involving drug dealing, criminal activity, threats to area residents by homeless occupants, the city may remove such encampments. Keeping up to date on reports about activity at various encampments will help Danielle compile a list of problems, thus helping persuade the city to take action.
(6) Though the city does allow tents to be set up on sidewalks, it does NOT allow tents to be set up in the street median, eg the narrow strip of land in the middle of a roadway. Tents set up in those areas won’t be proactively removed by the city, but the city will speak to such campers and eventually remove any such camps.
Examples of tent camps in street medians:
Tent in median being removed by city:
Danielle also knows that even though she or other neighbors might not be able to get a homeless camp removed, if the homeless person involved is clearly suffering from serious mental illness, she can call police or a social service agency which will come and evaluate the individual, and take them to a psychiatric facility or to family if needed.
Some questions that she asks about a homeless camp, or homeless person, thus involve whether or not it or the person is on private property in whole or in part. For instance, while homeless have a right to set up a tent on a public sidewalk in a commercial area in this city at night, during the day they can’t have the tent up, and at no time can they lie in a doorway of a business, an area that is private property.
As well, if the homeless person has engaged in threatening or criminal behavior, such as stalking a person or threatening to assault them, police can be called for this behavior, and will respond to such calls.
Danielle also knows that city public works crews will respond to reports of garbage or public health hazards on sidewalks or streets, such as piles of garbage, hypodermic needles, feces. So if she sees such things she can call city public works or make a 311 report.
If the city will not take action on a homeless person camped directly in front of or adjacent to a business, the business owner has options besides continually banging their head on the walls of tin-eared city leaders. One simple option is the installation of bike parking racks or large heavy planters, which essentially take up the space on the sidewalk that could otherwise be all too inviting to tent campers.
For instance, a local business had this problem: a homeless person pitched their tent just a few feet from their produce bins.
Danielle, because she’d seen this problem before and seen solutions to it, advised them that when the tent was moved out, which eventually it was, that they should immediately install large planters or bike racks to block the space from being taken by another homeless camper. Because once word gets out and people see that a certain spot has been successfully permanently privatized, other homeless will be quite ready to spring and leap on it should that spot open up again.
In this case, the store owner installed bike racks, but as you can see, did not think the project through well enough, and as a result, homeless have simply stashed their belongings next to the bike racks and continue to sit there all day.
You really need to totally blockthe space you want to totally block.
Unfortunately, some nice upscale shopping areas seem to be slumifying as tents and scary loitering people, some of whom are hostile and threatening, are showing up in these.
For instance, here’s a tent on the sidewalk in front of FedEx in the Elmwood/Upper Rockridge area, a really upscale shopping area. IMO, someone needs to install very large planters that result in leaving only 3 ft of sidewalk available to walk on.
Within a block of the tent and the homeless loiterers next to the produce store, a homeless person set up a cardboard shelter in this same upscale shopping area.
When Danielle called police about this man in the doorway, who was illegally setting up a camp on private property and totally blocking a doorway, he was gone a few hours later but the cardboard remained.
When calling police about a problem related to homeless person/camps, it’s important that you are truthful, not telling falsehoods, but being truthful doesn’t mean saying everything you know about the situation. Danielle will be most effective if she emphasizes those elements of the situation that are most problematic and de-emphasizes or refrain from reporting those elements which are least problematic. You don’t want to talk your case down to the police. Eg, don’t call and say “This person generally isn’t a problem/ I know this is a minor issue/ ” or in other ways weaken your case. Talk UP your case, and you might consider saying something like “there is a suspicious vehicle/ I feel unsafe/ I’ve felt threatened by ____ (if indeed you have felt threatened)/ there’s been aggressive behavior” etc.
Your attitude when calling the police should never be apologetic. Danielle knows this and will not be conned into feeling guilty that she wants her city to be safe and clean, that she doesn’t want to feel afraid walking down the sidewalk, to see open drug use, people privatizing public space, that she has a home and that person doesn’t. Most people who are poor don’t end up in tents on the sidewalk. That level of fall tends to point to problems beyond money issues: most notably, over 75% of homeless have either serious mental illness or substance abuse issues. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-07/homeless-population-mental-illness-disability or see here if you have no LA Times subscription: http://archive.vn/TvU4o
As well, know that the government is perfectly capable of easily solving the entire homeless problem ( and see this post for details on that https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/the-solution-to-homelessness-is-housing-not/), so the fact that the city is allowing people to set up private living quarters in public places is primarily an indication of failure of city and state policy on homelessness, not a symptom of poverty. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/whats-really-driving-the-homelessness-crisis or https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/los-angeles-homelessness-philadelphia-opioids-20190620.html or http://archive.vn/issLc
In fact, one of the greatest obstacles to the government solving the homeless problem, is the level of denial if not outright delusion in too many “progressive” city and state government leaders. Many have been aghast at the widespread denial of the violence involved in civil unrest in recent months, for instance, in Seattle and Portland. This denial and delusion issues out of a deeper disease. It took nothing less than a homeless addict setting up a methamphetamine lab in the “free” hotel room that the city of San Francisco gave him, for the city to finally wake up to the fact, which those with common sense knew all along, that https://news.yahoo.com/san-francisco-phases-free-hotel-011023611.html
Some cities are finally beginning to realize that throwing all efforts into “housing first” is destined to result in failure. As I’ve pointed out in my article on Solving homelessness, shelter, not housing, must be the first priority, if government has any intention of getting control of runaway homelessness.
The same week that the images above were photographed, Danielle was accosted and threatened by a deranged homeless man who pursued her, accused her of being with Interpol or the Secret Police, and demanded that she not come near him. So that is the kind of thing you want to tell the police, when someone actually threatens you. No one is allowed to tell you that you can’t walk down a sidewalk in your city. Doing that constitutes harassment and a criminal threat.
Some of the behavior associated with homeless, addicts, vagrants and “streetpeople” is threatening or illegal, but cities vary in their willingness to address these issues. There seems to be a pattern that cities with the most left-leaning Democratic/progressive leadership, fail most miserably to protect the public order and enforce basic laws, compared to cities with politics that are not as far left. Hence, it is quite common in many “progressive” cities (the term is quite ironic, considering the fall backward into ruinthat these cities’ policies propel) to see things such as a homeless camp chop shop, where people in the camp, more accurately called a “criminal camp”, have a stash of dozens of bicycles, which they chop up and rework, the better to sell and avoid being caught as thieves. One can readily observe “homeless” (aka addicts) using illegal drugs out in the open, one can observe “homeless” (aka those w/ serious mental illness) with virtually no clothing on, or totally naked dancing around right in front of City Hall, as in this video from Santa Monica: https://twitter.com/SantaMonicaProb/status/1306401984065335297
Since Danielle lives in such a “leftist” city, she is aware that the city will not do anything about a number of actions which are illegal. She’s aware that she can’t call police to report a chop shop. They will do nothing about that, because “who’s to say that a homeless person with fifty bicycles didn’t just “find” them?” Duh!
However, she CAN at least call police to report someone engaging in indecent exposure, and expect police to respond. She cannot call police to report a vagrant with a shopping cart taking all the recyclables out of her bin, which is theft, since once those things are put in the bin, they are the property of the recycling center.
It is indeed theft to proceed down a street and steal recyclables out of all the bins, but the city has directed police to “do nothing” about this crime, so Danielle knows she can’t call about this. But she can call police, who will respond, if a vagrant throws recyclables and trash into the street while scavenging, or walks down the street screaming and yelling obscenities. So, by better understanding what the police will do and not, Danielle avoids wasting time and becoming more frustrated.
In terms of vehicle dwellers, Danielle is aware that while the city has a law on the books prohibiting dwelling in vehicles, it has refused to enforce this law for the last 4 years. This is not the case in every city. Some cities, such as San Diego, prohibit vehicle dwelling on public streets, only allowing it in designated “safe parking” areas.
Where cities allow vehicle dwelling, this has unfortunately resulted, as can easily be expected, to people exploiting this permissive approach and living in vehicles all over city streets, often quite “un”stealthily, and surprisingly often, right in front of people’s homes.
Converted school bus in front of someone’s house
Camper van directly in front of private residence
Danielle is thus aware that it is pointless to call the police or complain to city council that “there’s someone living in a van/bus/RV in front of my house”. Rather, the only laws that these vehicle dwellers are being held to, at least in this city, are parking ordinances. Typically, this comes down to the “72 hr law.” This means that she can report a vehicle that’s been parked in the same spot without moving for over 72 hrs. Police will mark it, and come back 3 or more days later, and if it still has not moved, cite and/or tow it.
For those who are dealing with a problem of a vehicle dweller regularly parking right in front of their home, which can be experienced as a creepy and invasive practice (particularly if the vehicle dweller is not known to area residents), there is the option of blocking the parking space/s in front of one’s home with another vehicle/s, perhaps purchased just for the purpose. As Danielle has said a few times now, “If there is an RV parked in front of my house, it better be mine.”
Danielle is also aware that in parts of the city where vehicle dwelling has become a significant problem, some residents/businesses have taken to blocking the street in front of their business or home, to keep people from setting up a permanent encampment in front of their home or business. https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/07/11/anti-homeless-architecture/
Danielle sometimes will jump into a “Nextdoor” discussion on homelessness, as when she finds some of her neighbors enabling homeless who are camped right next to a local business, by explaining how she’s talked to the business owners and found that, in contrast to the neighbors willing to enable this nuisance, they definitely do NOT want a homeless camp right next to their store. This can help educate the populace.
Danielle is aware that sometimes park police need “nudging” to take care of a problem in a city or county park. She reported two instances of a pile of garbage left in a park by an abandoned homeless camp, only to find, months later, that the park staff still had not removed the garbage, which was in bushes off to the side of the trail. So, the next time she walked by this, she dragged the garbage into the middle of the trail, and called park police again to come and clean up the garbage. Hopefully they wouldn’t miss it this time.
Danielle is aware that many residents and businesses, feeling frustrated and angered by city leaders who refuse to abate the serious nuisance all over the sidewalks, sometimes right up against their home or business, have attempted to solve the problem themselves, with mixed results. Perversely, other misguided residents or the city itself, prefers to demonize and even punish those who try to protect the public spaces, while enabling the criminals who are destroying these spaces. https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/SF-tech-conference-host-conducts-unauthorized-15572369.php
And https://abc7.com/sidewalk-boulders-mysterious-mystery-los-angeles-homeless/6419604/
However, it is possible to block sidewalks legally with bike racks, planters, and other things which can all help preserve these spaces for their original intent and prevent their being “stolen” and privatized by “homeless” enabled in this nuisance by profoundly misguided city leaders. https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/07/11/anti-homeless-architecture/
As well, Danielle has learned that if nothing else works, becoming loud and vocal about one’s concerns with city leadership, can result in city council having to be accountable to city residents. She has explored the issue of homelessness across the nation, and read articles sufficient to reveal to her that the “housing first” policy has failed, https://www.heritage.org/housing/report/the-housing-first-approach-has-failed-time-reform-federal-policy-and-make-it-work and that other approaches need to be taken. She can argue these points to her elected leaders and demand that they be held accountable for any ineffective homeless policies or programs that they create.
As well, Danielle has the option of working to get media attention on the problems created by homeless camps and open drug use in her city. Media attention on the problem could pressure city leaders to take action, unless there is a lot of pressure from the other side, eg radical activists whose mission often seems to be to destroy cities and see them fall into decay and ruin and runaway crime.
So, these are some suggestions on ways to more effectively address homeless problems in your city.
It’s quite clear to those who’ve been monitoring the homeless situation on the West Coast, and beyond, for the last many years in particular, that cities have failed massively to find effective solutions for the homeless crisis.
In this article, I’ll explore some of the reasons why cities have failed on homelessness, and show why federal oversight on this issue, as is beginning to happen in Los Angeles after a lawsuit, may begin to break the impasse and show promise to bring solutions to the decades-long problem.
I believe that cities have failed to adequately address homelessness for 6 reasons.
(1) There is a “Homeless Industrial Complex” at work, which though it ostensibly exists to solve homelessness and end it, is actually much more motivated to NOT solve homelessness. Because solving homelessness would eliminate jobs, put many homeless outreach workers and agencies out of work, out of business. The only way they can stay employed is to maintain homelessness, make sure it is NOT solved.
(2) The worse that the homeless situation is, the more it can be leveraged by politicians to use to get what they want. These things they want, such as more units of “affordable housing”, please note, would NOT solve homelessness, for the simple reason that “affordable housing” is far beyond the means of most homeless who have virtually zero income.
(3) Solutions that city leaders often want are impractical and do not scale up, nor can they keep pace with the ever-increasing number of homeless. For instance, though many politicians would love to do so as this would wildly boost their popularity with some, it’s just not possible to give $500k to $600k apartments to each and every homeless person.
(4) Too often, liberal city leaders have “plans to end homelessness” which are, realistically, 100 to 500 year plans: not the 2 to 5 year plans that we need.
(5) Too often, liberal city leaders have “plans to end homelessness” which are too idealistic and fail to account for the unappealing realities of behavior among the majority of the homeless. Most obviously: you can’t solve drug addiction or mental illness with real estate solutions. Housing solutions do not apply to drug addiction. Addicts are homeless because of their addiction — often they were evicted because of their addiction or behavior resulting from it — and simply putting them right back into housing, will accomplish nothing whatsoever except to virtually guarantee they’ll end up evicted all over again, and that soon.
This by the way is an enormous blind spot in Democrat-liberal attempts to “solve” homelessness. A very large number of homeless addicts are simply stuffed into SROs and similar housing, without their addiction first being treated, and the result is as shown in this case: the Tenderloin Housing Clinic ends up evicting more people than they actually house. https://www.bluoz.com/blog/2017/11/21/housing-first-evictions/
(6) Liberal solutions coddle or enable drug addiction or criminality, rather than treating these. We’re seeing perhaps the most extreme example of coddling addiction in San Francisco. For years, addicts have been given free needles, and police have turned their backs while addicts shoot up right on the sidewalk. No one is arrested for illegal drug use, and as a result, the city is literally helping addicted people kill themselves. The city is also, of course, attracting many more addicts from elsewhere in the nation, who want to have the chance to set up their tent too on the sidewalk in a city that simply enables their dysfunctional behavior and allows them to do whatever they wish, regardless how harmful it is for themselves or everyone else.
Now, the situation is even more obscene, as the city is providing “free” alcohol, tobacco and methadone to addicts who are quarantined in hotel rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://nypost.com/2020/05/06/san-francisco-gives-drugs-alcohol-to-homeless-quarantining-in-hotels/
(7) Liberal solutions to homelessness fail to acknowledge the “magnet effect” whereby, if they decide to “solve” homelessness with “solutions” which are too attractive to the homeless, they will only succeed in attracting a great number additional homeless from around nation, who will flock to that city to get their share of those attractive solutions.
(8) Too many of the current approaches to homelessness and homeless encampments, use an increasingly unrealistic passive strategy to moving people off the streets and into more appropriate places. The strategy is to “offer” services, shelter and housing to the homeless, sometimes repeatedly, for weeks, months and years on end, leaving it totally optional for them to accept or decline. And of course, addicts who can easily see that they have more access to their drugs on the streets, will continually refuse to leave the streets. This is not a choice that our society should support in any way at all, meaning, we need to make this choice illegal. Once we have set up adequate shelter for all, we can and should, and must, make it illegal for people to live in the streets and sidewalks.
This approach of basically trying to wean or gradually “massage” or entice people into accepting the only socially acceptable solutions to homelessness, is greatly outdated. It may have been an acceptable approach 30 or 40 years ago, when we had very few homeless. It is NOT an acceptable approach in today’s landscape of homelessness. Homeless need to be compelled to move off the street and into more appropriate locations: or, if they are addicts, compelled into treatment. These things should not be voluntary, because large-scale compliance with law and order cannot be voluntary.
(9) Finally, liberal-Democratic “solutions” to homelessness tend to fail to account for the rapidly increasing number of homeless, and thus are quite inadequate as real long-term solutions.
Given all these systemic obstacles and dysfunctionality in the arena of government work on homelessness, one could easily grow very resigned and believe that at this rate, homelessness can never be solved, and can only grow worse, regardless the billions of dollars that we throw at it. In which case, how can we force our government to do more to solve this problem?
What may just work better than anything else, is the lawsuit.
We’re seeing the possibilities here at present in Los Angeles, and with the federal court ruled by Judge Carter.
What’s happening in LA, is that a nonprofit organization has sued the city, over 14 causes of action, in essence alleging it has utterly and negligently failed to attend to the growing catastrophe on the streets.
These causes of action:
(1) Negligence (2) Violation of Mandatory Duty (Cal. Gov’t Code § 815.6; Welf. & Inst. Code § 17000) (3) Violation of Cal. Civ. Code § 3490, et seq. (4) Violation of Cal. Civ. Code § 3501 et seq. (5) Inverse Condemnation/Violation of Art. I § 19 of California Constitution (6) Waste of Public Funds and Resources (Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 526a) (7) Violation of California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) (Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 21000 et seq.) (8) Violation of California Disabled Persons Act (Cal. Civ. Code § 54, et seq.) (9) Violation of TITLE II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131 et seq. (10) Violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 791 et seq. (11) Violation of Due Process and Equal Protection (42 U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Const. amend. V/XIV)
(12) Violation of Due Process – State Created Danger Doctrine (42 U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Const. amend XIV) (13) Uncompensated Taking (42 U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Const. amend. V/XIV) (14) Municipal Liability for Unconstitutional Custom or Policy (42 U.S.C. §1983)
Case
There are 58,936 homeless individuals in Los Angeles County (“County”) and 36,300 in the City of Los Angeles’ (“City”)—an increase of 12 percent and 16 percent from just the prior year’s count, respectively.2 The City’s homeless population has nearly doubled in the last three years. Some 75 percent of these are unsheltered persons who lack regular access to basic hygiene care such as toilets, running water to wash hands, showers, sinks, kitchen, laundry which has led to filthy (and unhealthy) conditions. Los Angeles bears the dishonorable distinction of hosting the largest unsheltered population in the country.
In both the City and County, homeless encampments are becoming entrenched. With increased population density, unlimited property accumulation has fostered a proliferation of flea-infested rats and other vermin, which are largely responsible for the recent outbreaks of medieval diseases. Large items obstruct the free passage and use of the streets and sidewalks. Encampments have brought with them rampant drug sales and use, which in turn provide a platform for violent assaults and property crimes. Crime both on and by our homeless residents has intensified.
The multiplication of makeshift structures, garbage, human waste, and other detritus has created circumstances throughout the City that are crippling for local businesses, unlivable for residents, and deadly for those on the streets. The environmental impact from power-washing human waste and used needles into our oceans is unassessed and untold. The City and County combined spend over a billion dollars annually providing police, emergency, and support services to those living on the streets. And still, the tragedy unfolds.
As a result of this lawsuit, the city of Los Angeles has been put under federal oversight for its work on homelessness. The great advantage of this, is that it takes the work on homelessness away from “bought” politicians and their extremely dysfunctional and ineffective approaches to this issue, and puts the work into the hands of a judge or judges, people who, in contrast to politicians, base their work on facts, evidence, and aim for practical results.
Thus far, indications of what is coming are hopeful. Judge Carter has apparently expressed interest in UN-type camp settings of the kind that this writer and many others have argued for years would be the best solution for homelessness, while city leaders and city councilpeople have dismissed or ignored these options. Too many homeless advocates ignorantly decry the large sanctioned camp idea as “concentration camps”, while demonstrating they are heavily invested in keeping homeless on the streets where they are rotting, suffering and dying, and foolishly, idiotically, argue that a long term solution (affordable housing for all! — which we might achieve in, oh, maybe 100 or 200 years….) is the solution to this emergency crisis, in fact this natural disaster, unfolding virulently on our streets.
For years I have argued this very same argument that the plaintiffs in this case argue here, often with the very same words:
While this is not a natural disaster, it is a disaster nonetheless, and it should be treated that way. Officials in both the County and City have gone to great lengths in the last couple years to address this crisis, and their efforts are impressive and commendable; yet much more needs to be done. Theonly way to address this crisis with the urgency it deserves is an emergency response— providing immediate shelter for all and abating the degradation of our cities and communities, for the good of everyone. It can be done cheaply and quickly, and it must be done now.
Perhaps the federal courts will show themselves to be America’s salvation on the homeless issue.
It’s rather uncommon that a city is sued by neighbors and businesses over homeless nuisance. As you can see if you look at my article on Court Cases on Homeless issues, it’s far more common that the plaintiff in a case pertaining to homeless issues, is the homeless person or group of persons.
This is true for two main reasons. First, it’s the homeless who are actually advantaged in the legal sense, since they are getting free representation — and lots of it — by activist attorneys and the ACLU. Second, both of these seem eager to advance the rights of homeless, as compared to the rights of regular housed city residents, and to move the goalposts ever further towards a complete takeover of public space by homeless people in various cities. Neighbors and businesses rarely sue, primarily because they, unlike the homeless, have to pay to do so, and lawsuits are costly. As well, homelessness is a problem in many cities, but few cities allow the problem to get so appalling and so out of control, as have San Francisco and Los Angeles, so the stakes are not typically high enough in cities for residents to seriously contemplate a lawsuit. .
Thus, one of the few lawsuits filed against a city by neigbhbors and businesses forced to contend with a true apocalypse on their sidewalks and streets, was filed today in San Francisco. Hastings College of law joined two individuals and the Tenderloin Merchants association in suing the city of San Francisco, with 14 causes of action in the lawsuit, including
1. Violation of Due Process (42
U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Const.
Amend. V/XIV);
2. Violation of Equal Protection (42
U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Cons
Amend. V/XIV);
3. Violation of Due Process Clause, State-Created Danger Doctrine
(42 U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Const.
Amend. XIV);
4. Uncompensated Taking
(42.U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Const.
Amend. V/XIV);
5. Municipal Liability for Unconstitutional Custom or Policy (42 U.S.C. § 1983);
6. Violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act
(42 U.S.C. §§ 12131 et seq.);
7. Violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C.
§§ 794 et seq.);
8. Negligence
9. Public Nuisance (Cal. Civ. Code
§§ 3490 et seq.);
10. Private Nuisance (Cal. Civ. Code
§§ 3501 et seq.);
11. Violation of Mandatory Duty
(Cal. Gov’t Code § 815.6;
Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 17000);
12. Deprivation of the Guarantee of Safety and the Pursuit of Happiness (Cal. Const. art. I § 1);
13. Inverse Condemnation
(Cal. Const. art. I § 19);
14. Violation of California Disabled Persons Act (Cal. Civ. Code
§§ 54 et seq
The Tenderloin is a culturally diverse community comprised of seniors, persons with disabilities, people of color, immigrants (documented and undocumented), individuals with low incomes, LGBTQ people, and families with children. All of its residents—housed and unhoused—are being put at risk by the policies, actions, and inaction of the City and County of San Francisco….Open-air drug sales and other criminal activity, plus crowds of drug users and sidewalk-blocking tents, pervade and threaten the health and lives of all of the Tenderloin’s residents. What has long been suffered in the Tenderloin has become insufferable. The conditions now prevailing in the Tenderloin constitute a violation of the fundamental civil rights of those residing and working there.
This complaint goes on to assert that police have essentially been prohibited from enforcing the law in this area, and that drug dealing is going on and is enabled by the city.
“Those tents block the sidewalks in the Tenderloin, impeding pedestrians’ travel. They also serve as cover for drug dealers and others conducting nefarious activities. However, the San Francisco Police Department has been directed not to remove or disturb those tents, despite the facts that they block the sidewalks and shield criminals and despite the health risks that they pose to permanent residents, business owners, pedestrians, and homeless people themselves.”
And whereas, in a recent talk, Mayor London Breed complained that Hastings College and other plaintiffs should have “worked with the city” instead of filing this lawsuit, the plain fact is that these plaintiffs have tried over and over to work with the city, to no avail, becuase the city has not only refused to take care of these problems, but has enabled crime in this area.
Plaintiff VICTORIA has on numerous occasions seen members of the San Francisco Police Department (“SFPD”) simply look away when people on the streets and sidewalks of the Tenderloin commit crimes and engage in conduct that threatens the health and safety of others. Plaintiff VICTORIA has made numerous calls and contacts to the City and its agencies, asking them to act, but to no avail.
As well, the complaint states,
“Moreover, Hastings has repeatedly and insistently called upon the City and its police department to remedy the continuing deplorable conditions on Hastings’ doorstep. These efforts have been unavailing. “
Recently, there have been significant clean-up efforts going on at Seabreeze Homeless Camp in Berkeley, located at Frontage Road and University Avenue, just next to HIghway 80. The following report is from Berkeley resident Charles Clarke:
The Caltrans encampment across from Seabreeze Market has been somewhat cleaned up. At least it seemed a bit cleaner than I had last seen it 3 weeks ago, when I passed by this morning. The following photos (taken from the viewpoint of West Frontage Rd. about 7:30 AM, Wed. Apr. 1) are of the area south of University Ave. and east of West Frontage Rd. (got that?) It’s the Caltrans encampment that gets the most notice due to its visibility. Starting from the north (closest to University Ave.), notice the West Berkeley Bike Mound in middle distance at right of frame….
…pulling back, the clusters of remaining tents and more permanent shanties are visible….
…shifting view a bit further to the south: This is the area where the absence of junk grabbed my attention from the road, causing me to stop to photograph. It was where the Jan. 2 fire sent one camper, Miss West, to the burn unit…
…shifting view even further south…
At one tent cluster even further south (not photographed) there is a gas-powered rotary lawn mower. I wonder whether it has been used, or has been staged there as a totem to normalcy. It so happened that the Honey Bucket service was attending to its portapotty while I passed by…
…meanwhile the City-funded Dumpster (off in the distance, catty-corner from the encampment) did not seem to overflow as much as it sometimes has in past visits. According to this WhereDoWeGoBerk tweet from Tue. Mar. 31, the Where Do We Go? GoFundMe paid for a month’s rental of a Bobcat to plow junk, which the tweet implies Caltrans will pick up. I did not survey the entire encampment to judge whether removal of the junk had yet occurred. View from within the Caltrans encampment post-junk plowing. Note the leaning tree in the right of frame. Photo: WhereDoWeGoBerkeley, Mar. 31, 2020, 3:56 PM.
Compare the above photo to this one in the vicinity of that same tree, taken 3 months ago, just after the encampment fire. Photo: Charles Clarke, Jan. 3, 2020. I observed a few individual campers outside their tents stretching as one does after sleeping on the ground. Some of the structures appear more permanent than tents, more like lean-tos or shanties. The encampment does not appear to have shrunk at all, in terms of inhabitants, but cleaning up some of the junk has made its sprawl seem smaller to the casual observer. Recall that Caltrans’ model lease terms for this property state that this area is not fit for human habitation. And that’s before the current inhabitants trashed the place. But those same inhabitants are very proud of their reversing about 10% of the degradation that they brought upon the area. As the world around them copes with SARS-CoV-2, I hope they continue their effort to leave the place in better condition than they found it (to echo my long-ago Scoutmaster).
History of the Seabreeze Camp site as viewed through Google Street View
This link takes you to a Google Street View history of the site where the Seabreeze Homeless camp is located, showing you the changes that have occurred on that site from 2009 through April 2019.
Questions for Berkeley City Council regarding use of Caltrans Land at the Seabreeze Camp location.
These questions should adequately demonstrate that the city’s use of this section of Caltrans land for a sanctioned homeless camp is , well, slightly more complicated than it might at first think or hope.
One can find the regulations for use of CalTrans land here https://www.bcsh.ca.gov/hcfc/documents/row_shelter_pm.pdf
Selected City Obligations for Leasing Caltrans Property
Caltrans has drafted a Property Management Lease Agreement (PMLA) template[1] to implement Governor Newsom’s Executive Order N-23-20 concerning homelessness (January 8, 2020).[2] This Attachment A collects a small set of salient questions that the City should answer to itself and to its people before executing the lease for the Caltrans Property at University Avenue and West Frontage Road.
Nomenclature and Term
The subject property is the land surrounding and bounded by the University Avenue onramp and offramp (half-cloverleaf) of eastbound I-580 (westbound I-80) to the west of I-580/I-80. Council Item 23 refers to this property as “Caltrans Property;” the PMLA refers to this property as the Premises, the term used herein. The State of California, by and through Caltrans, is the Landlord of the Premises. The City of Berkeley is the Tenant. The “intended use” as a “temporary emergency shelter and/or feeding program” (as provided in Section 104.30 of Cal. Streets & Highways Code[3]) to be sited on the Premises will serve homeless inhabitants referred to as “clients.”
The initial lease term is a maximum of three years, renewable for up to four successive one-year terms, not to exceed seven years total term.
All citations herein are to Articles of the PMLA unless otherwise identified. Online at:
Has the City conducted, or budgeted to conduct, an inspection of the Premises for suitability to the intended use? (Article 5.2.1 unnumbered paragraph 2)
Landlord “specifically does not warrant the Premises fit for human habitation, whatsoever.” (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 2)
The City acknowledges that “the Premises are not designed for temporary emergency shelter/feeding program use”. (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 7(2))
Has the City investigated, or budgeted to investigate, “surface, subsurface and groundwater for contamination and hazardous materials” so as to be satisfied that the Premises will safely support the intended use? (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 4)
Pursuant to question 2, has the City produced, or budgeted to produce, the Exhibit B: Hazardous Materials statement? (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 4; PMLA p. 37)
Pursuant to question 2, has City produced, or budgeted to produce, the Exhibit E: Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA)? (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 4; PMLA pp. 40-41)
Is the City prepared to “accept[] all risks associated” with the uses required and permitted by the lease? (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 4)
Has the City reviewed Landlord’s records “which might reflect the potential existence of hazardous materials on or beneath the Premises”? (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 5)
Is the City prepared to commit to “completely remediate and remove” all hazardous substances on the Premises at the conclusion of the term? (Art. 5.2.1 ¶ 5)
“Hazardous substances” defined in Section 25316 of Cal. Health & Safety Code.[4]
“It is the intent of the parties hereto that Tenant shall be responsible for and bear the entire cost of removal and disposal of hazardous materials introduced to the Premises, or exposed or disturbed, during Tenant’s period of use and possession as tenant of the Premises.” (Art. 5.6 ¶ 3)
Has the City conducted, or budgeted to conduct, “a soil evaluation for lead” for samples “from the surface to a depth of one foot”? (Art. 5.2.2 ¶ 4)
Has the City prepared, or budgeted to prepare, “a sampling and analysis plan to Landlord for review and approval”? (Art. 5.2.2 ¶ 4)
In-Use Condition of the Site
What measures will the City take to comply with the provision: “Tenant shall not allow the Premises to be used for any unlawful purpose, nor shall Tenant cause, maintain or permit any nuisance in, on, or about the Premises.” (Art. 5.3)
What measures will the City take to comply with the provision “Tenant shall not commit or suffer to be committed any waste in or upon the Premises.” (Art. 5.3)
What measures will the City take to comply with the prohibition of “any storage of flammable materials, explosives or other materials” (e.g., propane tanks) on the Premises? (Art. 5.5)
Has the City reviewed, or budgeted to review, the measures necessary to comply with federal laws (Water Pollution Control Act; Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; Safe Drinking Water Act; Toxic Substances Control Act; Clean Air Act; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) and state laws (Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, applicable provisions of Cal. Health & Safety Code and Cal. Water Code), and other comparable laws? (Art. 5.6 ¶ 1)
What measures will the City take to comply with the provision “In no case shall Tenant cause or allow the deposit or disposal of any hazardous materials on the Premises.”? (Art. 5.6 ¶ 2; “storage or stockpile” in Art. 5.11 ¶ 3)
What measures will the City take to comply with the provision “Tenant shall not park nor store wrecked or inoperable vehicles of any kind on the Premises.” (Art. 5.9)
What measures, and at what cost, will the City take for the “continued maintenance of the Premises, [to] keep the Premises free of all grass, weeds, debris, and flammable materials of every description….[to] ensure that the Premises are at all times in an orderly, clean, safe, and sanitary condition”? (Art. 9.1 ¶ 1)
What measures, and at what cost, will the City take “for the care, maintenance, and any required pruning of trees, shrubs, or any other landscaping on the Premises”? (Art. 9.1 ¶ 4)
Signs on the Site
Is the City prepared to post signs in appropriate locations stating the following?
“Warning: Clients of this shelter/feeding program are at increased risk of exposure to Aerially Deposited Lead, vehicle emissions, and other hazardous or harmful materials and substances. Use of this shelter/feeding program is at each inhabitant’s own risk, and neither the State of California nor the California Department of Transportation is liable for any injury or property damage suffered while using the Premises.” (Art. 5.7 ¶ 1)
Is the City prepared to post signs in appropriate locations stating the following?
“Firearms and illegal weapons may not be possessed on the Premises.” (Art. 5.7 ¶ 1)
Is the City prepared to post signs in appropriate locations stating the following?
“Open fires are prohibited.” (Art. 5.7 ¶ 1)
Is the City prepared to post signs in appropriate locations stating the following?
“Use or possession of prescription drugs, or other substances which are designated controlled substances under Federal Law, without a valid medical prescription in the holder’s name, is prohibited on the Premises.” (Art. 5.7 ¶ 1)
Is the City prepared to post signs in appropriate locations stating the following?
“Use or possession of medical marijuana, or recreational marijuana, is prohibited on the Premises even with a valid medical prescription in the holder’s name.” (Art. 5.7 ¶ 1)
Is the City prepared to seek prior written approval of Landlord to “construct, erect, maintain or permit any sign, banner or flag upon the Premises”? (Art. 5.7 ¶ 2)
If not, is the City prepared to pay Landlord “for the cost of [] removal plus interest”? (Art. 5. 7 ¶ 2)
Other Governmental Entities
Is the City prepared to obtain approval from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in order to lease the Premises? (Art. 2, ¶ 4)
Is the City prepared for all federal mandates attending Landlord’s acceptance and use of federal funds for highway construction, which may flow down upon the use of the Premises? (Art. 5.8)
Is the City prepared to comply with, or seek consent from Landlord for variance from, the following provision? “No shelter improvements will be erected within the area below a horizontal plane extending to a line 20 feet, measured horizontally, from the outermost protrusion of Landlord’s adjacent transportation facility structure” (ed. – setback from highway and ramps). (Art. 6.1 ¶ 2)
Is the City prepared to bear the cost of “Claims by shelter/feeding program clients arising out of, or related to, the use of the Premises”? (Art. 10.3.A.a)
Is the City prepared to bear the cost of “Any illness, personal injury, death, property damage, or any other injury or damage to any person or property,” specifically “Claims regarding the proximity of the temporary emergency shelter/feeding program to the adjacent transportation facility.” (ed. – I-80/580 and ramps) (Art. 10.3.A.d.3)
Does the City accept the following provision? “Tenant understands and agrees that Landlord has a primary obligation to maintain the adjacent transportation facility for use by the motoring public. Accordingly, the covenant of quiet enjoyment normally presumed to be inferred in every real property lease is specifically and affirmatively waived by Tenant herein.” (Art. 19.1)
Pollution Control and Environmental Analysis
What measures will the City take to comply with “all applicable State and Federal water pollution control requirements regarding storm water and non-storm water discharges from” the Premises? (Art. 5.11 ¶ 1)
What measures will the City take to prevent “vehicle or equipment washing, fueling, maintenance and repair on the Premises”? (Art. 5.11 ¶ 2)
Has the City implemented, or budgeted to implement, the Best Management Practices (BMPs) in Exhibit D: Stormwater Pollution Prevention? (Art. 5.11 ¶ 3; PMLA p. 39)
Has the City determined that the intended use of the Premises is exempt from CEQA? (Art. 5.12 ¶ 1)
If not, then has the City performed, or budgeted to perform, a CEQA-compliant environmental study of the Premises?
Has the City drafted, or budgeted to draft, a National Environmental Policy Act-compliant environmental study? (Art. 5.12 ¶ 1)
What measures will the City take, and with what budget, to comply with the following provision? “Tenant will ensure that the Premises remain in environmental compliance and will pay all costs of such environmental compliance.” (Art. 5.12 ¶ 4)
Information to Clients and Monitoring of Client Conduct
Is the City prepared to inform clients of the shelter/feeding program that they “will not be tenants, subtenants, residents, lessees, boarders, or lodgers within the Premises.” (Art. 5.13 ¶ 1)
“Tenant acknowledges that no employee, agent, invitee, trespasser, client, client of a temporary emergency shelter/feeding program, program participant, or other person on the Premises shall be designated or attain the status of a ‘tenant’ or ‘resident’ for any purpose.” (Art. 12.3)
Has the City “established rules of entry, continued occupancy, and client services” for the Premises? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 1)
Pursuant to question 36, is the City prepared to enforce such rules to which clients “shall be subject”? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 1)
Is the City prepared to inform clients that “shelter services shall be limited to occupancy of six (6) months or less as specified in the California Health and Safety Code Section 50801(e)”?[5] (Art. 5.13 ¶ 1)
Pursuant to question 38, is the City prepared to comply with the following provision? “Tenant shall notify all emergency shelter users and clients that Premises use is temporary, and that shelter users are not entitled to relocation benefits when asked to move.” (Art. 12.3 ¶ 3)
Has the City adopted “health and safety standards for the emergency shelter, and ensure those standards are complied with, in accordance with Chapter 7.8 (commencing with Section 8698) of Division 1 of Title 2 of the Government Code Section.”?[6]
What measures will the City take to comply with the following provision? “Tenant shall be solely responsible for addressing and resolving pollution, noise, and any other form of nuisance complaints from nearby residents, businesses or other complainants.” (Art. 5.13 ¶ 3)
Is the City prepared to prohibit clients from erecting flags, banners, or signs of any kind? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 4(2))
Is the City prepared to prohibit clients from possessing or using controlled substances as defined under federal law, except prescription medicines used in compliance and under the supervision of a medical doctor? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 4(3))
Is the City prepared to prohibit clients from possessing or using marijuana, in any form, with or without a prescription issued by a medical doctor? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 4(4))
Is the City prepared to prohibit clients from using hypodermic needles or other “sharps,” unless necessary to self-administer prescription medications under a valid prescription of a medical doctor? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 4(5))
Is the City prepared to prohibit clients from possessing firearms and illegal weapons? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 4(6))
Is the City prepared to remove graffiti within 48 hours of tagging? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 6)
What measures will the City take to for the Premises to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 7)
Crime Prevention, Security, and Law Enforcement
What measures will the City take to prevent criminal activity on the Premises? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 8)
What measures will the City take to prevent illegal tapping of any electrical or natural gas system on the Premises or the adjacent highway? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 9)
What measures will the City take to prevent illegal tapping of any water resource on the Premises or the adjacent highway? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 10)
Is the City prepared to take sole responsibility for the safety of its clients and third parties from service animals or other animals allowed on the Premises? (Art. 5.13 ¶ 11)
What measures will the City take to “not allow any open flames on the Premises”? (Art. 9.1 ¶ 1)
Has the City budgeted for the following provision? “City of (Berkeley) law enforcement police * * * shall be primarily responsible for all law enforcement-related issues on the Premises” (Art. 12.4)
If question 54 is answered in the negative, has the City budgeted for the alternative “…Tenant shall reimburse Landlord the cost of CHP [California Highway Patrol] services including the Maintenance Zone Enhanced Enforcement Program (MAZEEP)”? (Art. 12.4)
Fencing and Entry Control
What measures will the City take “to protect and preserve the fences, if any”? (Art. 9.1 ¶ 3)
Has the City planned, or budgeted for, the removal of existing fencing, and installation and maintenance of additional fencing or of entrances to the Premises “to protect Landlord’s adjacent transportation facility, Tenant’s invitees [clients], motoring public, pedestrians, or other third parties”? (Art. 6.1 ¶ 4)
Has the City planned, or budgeted for, construction and maintenance of sidewalks and driveways for entrances to the Premises? (Art. 6.1 ¶ 4)
In-Use Construction
Has the City planned, and budgeted for, the following provision?
“To construct the temporary emergency shelter and/or feeding program facility, Tenant will be installing, at Tenant’s own cost and expense: (As Applicable)
a) Applicable utilities (i.e. electrical, water, gas, sewer);
b) Decking over the existing paved surface;
c) Temporary modular buildings or tents to provide shelter, restrooms, and bathing facilities;
d) Lighting;
e) Fencing;
f) Storage containers.” (Art. 6.3)
Is City prepared to remove, and bear the cost of removal, of “[a]ll actual and alleged improvements that are not considered realty (such as paving, lighting, plumbing, underground utilities or any such improvements affixed to the ground) and placed on the Premises”? (Art. 8)
If you look for news on homeless issues these days, about all you’ll find are stories about homeless people within a pandemic, as well as concerns that many more people will end up joining the ranks of the homeless, as a result of the pandemic. This is such an overwhelming context that it’s about the only news on homelessness right now.
That it was never a good idea to leave people to live on the streets and sidewalks to fend for themselves, is becoming all the more clear now. This article by Christopher Rufo sums up some of the concerns that I’d like to present here: https://www.city-journal.org/covid-19-west-coast-homeless-encampments
Tolerating self-governed homeless camps is NEVER a good idea, and Rufo sums up some of the issues thusly:
As the coronavirus pandemic persists, West Coast cities have legalized and provided services to these encampments, rather than enacting emergency shelter and moving people off the streets. This reckless decision follows a disturbing trend. Last year, Oakland began supplying 22 officially sanctioned homeless encampments with services, sanitation, and supplies. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “the camps, which were once largely confined to freeway underpasses and the warehouse district . . . have now become a common sight on city streets, in parks and even in residential neighborhoods.” Activists organized one homeless encampment in accordance with the principles of the Occupy Wall Street and Standing Rock protests, declaring it a radical experiment in proving that “curbside residents” have a “right to exist.” The media touted the 77th Avenue Rangers, an encampment that permits children as residents, as exemplifying compassion, safety, and self-governance.
Despite their benign rhetoric of “housing our curbside neighbors,” sanctioned encampments are proving disastrous—and some cities are now pushing back.
Throughout Oakland, residents have complained about drugs, trash, violence, crime, and prostitution. The 77th Avenue Rangers’ encampment, hailed as a model, collapsed after three people died of exposure and a “criminal element” took over the camp’s governance. Mayor Libby Schaaf, who initially supported sanctioned encampments, quickly reversed course. Sanctioned encampments had “ended in fires, unhealthy conditions for residents, let alone the surrounding community,” Schaaf told reporters. “From my experience, we have tried it and it has failed.” Following this change in strategy, the city has embarked on a “homeless encampment crackdown,” bulldozing a 30-person site under the subway tracks and shutting down a 74-person camp in the parking lot of a Home Depot.
New Orleans is one of the few cities in the entire nation that is out to aggressively correct its past mistakes, and is now shutting down ALL homeless camps everywhere in the entire city, moving all homeless indoors. I wish that other cities would follow suit. https://www.nola.com/news/coronavirus/article_b4e5a234-6f8d-11ea-a466-dbda94af5229.html
There are many dimensions of the difficult and dangerous plight of homelessness in the midst of a global pandemic, and I want to point out a few of those and comment on what I think is being done wrong, what’s being done right, and lessons we may be able to take away from this situation.
The Alameda County order makes clear that it doesn’t apply to homeless people. This is a mistake. Some would argue that it cannot apply to the homeless, as they have no home. But this isn’t true. Most homeless do indeed have a “home”, as they will argue quite dramatically if the city comes to haul away their RV, tent or plywood box that they sleep in.
By comparison in Oregon, https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/homeless-people-in-portland-are-subject-to-coronavirus-stay-home-order-sanctions-officials-say.html
The government there was wiser, and showed that it also expected the “homeless” to stay at their general “home” camp or area.
Next: recognizing that the homeless are particularly vulnerable both to contracting the virus, and then spreading it, and have greater likelihood of dying of it as they often have underlying health conditions, what is to be done to protect them, and thus also protect others who could be infected through them?
Their rationale is that it’s more dangerous for homeless to be in the shelter than on the streets, because they are more closely packed together, there isn’t enough space to observe social distancing requirements, they share common areas like bathrooms and kitchen, and/or they are coming and going daily, which risks bringing the virus back in with every trip out.
There are several stories of homeless developing coronavirus while living in a homeless shelter. In Tacoma:
However, if you don’t prevent the residents from coming and going, this isn’t safe. Given that a majority of the homeless in SF are drug addicts and mentally ill, they cannot be presumed able to take good care when they go out and maintain social distancing and behave in ways that greatly reduce transmission of the virus. Rather, one can assume the opposite: that they will engage in behaviors that will then endanger their fellow residents back at the shelter. Progressive city leaders have a hard time enforcing laws on the homeless, but to protect them and everyone else, it’s necessary that if they are put in a quarantined facility, they must be prohibited from coming and going, as this destroys any effort to maintain quarantine and makes the whole effort pointless. Spine and the ability to say no to the homeless are needed here.
If you have any doubt about what the “homeless” are up to when they need to go out, here’s a clue:
However, the plan to stuff homeless into hotels to protect them from coronavirus, is frought with problems, particularly in places like the East Bay, where homeless quite readily get help from several activist attorneys to sue over any attempt to clean, remove or enforce the law on their homeless camps.
Namely, “moving thousands of people inside will, in the days and weeks after the pandemic, likely necessitate moving thousands of people outside — perhaps by force.”
Governor Cuomo’s office is “concerned about “logistical and political challenges when the time eventually comes for people to leave the hotels.”
What are those “logistical and political challenges” coming when homeless need to leave, would that “force” be? The logistical challenges would be legal ones, the political challenges would be a hue and cry about “forcing the homeless” out of “their housing.” The force required, would likely consist of a lawsuit, meaning, that removing homeless from a hotel after they are placed there, could involve great expense. Who will pay for this? Do I see the city of Berkeley or County of Alameda volunteering to pay all legal expenses required to remove homeless from the hotel at the end of the stay, as well as repair any and all damage they do to the hotel rooms, which damage could be exacerbated if they are upset at being told that they actually have to eventually leave? This is not idle speculation, particularly in the East Bay. Perhaps more in the East Bay than anywhere else in the state, we’ve seen misguided attorneys for the homeless file suit when municipalities attempted to apply law and order to situations involving the homeless. Osha Neumann filed suit when Albany removed the homeless from Albany Bulb. Dan Siegel filed suit when BART attempted to remove the Here/There camp from camping on its property, on a street median, where it is still camped, only having moved a hundred feet. There are videos showing Osha Neumann trying to intervene and stop CalTrans, when it FINALLY showed up to clean up the incredible amount of garbage that homeless had amassed on the street behind the Emeryville Home Depot. A large law firm sued CalTrans when it tried to remove homeless camps and debris on its property. In Oakland, while Mayor Schaaf and other misguided and to my mind, negligently irresponsible government leaders supported criminals who broke into Wedgewood Corporation’s West Oakland house and tried to “claim” other’s property as their own, the property owner was forced into the expense of a lawsuit to extract the “homeless miscreants.
This problem of misguided attorneys supporting nuisances created by homeless addicts, mentally ill persons, and criminals, is unfortunately not limited even to liberal strongholds. Even in West Virginia, the ACLU has recently begun a bullying campaign in support of criminals over there, and threatened to sue the city of Wheeling after it moved to clear, not a “homeless” camp, but a true criminal encampment, one that had resulted in an unparalled amount of crime in the surrounding area. https://www.wtrf.com/news/west-virginia-headlines/city-of-wheeling-on-notice-aclu-may-file-lawsuit-on-city-if-they-dont-stop-tearing-down-encampments/
City governments seem to have a difficult time taking the lesson away from all this propensity to sue on behalf of “homeless”, that they should be very cautious about offering any more goodies, whether by commission (providing “sanctioned” spaces or hotel rooms) or omission (failure to uphold law and remove illegal or hazardous encampments). Because the lesson is clear: if anything is provided which is considered valuable to the homeless, even if only temporarily, they are likely to wage a legal war to keep it permanently. As is mentioned by another commenter below, the only effective lasting solution that I can see to the homeless problem, is that government set up the equivalent of UN refugee camps, in places where there is adequate land and space for these. Homeless and their attorneys, the ACLU etc will doubtless fight viciously to keep the homeless in garbage-strewn, drug-infested tents on our sidewalks, rather than moved to places where they actually had a neat and clean, secure camp provided for them. But if the pandemic results in many thousands more homeless in every city around the nation, the misguided fight for the “right” of all these people to live in rat-infested garbage piles on sidewalks in front of businesses that cannot operate with their presence there, to take over city parks, will look increasingly stupid and be revealed as the utter contempt and hate for our cities that it is.
Homeless Struggle more with tasks during Pandemic: But many are asymptomatic
For the homeless staying on the streets during this time, things have become more difficult. The library or restaurant restrooms that they normally use are no longer available. The gym where they used to shower is closed. The cafe where they got coffee is closed, their social service workers are not coming, the people who used to walk by bringing a sandwich or spare change do not come any more. There are fewer people out and about so there are fewer bikes to steal, cars to break into, to get loot to sell to buy drugs. https://www.theunion.com/news/housing/homeless-find-that-welcoming-spots-no-longer-open-to-them-due-to-coronavirus/
The idiocy of their crime-justifying rationale, “we need homes, and these aren’t being used or used well”, we can address with a thought experiment. These homeless say that they need a home, and that if a home isn’t being used, it should be theirs to take. But now suppose along comes a gang of criminal thugs, who happen to also need homes. Suppose there are 8 of them, versus only 2 homeless squatting in the house. They break in, and use violence and threats to force the 2 squatters out so they can take over the house and squat there instead, arguing that since there are more of them, then by all rights they should have a right to take over the house since they’re making better (more densified) use of it, 8 people instead of just 2 to the house. Moreover, they argue that they are “at-risk teens”, a phrase which they enjoy using now that it’s been all but outlawed to be used in public schools, and as such, have more “rights” than the homeless squatters there now.
The point being that one can come up with all kinds of lame justifications for committing crimes, but they are just that: lame justifications for committing crimes.
If one group of criminals has the right to commit a crime to get what they want, then so does the next, larger and more violent group of criminals that comes along, and where are we headed with this? My point should be clear to you.
Attempts to place a moratorium on evictions
Another issue I want to address here is that of concern for renters and homeowners who will now have trouble paying their rent, mortgage and other bills during a time when they are forced to stay home from work, and may have been laid off. There is a good argument that without some form of protection or relief for these people, they too could end up homeless.
I want to address the concept of “eviction moratoriums” now, and explain why, in the form presented, this is not a fair way of dealing with the problem of renters now unable to pay rent, and what would be a preferable way to do this.
To begin with, though tenants will often feel they are in the weaker position relative to landlords, there are many ways in which the landlord-tenant laws in the state, and particularly in areas with rent control, are biased in favor of tenants. Though the original intent was to create a business contract that was balanced, tenants have greater power and more rights in several important ways. One of the primary ways is that of “eviction control”, which, where it has been put into place, means that while the tenant may terminate the business contract at any time and move out of their unit with 30 days’ notice, the landlord does not have the same right to end the contract and ask the tenant to leave with 30 day’s notice. In fact, the landlord in areas with eviction control has no right to terminate the business contract at all, save for a list of a few specific causes, and thus could be, in effect, imprisoned in a lifelong relationship with this particular tenant. Even in cases where landlords are permitted to do “no fault evictions”, eg an eviction without cause, just to end the contract, if the tenant has been there over a year, the landlord has to give them 60 day’s notice to vacate, while the tenant still only is required to give 30 day’s notice. Rent control limits the amount that a landlord can increase the rent, but the amount that rent control allows each year, is not consistent with the increase in owner’s costs.
Then, in the case where a landlord gives an eviction notice to a tenant and the tenant refuses to leave by the required date, so that the landlord must sue them with an unlawful detainer suit, these lawsuits often take many months, sometimes over a year, during which time the landlord is not getting any rent from this tenant. And it may be next to impossible, even if the landlord wins the case (which they usually do), to get that rent paid from that tenant in the future.
An eviction moratorium as presented, where a local government simply says that courts cannot do eviction proceedings for several months, is a bad idea for several reasons.
First, if you’ve simply forbidden landlords from evicting nonpaying renters, then what you’ve done in essence is required them to carry nonpaying occupants, which implies a violation of the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution, that forbids illegal taking of private property without just compensation. This means that the government has in essence begun to use, eg “taken” that private individual’s property, and is using it for their own purposes — to house a nonpaying person — without compensating the property owner for this purpose.
Even if the same government (but it would have to be the federal or state government) also suspends mortgages during this time, as federal and state governments are working to do now, this does not fix the unconstitutionality of the situation. Not all property owners have a mortgage, so that may not be one of their expenses. But in addition to mortgage, property owners have to pay property tax (which is NOT being deferred/suspended in general), property insurance (not being deferred), utilities (some of those may be deferred) and maintenance costs. Unless ALL the operating costs of the property owner are being deferred, it would not be just to expect that owner to defer rents for a potentially unlimited number of their tenants.
Now imagine a tenant complains that their toilet is clogged or their door wont’ close, the heat wont’ come on. Is the city really going to be content that this is fine, because just as the tenant’s rent is being deferred, so the owner is also not expected to pay normal operating costs now, and there’s no way to get the building fixed without paying for those repairs…so….
So that’s one issue. If you’re going to defer the tenant’s rent, you have to offer “just compensation” to the landlord, which means likewise deferring all their expenses for which the rent pays.
The other issue involved requires a bit more thinking things through. It requires understanding what’s involved in an eviction case, or in any lawsuit by a landlord against a tenant, and what are the consequences for the tenant not paying the rent that they owe, versus the owner not paying the mortgage, property tax, property insurance, utilities, or other bills that they owe.
In sum, the consequences are more severe and much more difficult to avoid for a property owner who doesn’t pay their bills, compared to a tenant who doesn’t pay the rent they owe. It is far easier for a renter to escape from ever paying the rents they owe, and thus it can’t really work to allow a tenant to have their rent deferred, rent that the landlord needs to pay their bills, when that rent may never end up being paid and which the landlord may never be able to collect through an exhaustion of all legal means available to collect it.
Fourplex Example to Illustrate
To illustrate this, let’s use a hypothetical example of a small landlord who owns a fourplex, with each tenant paying rent of $2000 a month, for $8000 total rent per month, and let’s say the owner’s expenses in mortgage, property tax, insurance and utilities come to about $5000 a month. Let’s assume that this small property owner depends on the net income of $3000 a month to pay his mortgage and other bills for his own residence.
Let’s say that all four tenants, who each had no savings and lived paycheck to paycheck, all lost their jobs and suddenly had no income as of March 15th, and assume a combination of shelter in place and economic downturn means that a proposed eviction moratorium would last 120 days until July 15th. In ordinary times, it would be highly unlikely that all four tenants would need to be evicted at the same time, or all stop paying rent at once. Typically this might happen with one, and the owner would have to pay legal and court fees and wait for the eviction case to proceed through court, which lets say occurs at a fast clip and takes only 3 months instead of 6 to 9 months or more. Thus if one tenant had to be evicted, this may cost the lower $1000 in legal and court fees plus 3 months of lost income at $2000 a month, so $7000 total. This is expensive, but if it’s the only loss during the year, it can be absorbed.
It’s important to note here, that when tenants are evicted, they are required to pay back rent, but someone who’s lost their job or had some other hardship, has no means of paying rent, and who has no significant or collectible assets, and does not take a future job from which wages can be garnished, may be impossible to collect a debt from. The huge hardship for landlords in many if not most eviction cases, is thus that they can never obtain the “rent” that was in effect stolen from them during the time in which the tenant occupied the premises without paying rent, after required to vacate.
Now skip forward to the coronavirus pandemic. Suppose all four tenants could not pay rent AND the local government set up an (illegal) eviction moratorium allowing them to stay in place without the landlord being able to attempt to remove them. And suppose this eviction moratorium lasts 120 days.
Now, this owners’ losses are huge. He is losing $8000 a month, every month, for 4 months. So by the end of the eviction moratorium, he’s lost $32,000 which he needed to pay his own operating expenses (which are not likely to have all been deferred, but some might be, for instance mortgage) and to pay some of his own mortgage on his own residence.
Come the end of those 4 months, now say the eviction moratorium is over. So it’s only at this point that the owner can move to evict these tenants. Let’s assume that all of them have not recovered at all financially: they all still have no job, and noplace else to go. So after receiving eviction notices, they do not move out. So the owner is then forced to go to court for each of these eviction cases. Each of these cases costs $1000 in legal and court fees, and due to the backlog of evictions, it’s now likely that each case will take longer to proceed through the system, perhaps 4 months total. So the owner will lose another $8000 a month for 4 months, another $32,000 in rent, plus $4000 in legal fees adn court costs, up to the point where the tenants are actually evicted. By the end of the process. the landlord has lost $68.000 in income plus the expenses. If the pandemic has been devastating on these tenants, it’s very unlikely each will ever pay back much if any at all of the $16,000 in rent that each owes. The owner’s mortgage payments have been deferred, but now they are coming due, and yet with that lost $64,000 in income plus the $4000 in legal expenses, it’s quite possible this owner would have a very hard time catching up and could end up losing his fourplex in foreclosure, during a time when he’s had $40,000 in expenses on his fourplex, as well as expenses for his private home which were to be covered in part by his rental income. It’s good to want to protect tenants from losing their homes, but this cannot be done at the risk of property owners losing their homes, nor can it be done through unconstitutional taking of private property.
So, the moral of the story is that one cannot consider deferrments of rent and landlord’s mortgage payments to be equivalent. Comparing these, is a false equivalence. Owners who dont’ pay their deferred mortgage, or their deferred property taxes, will lose their property. No such penalty exists for renters who if they end up being evicted or moving out of the building after a rent deferment, may never pay what they owe, and this could have a catastrophic effect on a property owner particularly in a situation where he or she has multiple tenants so effected.
A far better approach to this problem would be this: provided that the property owners’ operating costs will also all be deferred, the government can impose an “eviction moratorium” which will defer the tenant’s rent payments. However, if the tenants given this deferrment do not pay the owed rents back within the obligated period of time, and in a timely manner such that the owner’s own ability to pay bills in a timely way is not compromised, then the government will protect this owner by compensating the owner for the losses they created by imposing the eviction moratorium. Which in this case would be at least $32,000, the amount of rents lost during the time period of the eviction moratorium, and perhaps more. If the government cannot protect the owner by guaranteeing to pay rents owed but not paid back by the renter, then there should be no eviction moratorium at all, as these policies would create an unjust and unfair level of risk and harm to landlords, particuarly small landlords.
The City of Oakland is soliciting feedback from residents in order to develop policy on homeless encampments: such policy is long overdue.
Lack of an official policy on homeless encampments has meant that residents have had to put up with intolerable conditions for far too long. It’s meant that camps have been allowed to be set up in very inappropriate places, such as at Lake Merritt Park, the “Jewel of the City of Oakland”, and remain, sometimes for years, before being shut down.
It is not difficult to set up some clear guidelines on areas where encampments would be prohibited, as well as standards on expected behavior — see my suggestions below these photos about the city meeting.
Joe DeVries, the Assistant to the City Administrator, wrote this as a summary of some of the issues involved:
Should there be certain parts of the City that are always off-limits to encampments (e.g., parks?)?
In those areas where encampments are not off-limits, are there certain standards that we should ask the unhoused to adhere to?
If an encampment or an encampment resident violates these standards or other Oakland laws, should enforcement be part of the City’s response—and if so, what does that enforcement look like?
As to the first question:
There most definitely need to be areas of the City off-limits to both tent campers and vehicle-dwellers. Though unsanctioned encampments invariably pose problems wherever they are located, so that I believe the eventual goal of the city (with help from the state) needs to be to create sufficient shelter for all, and then require that all homeless use the offered shelter, I do believe that in the interim, policies can be created which would go a long way toward helping both housed and homeless.
I suggest that no public sleeping, encampment or vehicle dwelling should be permitted in any residential neighborhood (zoning indicated with “R“), or within 100 yds from any portion of any residential dwelling or residential property, or 100 yds from the entrance to any business, government building or other agency building. Berkeley prohibits homeless camping in residential neighborhoods, R-zones, and this is a very sensible policy. I would also ask that no tent camps, public sleeping or vehicle dwelling be allowed in any city park, or within 300 yds from any public school or day-care center. Some homeless are sex offenders, and if they are homeless, they have no address filed with the sex offender registry. This creates a dangerous loophole whereby sex offenders could end up living in a tent or vehicle very close to a school or daycare center.
Creating guidelines like these could immediately eliminate many serious problems. For instance, as shown in these photos
a man has set up a tent at 62nd and College Avenue, against the side of the building of a produce store, Yasai Market. I spoke to the manager of this market, and they told me that although this individuals’ encampment (basically 15 feet from their mangoes and produce bin) is a problem for them and for many people in the neighborhood, they have exhausted all avenues to get this individual moved. Police have said they can’t do anything, and Yasai market has actually gone to court over this and been told that unless the man becomes aggressive or physical, there is nothing that can be done. This is absolutely unacceptable, and in fact idiotic. While the often-cited Martin vs Boise case does give homeless a right to sleep in public if there is no other place for them to go, it most definitely does not establish a right to set up a permanent encampment anywhere, much less hard on the side of a produce store, next to school, in a park, or beside someone’s residence. People are furious, and should be, because by failing to create reasonable policies on homeless camps and areas where camps are not allowed, the city is perhaps unwittingly enabling those individuals who seek to be a social nuisance, to plop themselves down in the most inappropriate places.
The increase in homelessness in Oakland and California is often cited as a reason to allow encampments and vehicle dwelling, even in places where it is quite inappropriate. However, the city must realize that by being too passive about sidewalk encampments and vehicle dwellilng, reluctant to prohibit camping in some areas or create standards on camping, it has unwittingly given the impression to many that street living is a viable option. We do not really know to what extent street living would NOT have increased, had city policy not been so favorable and tolerant of people’s decisions to live in the streets.
As to the second question:
Yes, there should be standards on encampments.
To begin with, people should not urinate on or defectate on sidewalks or in bushes and then leave their waste there for someone else to collect. They should not use illegal drugs and drop hypodermic needles all over the sidewalk and in bushes. They should not throw trash all over. They should not be permitted to hoard large amounts of materials. City workers should provide campers instructions on how to deal with all these issues, and if campers do not cooperate, their camp should be shut down.
Use of illegal drugs should never be allowed to be used in a homeless camp, or openly in any public area. Police should be allowed to go into homeless camps and seize any illegal drugs that they see people using openly. I see no reason whatsoever why police are not permitted to seize illegal drugs right out of the hands of those using them. This behavior does not belong in public places.
The enabling of street living has become so great in Oakland, that people are now hauling in lumber and creating their own private houses on public property. https://abc7news.com/5866624/ This should NEVER be allowed. Granted, there is a point these folks have that such houses are more comfortable and secure than tents. However, in my view it was a mistake to allow even permanent tent camps, because…well you see the natural progression of too much tolerance. First the tent camps are allowed, then people want to haul in lumber to build houses, bring in propane tanks, porta-potties…and soon you’ve got an entire mini city within a city, all built on a street median which is totally inappropriate for anyone to live on, and which has been in essence stolen from the public through privatization by a group of people.
The only wood structures which should be allowed are those provided by the city in the cabin communities the city is building. Any others should be torn down immediately. To prevent the creation of “villages” that seek to lay down permanent roots and then obtain “rights” via squatting, I suggest that the city develop policies similar to Berkeley’s sidewalk ordinances, which lay the foundation to prohibit anyone setting up a tent during daytime hours. If everyone has to pack up their tent each morning, it becomes harder to set up an elaborate camp or village, which is exactly how it should be. Yes, it’s a hardship on homeless to pack up every day, but a future of living on the street is not what we want to be encouraging. By working with the state to swiftly shelter those in need in official shelters, hopefully those refusing shelter or services and seeking to stay on the streets, can be discouraged by smart policy.
Propane tanks; given the large number of homeless camp fires involving propane tanks, and the danger of explosion in fires, propane tanks should never be permitted in any encampment. Police should be authorized to go in and seize these where present. Homeless may argue that they need them for heat and cooking, but similar arguments can be made to demand that the city follow behind all homeless campers, and set them up with a porta-potty and handwashing station, and more, anyplace they choose to set themselves down. Street living must be ended, not enabled with more supplies and amenities.
Many people are homeless because they are criminals. Some of these prey on neighborhoods in the area where they camp, setting up bike chop shops for instance. Others engage in intimidating or violent behavior and necessitate numerous calls to the police. If any camps show indications that criminal activity is going on (eg large piles of bikes and bike parts), police should be authorized to require these campers to move very frequently. It is difficult to maintain a chop shop when you have to keep moving. A sidewalk ordinance like Berkeley has, which prohibits people setting up tents during the day, or taking up more than a certain sq ft of space during the day, also makes it difficult to set up a chop shop. I suggest the city get smart and identify the main problems like these, and then create policies which would put burdens on those wishing to engage in criminal behavior, or set up permanent camps.
Camps with individuals who threaten, harass or intimidate people in the area, area residents or business owners, or with individuals who litter or are actively using illegal drugs, should not be given carte blanche to stay as long as they like. This is just common sense. You can figure out some threshhold: say, if there are more than 3 calls to police about intimidating behavior, crime or open drug use at a camp, police will then be authorized to move these people on.
Homeless people should not be immune from the parking regulations the rest of us have to adhere to. If they have inoperative vehicles on public streets, or lack current registration, their vehicle should be cited and towed. No one has a right to privatize a section of the public street by living on it in a vehicle: but you wouldn’t know this from listening to the stories of people who’ve moved out of an apartment in order to intentionally live on the public streets. I have met four such people in the last few years. If people don’t have the money to repair or register their vehicles, then they should scale back down to a tent.
Oakland should enforce its RV ordinance, at least with respect to residential neighborhoods. No on-street overnight RV parking should ever be allowed in residential neighborhoods.
As to the third question, what does enforcement look like: When thinking about what enforcement looks like, you need to think about what kinds of consequences would provide an effective deterrent and/or result in protecting people and neighborhoods from serious problems.
All over the Bay Area, the main complaint that residents have is that as far as they can see, cities are very reluctant to enforce almost any law if the individual concerned is homeless. Tucker Carlson recently did an interview with Adam Corolla, where Adam articulated what many of us have observed: it seems there are two sets of law. One for those who have money and follow the rules, and another for those who have no money and dont’ wish to follow the rules. The latter are in essence being supported to break the law, because they are seeing no consequences for their behavior: this problem has been dramatically increased following the passage of Prop 47.
In Rockridge, for instance, there is a homeless man named Shane camping at Forest and Locksley, who apparently has been the subject of over 700 calls to police. Neighbors have said these things about him:
He engages in behavior such as urinating in public, chasing people into the street, and screaming at 4am. It is totally unconscionable that the city allows this individual to camp in a residential neighborhood and torment people there, with apparently no consequences. He should be prohibited from coming anywhere near this area, and in fact should be cordoned off and limited to camping in a very few places in the city where he cannot bother anyone. Anyone whose behavior is so profoundly anti-social and disturbing, should — -if at the present they refuse to accept treatment and can’t be jailed — simply be chased from place to place and eventually chased out of the city.
When the city sets standards on homeless camps and campers’ behavior, keep in mind that there will be some who cannot meet such standards, and here you will really need some spine: because if you cannot have them arrested and jailed, you will have to give them the message that they are not welcome in our city.
I suggest that because you know homeless individuals dont’ like to have to move their camp — this is a hassle — and they may find it even MORE of a hassle if they have to move wholly outside a given neighborhood/district — that you use what consequences you know people do not like or would seek to avoid, as a way of deterrring bad behavior. If you tell homeless campers that if they don’t follow rules X, Y and Z, their camp will be not only shut down, but that they will not be allowed to relocate within say 1/2 mile of this location (whatever you deem appropriate) then this will likely be more effective than simply giving them a paper citation which they will ignore and through which neither you nor the court system will be able to extract anything from them.
If some campers engage in repeated criminal or disturbing behavior, I believe they should be jailed. But this would require cooperation of the DA which may not be forthcoming. Meanwhile, I think you can use prohibitions on camping in a certain area, or a type of “restraining” or stay-away order, to good effect.
An Oakland resident began this Change.org petition to try to push the city of Oakland to create sensible homeless encampment policy:
The progressive elites are also hypocritical about building codes and permits. Middle-class homeowners must observe the jot and tittle of the law, but homeless can construct illegal multiple-code-violating shanties on public land.
This past May, officials from Reclamation District 1000, which maintains 46 miles of levees in Sacramento, counted 81 encampments along six miles of levees.
When the people were relocated, officials found three areas along those six miles where the levees had been dug into, including one where terraced stairs had been cut into the side for easier access to the water. The two other sites were 25 to 30 feet wide and four to five feet deep, said Kevin King, general manager of Reclamation District 1000. In Yuba County just north of Sacramento, one group dug a crude latrine, hiding the cut into the levee slope.
Repairing each site cost between $5,000 and $10,000, King said. Had the areas not been discovered, the damage could have led to dramatic flooding.
n Seattle, the Thornton Creek Alliance attempts to boost awareness in Seattle of the damage caused to state waterways by homeless camps. https://thorntoncreekalliance.info/portfolio/environmental-damage-and-homeless-camps/ One of their goals is “We want to see more timely response to unauthorized encampments in parks and green spaces, and will continue to work with all concerned organizations to develop constructive solutions.”
In many cases, homeless camps attract rats, whose populations can greatly increase with the food they find in these camps. Rats spread disease and an increase in their population can damage the environment in many ways.
A Denver homeless camp had to be shut down because it became infested with rats:
It is possible to have laws and enforce them, it is possible to shut down illegal homeless camps, it is possible to keep people from homesteading and trashing public lands,. And, it is possible to put people in jail if they do like this Colorado homeless man did, and accumulate 8500 pounds of trash in the forest. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0920/Huge-Colorado-trash-pile-lands-homeless-man-in-prison
Homelessness is a difficult problem, one that touches on several issues in how society is structured, what opportunities or help people do or do not have for their struggles with poverty, drug addiction, a present or past history of criminal acts, or serious mental illness. Of the many solutions to homelessness that I’ve seen suggested, few of them demonstrate the extreme and appalling level of entitlement that has recently been in the news with the case of the “Oakland Squatter Moms”,
One of the Squatter Moms
These two women, with children, allegedly homeless (but as we shall see later in this article, it doesn’t seem that they were really homeless….) allegedly broke into a West Oakland home owned by the Wedgewood properties corporation, and began squatting there.
Not only do homeless view vacant properties as reasonable places to break in and hole up, but there is a radical political movement that seeks to abolish the police, in part so that those deemed “disenfranchised” can be enabled to steal other’s properties, eg as described here: https://www.okayafrica.com/how-to-abolish-police-prisons/
And the visuals are good, in a PC sense, for this movement to essentially steal private property. Many people are poised to view this as “justice.”
The squatter moms took up residence in the home and refused to leave, and they and their attorney, Leah Simon-Weisberg, actually argued in court that they had a right to stay in the home that they had entered without permission, in which they had no rental agreement to be dwelling in, and for which they were not paying rent to stay in, all because “housing is a human right.” It appears that it’s their view that if you are homeless, hey, that gives you a right to steal someone else’s home. Leah and another attorney who often does pro bono work for homeless individuals, Dan Siegel, drafted this document arguing that the squatters had a right to take over and possess a property owned by someone else.
More about Dan Siegel can be found here: https://twitter.com/danmsiegel
Dan Siegel supports a District Attorney who enables crime and criminals:
This article gives some insight into the entitled and confused, deluded and essentially stupid mindset of the squatters and their attorneys. They don’t seem to appreciate that there’s a difference between the civil disobedience of the civil rights era, where people broke unjust laws imposing segregation, and criminal acts which at their basis are motivated by the idea that laws (such as property rights) should not apply equally to all.
As stated in this article: “When a reporter asked if Moms 4 Housing was considering taking over other houses, she coolly responded: “I would encourage folks to do whatever they need to provide shelter for their family.”
A misguided supporter of the moms writes about why she supports them:
She perversely likens their criminal break-in to someone else’s home, to the “tragic evictions” of many poor people throughout the nation. This is no tragic eviction. What is tragic is that criminals receive the support they do for this kind of theft.
Surprisingly, and disturbingly, 2 Oakland City Council members apparently came out in support of these squatters: Niki Fortunato-Bas, and Rebecca Kaplan.
The Oakland Squatter moms imagine they are fighting against evil corporations, but they are very mistaken. What they are really fighting against is the Magna Carta, the basis of the system of English Common law, created in the year 1215 in England, and the foundation of the US Constitution, which set out the idea that no one is above the law.
For the argument that a sufficiently poor, oppressed, destitute person is above the law, is not different in kind from the argument that an English king or any royal figure is above the law. This isn’t about criminalizing homelessness or sleeping under bridges, it’s about someone trying to steal a $500,000 home. It’s about private property rights and laws against stealing. If one has a right to steal someone’s home because they have 120 homes (thus it is asserted of Wedgewood properties) and you dont’ have one, then what stops you from stealing a car from the Honda dealership, since they have 100 or 500 cars and you dont’ have one? Or why can’t you steal a whole cartload of food from Safeway every day, because Safeway has a lot of food in their store and you dont’ have much in your cupboard? Never mind that perhaps you’ve been sitting on your heinikins not doing much with your life — somebody else has more, you’ve got less, so somebody’s got to give you stuff or you’ll take it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many black inner city areas are plagued with crime, if this idea: “give me stuff or I’ll take it from you” is at all representative of the cultural setting these women come out of.
As well, though these black squatter moms do not realize it, by their actions which issue from the idea that their situation allows them to be above the law, and that an ethical argument they might make exempts them from law and justice, they are ironically supporting the same kind of distorted thinking that formed the basis for the practice of redlining. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining
Because those engaging in redlining, which was a form of systematic injustice applied via the denial of services on the basis of race, doubtless were motivated by their own type of ethical ideology, one no less ethically formed because to us from our vantage point it appears quite unethical. Just as the squatter moms believe that their own situation of need for housing places them above the US Constitution and the protection of property rights, through an ethical claim based in their need, so those engaged in redlining likely believed that their own desire to protect their neighborhoods and communities, granted them the right to refuse to serve all people equally and to provide fair and just business practices to all US citizens. Their ethics, they believed, their view that they had to protect their communities from the black citizens whom they viewed as “bad news”, they felt exempted them from the fair provision of business services, what we would view as justice. Again this is similar in type but not in kind from the squatter moms believe that large corporations are unethical so they shouldn’t have property rights.
Either the same laws apply to all, or we make exemptions based on our prejudices and biases: and then we enter dangerous territory because the type of biases and prejudices used to determine the law, will vary according to who is in power. On one day, a prejudice or bias that “corporations are evil” would support stealing other’s property. On the next day, a prejudice or bias issuing from the observation that “black people commit crime at a disproportionately high rate” might lead to redlining and refusal of services.
Of course, here we see the basic and serious flaw of the whole method of identity politics, which is in essence to reject applying the same standards to everyone, and instead to promote the “most oppressed” to the top of the totem pole, and to exempt them, due to their “oppressed” status, from being expected to engage in decent or civil behavior, or even, apparently, to avoid committing crimes.
Which leads one to ask to what extent the entitled, arrogant and even criminal behavior we see in squatters, may have its basis in the double standards, logical fallacies and profoundly distorted thinking of identity politics.
There is certainly a case to be made that it’s unfortunate that corporations are buying up many single family homes. I don’t like this either, and would prefer the homes were bought by families or individuals who would actually be living in them, or at least small businesses which would rent them. However, if we don’t like corporations buying homes, then the way to work against this is to give more support to families or individuals to buy a home, or to change the process of selling (auctioning off ) foreclosed properties, so that the wealthiest buyers with the most capital (and cash) are not always advantaged in these sales, as is currently the case. Theft is not a solution to injustice, and it’s certainly not a solution to an individual’s search for affordable housing.
The following story mentions that Oakland has a VACANCY tax which is already imposed on vacant properties, so owners are already being punished for keeping their properties vacant:
In this article, it’s stated that 3 Oakland city council members, Niki Fortunato-bas, Dan Kalb and Rebecca Kaplan, threatened to use government power to seize the property if the owners did not “negotiate” with the criminal squatters. This type of threat is appalling: it’s a violation of the 5th Amendment of the US Constitution to seize private property for any but a public use (such as to build a highway), in which case there must be just compensation. It’s strictly forbidden to seize private property for PRIVATE use, eg, to give or to sell to another private individual.
The judge ordered the squatters evicted, which is the only outcome that could have been possible in a (tenuously) sane world. The fact that the owners had to even go to court to remove people who apparently broke into their home (breaking into a home is a crime, not a civil matter) is a failing of the “justice system.” They should have just been able to have the squatters hauled out by police. https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/01/10/judge-orders-oakland-mom-squatters-to-be-evicted-from-vacant-home/
The property owner actually offered to pay for housing for the squatter moms for 2 months if they would leave peacefully, meaning, without having to be physically carried out by the sheriffs. They refused this generous offer, which the owner was certainly not obligated to make to people who’d maliciously squatted in their property.
The moms refused, insisting they were not going to leave. Of course they wouldn’t leave peacefully, why do that when they can hole up in the house and escalate the situation, forcing law enforcement to come in with heavy backup, photos and video of which they can then use for their socialist PR campaign trying to rally others to their misguided criminal cause:
The squatters wailed that sheriff “They came in like an Army for mothers and babies,” Dominique Walker, a leader at Moms 4 Housing, said. “We have the right to housing. This is just the beginning.”
Note that in the article above, it’s stated that the sheriffs had great expense in evicting these squatters, but perversely, they are aiming to bill the property owner the many tens of thousands of dollars expense! How can this be? This is quite insane. It’s akin to billing the victim of a robbery for the expense of the criminal trial for the robber.
Mayor Libby Schaaf refused to allow Oakland Police come and do crowd control at the eviction, and praised the squatters’ criminal actions as “civil disobedience.” https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/Schaaf-made-call-to-keep-Oakland-police-away-from-14985606.php
No, Mayor Schaaf, squatting and trying to steal from a private property owner is not “civil disobedience.” Civil disobedience refers to actions taken in opposition to the GOVERNMENT: not actions taken against private individuals or businesses.
The moms had barricaded the door, the sheriffs said, so that the sheriffs could not even get in with a locksmith but had to use a battering ram. The moms were arrested and taken to Santa Rita jail. After being released, they came back to find their furniture and other belongings on the sidewalk, which is the usual place where someone who refuses to leave before the sheriffs arrive will find their crap deposited. The moms were upset, complaining, “The stuff is ruined”. Well I sure hope so. Serves you right, after your malicious squatting behavior, that you get back broken and damaged things. https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/this-is-our-property-homeless-moms-return-to-oakland-home-to-find-belongings-on-street/
After the eviction, the property owner had to install a fence and allegedly had to pay $5000/week to employ a security guard to patrol the property every day, in order to prevent these same or other squatters from breaking in again and starting yet another months-long legal battle to get them out as well.
This whole sick game whereby the government enables people to commit crimes, breaking into homes, and see no consequence but have potential huge gains — eg free accomodations for the months it takes to get them out — badly needs to be addressed by new legislation that would allow police to remove and arrest squatters as breaking into a home is a crime.
A few quotes from this article shining the light of sanity and common sense onto a landscape we may fear is being overtaken by idiots:
Don’t call them squatters. They’re our neighbors who are experiencing squat.
California is determined to make life as miserable as possible for businesses. From enabling frivolous lawsuits to banning independent contractors, the state Legislature has rarely missed an opportunity to treat businesses like criminals. Prop. 47 virtually decriminalized the theft of items valued at less than $950. Criminals are treated a lot better than the businesses they rob.
Then there’s “tenants’ rights” legislation, whether enacted or proposed, which could be one reason property owners leave homes vacant. When it becomes so costly and troublesome to have tenants that property owners prefer empty rooms, the laws are achieving the opposite of what was intended.
That’s what “Housing is a Human Right” really means. It’s a “right” to somebody else’s property, one way or the other.
Suppose the Alameda County judge rules that Wedgewood must negotiate with Moms 4 Housing, or pay relocation expenses or other compensation. The next day there will be no vacant homes. Every one of them will be occupied by an armed security guard.
They were apparently successful in pressuring the property owner to sell to this nonprofit, which now plans to allow the squatter moms to buy the home.
This is a very bad outcome in terms of the precedent it sets, because it makes it “the moral of the story” that if you can’t afford to buy or rent a home, you can be successful if you try to steal one. You never want to reward people who engage in criminal behavior, and this seems to be something that Democrats are increasingly trying to do in several ways. Also, this particular outcome and the ethics involved, show a move creeping ever closer to a future of government confiscation of private property.
Mayor Libby Schaaf talks about the outcome with Wedgewood properties:
That people in high places are applauding this illegal activity, is cause for concern. Some articles preach a rather distorted view of the politics in Oakland, one of the most liberal, progressive places on earth: https://www.essence.com/feature/moms-4-housing-oakland/
As well, there are several rather suspicious/questionable aspects related to the actors in this story, the squatters, their supporters, and the Oakland Community Land Trust and its actions and connections. One is that the so-called “homeless” moms, seem to not have actually been homeless. One of them lived with her family in Stockton, as referenced in this story:
Another is, why is a nonprofit, which receives money from the city of Oakland and thus from taxpayers, able to choose particular individuals to do business with, as opposed to having a fair and open process of making housing available to anyone in the city. Eg, this raises questions of possible back-room dealing between this city-funded nonprofit and employees of a radical political group.
See a discussion about this in these Twitter threads:
In Sacramento recently, more homeless broke into another vacant home, this one synchronistically owned by the SAME company, Wedgewood Inc, that owned the home that Oakland Squatter moms broke into. https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article241633621.html
Sacramento police Sunday removed three homeless adults who had been living in a vacant Land Park home. The incident ended peacefully, as police detained the three adults in squad cars, cited them for trespassing and released them, while a group of activists watched and took videos.
But it could be a sign that a movement is brewing in Sacramento mirroring those in Oakland and Los Angeles, where homeless have moved into vacant corporate or publicly-owned houses, gaining national attention. Activists in Sacramento said more homeless individuals may seek shelter in vacant properties to avoid exposure to the coronavirus.
“These people will probably be going right back there and this time it’s gonna be a community activity event and a political statement and not just an act of a few desperate people,” said civil rights attorney Mark Merin. “I think what we’re gonna see here is an escalation of a move to take over abandoned dwellings, especially those that are corporate-owned as this one was.”
Appendix: homeless start fires in vacant properties:
This week, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a homeless emergency in the state, and began issuing requirements for all cities and counties to participate in his new plan to reduce street homelessness.
The governor’s intentions are
(1) to reduce street homelessness
(2) to break down barriers to homeless receiving health care and other critical services
(3) to increase housing options for those experiencing homelessness.
The governor seeks to identify all vacant state land, state facilities, and CalTrans land which could be used to shelter the homeless, as well as all vacant and decommissioned hospitals which could be used for this. 100 Travel trailers will be obtained to use as homeless shelters. Note, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf was gratified to see that the model that Oakland has been using whereby “tuff shed” cabins for the homeless have been set up on CalTrans land, may now become a statewide strategy. Note that use of CalTrans land for sheltering the homeless does NOT mean that CalTrans should just open up more of its land to random unsanctioned camping. The problems that are happening now with illegal, unsanctioned camping all over cities and transit corridors are clearly what the governor seeks to abate.
A strike team will be formed, to assist local jurisdictions in dealing with street homelessness.
All cities, counties, tribal governments, transit agencies, schools and faith based organizations are asked to assess their ability to shelter the homeless.
A report by the Governor’s Task force on homelessness:
Overall, I see this as a long-overdue acknowledgment that the homeless situation in California is grave and out of control, and that the approaches that local governments are taking, particularly in large urban centers, are not working. It is tragic that it’s taken so long for the governor to acknowledge that the very serious problem of “street homelessness” cannot be allowed to continue to grow, and that it must be abated: but it is gratifying that this executive order seems at last to state this clearly. That the creation of more shelter space and temporary or emergency shelter is the only way to abate street homelessness: not the ridiculous idea, which has been the status quo in too many cities, that the primary goal should be building permanent housing. Hence I am very gratified to see that FINALLY there is a major plan to create more shelter space through the state and the places being looked at seem reasonable. How exactly this will unfold is not clear, but time will tell.
I suspect that many of the homeless, their advocates, and many nonprofits, will be disappointed in this executive order, because many of them are invested in keeping things exactly the way they are.
Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles has indicated a desire to work with the Trump administration to shelter and house more in his city, as indicated in his letter:
Berkeley looks at what Modesto did with a sanctioned encampment, as a model. The goal seems to be to allow 180 day stays in the camp. The shelter would be managed by an agency, not self-governed: this is important. Oakland attempted to allow “sanctioned camps” but as far as I’m aware, they did not manage them, they just called an illegal camp a sanctioned one and threw in some porta potties and hand washing stations. As expected this was a failure as drug abuse was rampant and fires were frequent. Mayor Schaaf ultimately declared that sanctioned camps do not work. However, the city’s own tuff shed camps which are city -run, and do not allow residents to haul in whatever they please and construct their own structure, are successful.
I think much more will become clear about how Berkeley and other East Bay cities can proceed, once they become more aware of what is being at the state level and how the state strike team will assist local jurisdictions, and how the shelters to be built on state lands and elsewhere could be used by each city.
Meanwhile, in Oakland….new developments in seeking shelter…some homeless have set up a rather neat and clean community camp…one problem with it though…it’s on private land. They appropriated private land for their camp.
It seems pretty clear to me that this camp, while a positive development in many regards — being clean and neat, drug-free or so it seems — also constitutes a code violation. Because if people cannot just break out tents and live in canvas structures on their own property (city doesn’t allow this), then for sure squatters on private land would not have MORE rights than the property owners themselves to live in that same way.
To clarify this point: some business owners in Modesto recently tried to help the homeless there by setting up a tent on their own property. They were cited for code violations.
You may wonder as I did, what are “vacant state lands” that Newsom seeks to use for homeless shelters, and where are they located?
These lands are NOT State Parks such as McLaughlin State park or Albany Bulb, which some rabid homeless activists –like Andrea Henson at the end of this video:
would like to see seized from being set aside and protected as parks, destroying them to become homeless camps and shelter sites. No, the Governor is referring to lands that are not protected as parks or reserves. This article has a link to a map of the sites under consideration:
A screenshot showing the sites under consideration in the Bay Area— blue dots are the state lands under consideration. As the map indicates, none are in Berkeley or Oakland. There is one in Richmond, and there is one in San Leandro, a few in Marin County, one in San Francisco, Pacifica and beyond.
This article assesses why it may not be so simple to provide these sites for homeless;
The following reports were written by Charles Clarke, who visited the Seabreeze Homeless Camp three times since October 2019.
The so-called “Seabreeze” homeless camp is located at the intersection of Frontage Road and University Avenue in Berkeley, just next to highway 80 and the on and off ramps there, and just adjacent to the Berkeley Marina and the Eastshore State Park. It’s called the Seabreeze camp, because it’s located right across from the “Seabreeze” market and cafe. I often wonder what the owners of this business think of the homeless camp which is an overwhelming presence very close by. When you sit at the patio benches of this cafe. you’re treated to a view of piles of trash and raggedy tents and debris: this has been the case for several years now.
Because of it’s location right at the entrance to the city of Berkeley from the freeway, and next to bayfront open land and parks, it’s one of the worst possible places for a homeless camp. It horribly spoils one’s impression of the city, entering the city this way, and it’s a terrible blight on the bayfront.
However, the camp is also located not on property within the jurisdiction of the City of Berkeley, but like many of the most intractable homeless encampment situations, it is located on CalTrans land. This makes it very difficult to deal with, because CalTrans is extremely overburdened in trying to cope with all the homeless camps on its land throughout the state. CalTrans does not have enough funds or resources to attend to all these camps, and the result is, that they are rarely cleaned up and almost never permanently removed. Even when CalTrans goes to great expense to fence off an area, such as the Gilman underpass, (which was a very serious nuisance with massive illegal drug use there that posed a danger to the nearby children’s sports facility and restrooms) homeless criminals tend to break the fence and access the area to set up camps even after all this work and expense has been put in to keep them out.
Report from October 13 2019
Hello All, Yesterday about noon on my way into the office (!) I stopped by the homeless tents at Seabreeze whose inhabitants (about 20, I estimate) have dubbed themselves the Where Do We Go? encampment. (southeast corner, University Ave. & West Frontage Rd.)
I’m heading into work again today (Sunday), so this is written with a little less organization than I would like. Regrets. I met two inhabitants to ask what this was all about, what they were doing to improve their situation to get out of homelessness, and to let them know that as long as they show no sign of contributing to society they were going to have a tough time. We talked for about 30 minutes.
The point of my writing is to introduce a new idea that occurred to me about a certain segment of Berkeley’s homeless, especially new arrivals, that I have never heard before. (tl;dr – the new idea is in boldface two-thirds of the way down.) These two were evidently recent arrivals to California, let alone to Berkeley. A white male adult called “Will” complained loudly and bitterly that he does not have a job, and won’t get a job, because he doesn’t possess current government-issued identification. Reportedly the City’s Housing Outreach Treatment Team (HOTT) visited Friday (Oct. 11) to, among other things, get started tracking down his birth certificate in Colorado toward getting him a California-issued ID. He claimed past employment operating construction machinery, ranching, and two businesses (type unidentified), but he claimed inability to obtain employment in California partly because of the ID obstacle, but also because he’s been turned down for jobs because he wasn’t bilingual. A white female adult called “Shawna” had similar complaint. Her situation is more complicated because she claimed need for mental health services through Medi-Cal that were being denied or withheld due to her lack of government-issued ID. She self-identified as suffering from clinical depression and anxiety disorder due to 15 years homelessness, resulting in history of suicidal ideation (“I’ve wanted to off myself,” in her words – not in the immediate term but generally over the 15 years of homelessness). She claimed past employment as a professional housekeeper for Wyndham Resorts International. She claimed no one would hire her because she isn’t Mexican and they won’t hire a white American. Policy point. I have already written to Paul Buddenhagen (deputy City Manager) about the ID thing. I think the City could make genuine progress by getting the homeless set up with valid lawful ID. If anything is the job of government, it’s getting people straight with government-issued ID. That won’t help with immigration issues, but it would with cases such as these two. Both reported government staff, apparently at the City level, telling them in so many words, “Fuck off. We won’t help you” (not about ID, but about other things they requested). When I suggested that perhaps the actual words might have been “We can’t help you” I was told, “No! The government said, ‘We won’t help you’.” I pass this along as an example of how homeless persons hear statements from government staff, despite what those staff might have actually said. Both came from Colorado in the very recent past. Will said they made a cross-country van trip from South Carolina to Oregon in the March-June 2019 period, at which point the van died. How they came to be in Berkeley since June was not explained nor explored because their response was “none of your business.” Neither Will nor Shawna has lived in a shelter in California, but Shawna knows about shelters in other states. On that basis they are not seeking shelter, preferring their own tents instead. They appear to co-own three large dogs that Shawna claimed were registered service dogs. They have lots of stuff, including a bike with a dead flat rear tire that Will bitterly said no one would fix. They did not have apparent drug or alcohol impairment as I spoke with them, but their conversation did not rule it out either. The really fascinating thing (in a totally depressing way) was the completely antisocial attitude these two have fallen into.
1. They are both really really anti-Mexican. Both of their employment situations have been made worse, in their telling, by Mexicans taking all the good jobs (i.e. the ones they had). We did not talk politics at all, but I believe this is one deep root of the Trump base…right here in Berkeley!
2. Because the government has let in so many Mexicans, their anger gets directed toward government too (at all levels).
3. People like me, the drivers passing by, and employed residents of California generally are regarded as “looking down upon” them, so we are hated practically as a reflex. The resulting antisocial attitude these two hold means that pretty much no outreach will succeed, at least on the first attempt.
4. Will holds the view that the little Caltrans strip they occupy is “public land” that is therefore open for them to habitate. I told them that it may be called “public land” but that’s because it’s “common land” intended to be occupied by no one for any appreciable length of time. That was a distinction without a difference to them. Since no one else is using it, they feel they can help themselves.* I told them it makes a difference to Caltrans, which came and went on Thursday, I gather, without evicting them. (What’s the story there?)
5. They claim they do not want “something for nothing,” but then directly follow that up by claiming that “all they want” is a grant of land, maybe some trash pickup, Portapotties… I told them that at least the land grant wouldn’t be happening, from what I know of Berkeley and California.
6. These are people who fancy themselves rugged individualists, willing to live off-the-grid, who have adopted the strategy of counting on public resources (land, trash pickup, etc.). This led me to…. My new idea: (Some of) Berkeley’s homeless are the new Okies. This segment is never identified when talking about Berkeley’s homeless. The transients who are apparently able-bodied and not obviously drug-addled are simply existing until the low-skill work (and surrounding constellation of housing, community, etc.) for which they are suited somehow falls from heaven. The problem with Berkeley 2019 is that Berkeley’s low-skill work does not pay enough to afford that constellation, particularly for someone coming from outside the Bay Area. Unlike the Joads, these new arrivals have landed here with the attitude that the world should bestow upon them the work (and income) for which they are suited, not that they should accept what work needs doing (and the income that comes with it)
And, according to the narrative these two are dictating, the jobs that they would like to perform have been taken by Mexicans. I would love to watch Jesse, Kate, and Sophie squirm if these xenophobic attitudes from Berkeley’s homeless got as full-throated an airing in a Council meeting as they got in my little 30-minute conversation. (I have blunted some of the rough edges here.) If Trump 2020 gets a lot of votes in Berkeley, I have a theory about who cast those votes. I haven’t had time to think through whether City homeless policy should be any different for this segment. My general position is that the City should be ready to undertake some “palliative” care (e.g., Portapotties, mental health Mobile Crisis Team, Pathways at its current size) but that the broad-ranging “curative” care (vast tracts of public housing not located in D5, available to all comers, the vision that dances in Sophie’s dreams) is far beyond the City of Berkeley’s competence, let alone its budget.
The one thing the City can, and absolutely must, do is get the government-issued ID straightened out for anyone who faces that problem (allowing that the City cannot fix immigration problems). One last thing: Even though I did not back down a bit from my general position during our conversation, the two seemed a bit more at ease the longer the conversation went. I scored points because I knew a bit about Colorado (credit: one of my brothers living in Colorado Springs) and about Silver Spring, Maryland (credit: GEICO, who employed my father near there when I was this-many-fingers old). Long ago when I served meals to the homeless at my local church, the one thing that homeless people appreciate – even more than food – is the attention they are unaccustomed to receiving. I do not go so far as to say that the homeless in Berkeley are “just” making a play for attention from us, but that motive contributes to their problematic behavior. And with that: Back to the office (!!). Charles * “Help yourself” has a double meaning. The homeless’ (and enablers’ ) interpretation (“take what you want”) is diametrically opposed to mine (“get a job”). – C
Report From December 23 2019
Hi All:
Today I dropped by to chat with our Seabreeze…guests…to see if they’re trying to get properly housed. I had visited the encampment in mid-October. I did not probe very deeply with any questioning because I intend to revisit the encampment from time to time to gauge its evolution. It has evidently grown since October. It has spawned a colony on the opposite side of the cloverleaf exit lane from southbound I-580 that I do not recall from October. The colony on the north side of University Ave from the main encampment has also grown. Certain portions of the encampment I did not venture toward because of the presence of unleashed dogs with no nearby human. SteveK’s experience has taught me. (Hope recovery has progressed, Steve.) “Miss West,” by her own account, has lived at Seabreeze for four years. (I asked if she meant, precisely, at Seabreeze – not just Berkeley. She emphasized Seabreeze. Color me surprised that she’s been there that long.) She used to live in “a duplex” (location unspecified). (“Miss West” is an older African-American female.) “Will” and “Shawna,” whom I spoke with in October, were also there. Neither has had their government-issued ID problems from October resolved. Consequently no health care nor other support services.
“Will” says he plans to resume his “rodeo career” next summer, once he gets support from his “sponsors” lined up. That expected support is keeping him from applying for SSI, but not from food stamps (SNAP) or California General Assistance. He says that the City’s Homeless Outreach & Treatment Team (HOTT) failed to pick him up, twice, to connect him with the State benefits office, so apparently he’s no better off now than he was 2 months ago.
“Shawna” says that HOTT was last in the encampment last week. Since then she has contracted a urinary tract infection (“peeing blood” since Friday). No ID, no MediCal, no other health services.
“Mark” asked “Will” for cannabis. “Will” was down to his last ounce; “it’s up to Shawna to conjure some more up.” Another camper produced a vaping pen – said it was THC, not nicotine. Yet another camper walked up to ask for a rolling paper. (All of these persons are white.)
Looks like cannabis is the relaxant of choice at Seabreeze. Come to think of it, I noticed no beer or liquor bottles or boxes on the premises. I should look next time. In my opinion, the Seabreeze colony has really dug itself in. Their chief enabler, Andrea Henson (whom I believe dreamt up #WhereDoWeGo https://twitter.com/WhereDoWeGoBerk ) has reportedly passed the California bar, and will soon get her license to practice, once her background check is complete. (says “Will”) Caltrans has reportedly done nothing to dissuade the campers. Meanwhile they have gotten their own Portapotty (!) and Dumpster (? – didn’t see it) due to their own GoFundMe campaign. Of the four I talked and listened to, none showed the slightest effort to better their situation. They are waiting for bounty to be bestowed upon them. There seemed to be about a dozen other people around, mostly in their own tents. I estimate there could be over one hundred people living at the entire complex, if the reports of the named persons above can be credited. I did not photograph people while I visited, because I wished to preserve my ability to return without being challenged. But I did take a few establishing shots. The one below is the best. GONE Fishin’, indeed. I told the campers that the City has no idea what to do with them. I told them I certainly have no idea what to do for them. They generally voiced the Sad Sack attitude that the City will only find a way when more homeless die on the streets. They sound like they have no idea what to do, other than demand that someone give them free stuff, like a house. For now, they’re accepting free stuff like mattresses, box springs, and an astounding quantity of bicycles in various states of repair, all of which I am sure have been licitly procured. I drive past this favela all the time. What a failure of policy and human potential. Charles
Report From January 3 2020
Hello All,
I visited the Seabreeze encampment Friday Jan. 3 late afternoon to inspect the damage of the Jan. 2 fire, as reported by Natalie, and to converse with whichever campers happened to be on-site at the time.
Herewith my report and some photos.
The Burn Victim. According to two separate conversations with Seabreeze campers, the injured woman reported in Natalie’s story is LaTonia West, whom I met during my Dec. 23 visit. Miss West (the way she introduced herself to me) appears in Berkeleyside’s enablement video about Seabreeze (1:08 mark), published Dec. 31. She told me Dec. 23 that she had been camping at Seabreeze for 4 years, before which she had lived in “a duplex” (location unmentioned).
The two accounts I heard Jan. 3 agreed that Miss West lost control of a cooking fire in her tent (“she looked away a little too long”), and the accumulated junk ignited. She suffered “severe burns” and was still hospitalized as of Friday afternoon.
The immediate neighbors moved quite a distance (100 yards or so) away from the fire site. The pair whom I had met in October and December, Will and Shawna, were not around when I visited.
Batman. As I walked toward the moved tent cluster, a bike-mounted white male camper in his 30s whom I heard others refer to as “Batman” approached to demand I disclose my intentions. He was intensely suspicious, quickly boiling over into hostile. He soon established he wasn’t going to tell me the things I was interested in – how long at Seabreeze, where from before Seabreeze, actions taken to move from Seabreeze to become housed in Berkeley or beyond.
I asked Batman if he had put his name on the City’s list to get housing. He said yes, scornfully, adding “It’s like a year to wait, and they won’t guarantee they’ll find a place that will take my dog too.”
Batman complained that “the 900 dollars in SSI” he receives each month would barely pay for “food for me, my dog and my woman” and wouldn’t pay for a place where all those parties would be accepted. He hadn’t connected with any Berkeley shelter because his dog wouldn’t be allowed. “Taking my dog would be like taking my child. I won’t do it.”
So I launched into my pitch to encourage him to rejoin society as a contributing member. As I pointed at the traffic passing by on West Frontage Road, I told him, “Those people are finishing a day trading their time for money. What are you doing to do your part?”
Let’s just say the conversation devolved into his teaching Economics In One Lesson in the Style of Kate Harrison and Cheryl Davila. “Those people driving by [on West Frontage Road] aren’t working because they want to. They’re CATTLE. They’re working to keep The One Percent at the top.”
I learned from “Batman” and another camper (whose name I did not learn) that the City Homeless Outreach & Treatment Team (HOTT) had not been to Seabreeze “in months.” One estimate was that HOTT had visited once in the past 8 months, from which 2 (two) people got a 1-month hotel voucher. They think of HOTT – indeed, anyone not living at Seabreeze – as The Enemy. Especially HOTT, BPD, Caltrans, anyone employed by the City or State, anyone “housed”…like me and you.
The unnamed camper said that he and another camper named “Monster” (not present at the time) were the first inhabitants at Seabreeze…even before Miss West, who had earlier claimed that she and “Pixie” (also not present) had been the first. I repeat my surprise that the Seabreeze encampment dates back that far. I had thought it more recent than that.
Batman rode off in a hostile, agitated snit. His part was picked up by an unnamed African-American woman who yelled at me (from a distance of 50 yards) for taking pictures of – at the moment she yelled – a used syringe on the ground. “How would you like it people taking pictures all the time of your house? How would you like it if I followed you home like you’re following me around now? Get out!”
I so very much wanted to ask if I should get off her lawn. But she was not worth engaging with, so I kept my irony out of the conversation.
Niño. I then drifted to a pair of tents closer to University Avenue, where I spoke for about 20 minutes with an African-American male, self-identified 42 years old, who called himself Niño. You can see him in the Berkeleyside enablement video (0:57 mark) identified as Jason Parker.
Niño will talk and talk if you let him, which I did for a while. His patter is a mixture of fact, fiction, and fantasy. He may in fact have attended college, as he told me. But he claimed that he couldn’t get employed by Tesla because he didn’t have a physical address. “Tesla in Fremont, or the Tesla repair in Berkeley?” I asked. He didn’t seem to know which one he would work at, but he did know that both existed
Like other campers, his story went into soft-focus when I asked where he had lived before Seabreeze, where he had arrived “a few months” before.
Niño said that HOTT rarely comes by Seabreeze, and certainly not weekly. (I accept this as likely true, based on other reports.) I asked him if he had tried to get into other shelter, like Pathways. He seemed to not have gotten into Pathways. He seemed to say that he had been rousted from a spot outside the fence of Pathways, “on Second near Cedar” getting 2 (two) citations of $233 each, “that’s 466 dollars, which I don’t have.” (cue Criminalizing Homelessness oration).
[Citation mavens: What sort of ticket with a $233 fine would have been issued to a homeless camper? This story might actually be true, but I would like to know particulars.]
I asked how he powered his campsite. “Do you have a solar panel like those tents over there?” [200 yards away] “Mine was stolen, but I’m working to get another one,” he said. We did not discuss the vast pile of bicycles surrounding his tent, all lacking one or more of {seat, wheel, chain, pedal, handlebar}, nor the precedent those might have set for his prospective solar panel.
Niño said that some campers had 5G. I, equipped with my iPhone 5S and MacBook Air (late 2013), would not be surprised that our homeless guests’ technology outpaces my own.
Niño pointed out to me the City-provided Dumpster – 150 yards away, catty-corner from the main encampment, across both University Avenue and West Frontage Road. I had not seen it before, but evidently it was approved as an urgency item at the 11/19 Council meeting (11/19/2019 Annotated Agenda, PDF 8 of 15). No dollar amount shown in the item, please note – worth looking into. Its siting makes sense, from the standpoint of (1) keeping trash well away from inhabited areas, (2) placing the receptacle in an easily accessible pickup location, and (3) keeping the receptacle out of the way of the West Frontage Road traffic flow.
Note also that the urgency item calls for “considering” installing cameras to capture illegal dumping. Jesse is determined to conduct a house-to-house search for the real dumpers around our homeless encampments.
Evaluation. The campers I have met are not service-receptive. They are not even service-resistant. They are service-rejecting, even service-hostile.
They want shelter bestowed upon them, on their terms – notably, acceptance of their dogs and whatever quantity of stuff they desire to accumulate. No law enforcement. At Seabreeze they demand water (currently from Seabreeze Market I believe), toilet (Portapotty currently provided via GoFundMe campaign), trash pickup (sort of provided by City urgency item above), electricity, WiFi,…
I left the Seabreeze encampment profoundly depressed because these people do not want to rejoin the society that they are demanding resources from. The expected flow of resources goes only one way. Thanks to the Ninth Circuit in Martin v. City of Boise (decision, Harvard Law Review discussion), there is nothing legally that the City can do about these encampments in the near future, at least not until another 1,000 (or more) shelter spaces are constructed. And even then, the effort to get today’s campers off the land and into shelter might be better applied by BPD and the City to other goals.
Seabreeze is an emblem of the total collapse of rules adherence in the City of Berkeley. A tent colony popped up on New Year’s Day on College Ave. outside my (Catholic) church, Newman Hall / Holy Spirit Parish (at Dwight Ave.). When I saw it Saturday all I could do was say “Wow” and take a photo. I still don’t have the words for the self-centered, self-justifying personal behavior that has led to people just plopping their tent wherever they please. One of the College Ave. campers yelled at me when I uttered my Wow. Like I’m the one who should think that tents lining a street are a normal, acceptable occurrence.
And yet, I don’t have a solution to propose. Berkeley is plainly on the wrong side of the line separating compassion from enablement. One possibly fruitful approach would be to find a way to change the current enablement into empowerment of the homeless to become not-homeless. But I’m struck by how opposed many of them are to working any sort of job, particularly the ones that are most available. So I’m still at the R&D stage on this one. The City has to set and enforce a standard of behavior on the way to handling this problem. Current City management is not up to this task.
Photo Essay. I did not photograph any people because I thought that would endanger my personal safety unacceptably. What follows are a few photos of various features of the Seabreeze encampment on Jan. 3, 2020, about 4 PM.
1. Welcome to Seabreeze. This trash pile guards the entrance to the main encampment at the southeast corner of West Frontage Road at University Avenue, across the road from Seabreeze Market.
2. Fire Site, Jan. 3, 2020. Tents have cleared from the vicinity of the Jan. 2 fire.
3. Fire Site, Jan. 3, 2020. Reverse view of photo 2 shows the squalor slightly more depressingly.
4. Roadside Trash Pile. One of many dotting the landscape.
5. Seabreeze Energy Sources. Propane cylinders and tank in foreground, solar panel at left background. I was told the solar array is functional.
6. Used Syringe, Jan. 3, 2020. Insulin, right?
7. West Berkeley Bike Mound. Notice Lyft Bike at right. Unique parts were supposed to cut down on theft, but not this time.
These videos describe some of the challenges involved in CalTrans cleanup of homeless camps on their land and shows the Seabreeze camp. The first one shows the Seabreeze camp at the first part of the East Bay Homeless camp tour, the second shows Osha Neumann enabling the nuisance of the Seabreeze camp and some of its denizens.
As I’ve discussed homelessness related topics with others concerned about this issue online, one of the difficulties that often arises, is that quite rarely are we talking about the entire situation (or the “big picture”) in view, at once in all its parts. Typically there is a discussion about a recent news article which pertains only to one issue or one city or one facet of the whole homeless issue. As a consequence of this, I readily notice that people will make arguments or present concerns which indicate that it really would be helpful if we could always keep the “big picture” in view, because it’s easy to make erroneous assumptions eg that think something would work, or that something else would not work, if you are not seeing the “big picture“.
The most typical instance of this, is when the discussion pertains to getting homeless off the streets and into shelters. People who’ve not put a lot of thought into this or familiarized themselves w/ the issues, tend to object to my assertions that it is possible to get people off the streets if we build shelters for the homeless. “They dont’ want to stay in the shelters” is the frequent refrain. Or, “you can’t force people into shelters.”
The part they are unfamiliar with, because indeed we’ve hardly begun to put it into operation, is the difference between “Carrot only” and “Carrot and theStick”
” approaches. With only a carrot to offer, it’s difficult to solve the homeless problem, because you keep offering this, offering that, and the homeless addicts and criminals say no, they’d just prefer to set up their little criminal city in tents on the sidewalk, so no of course they dont’ want your shelter with rules.
California governor Gavin Newsom apparently thinks it’s a myth that anyone is service resistant: it’s jaw-droppingly irresponsible for him to be so misinformed given his lead role in addressing this crisis in the one state in the US which arguably has the biggest homeless crisis. In this article https://www.dailynews.com/2020/01/14/on-homeless-tour-of-la-gov-gavin-newsom-laments-human-crisis/ Newsom says this:
Yet Dr Drew Pinsky, who should be running for office given his stellar willingness to speak the truth about the homeless issue, states here https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/the-only-plan-to-end-homelessness/ that 90% of homeless are addicts and 60 to 85% of them are service resistant.
So let’s stop being stupid, and start taking the Carrot and Stick approach. Now, if the criminals and drug addicts say no to the shelters, you can say NO to their tent camps all over the city. But in order to do that, you’ve got to actually have enough shelters to house them all. Hence the need for much much more shelter building. The “Where Do We Go” folks do actually have a point here, which is that it’s hard to tell people not to camp in tents in public places if you don’t actually have anyplace for them to seek shelter.
Some have written their “big picture” solution to homelessness in articles, but I think it really helps to present this in “picture” form as a flow chart. Also, a flow chart allows a logical sequence to be analyzed, much more easily than in an article. So herewith I present a “flow chart” about how to “solve homelessness.” This flow chart obviously presents only the most broad and general picture of what I see as a way to solve this massive problem: it does not get into all the details. Actually I dont’ think it’s necessary to present a lot of details, because my experience in dialoguing with others is that there needs to be more ability to just imagine this basic structure, which I believe is — more or less — the only idea that can work to fully address the crisis that we see all over our city streets right now.
FLOW CHART
Some of the flow chart is in “dialogue” style where I dialogue with a hypothetical “devil’s advocate” who is opposed to some of my ideas. Their comments are generally italicized. You can move from page to page on the flow chart using the yellow “back” and “next” buttons as well as the red “see page X” buttons.
Throughout the process of helping the homeless who are seriously mentally ill, we have to keep in mind that they are quite often unable to make any decisions in their own interest. The term that applies is Anosognosia, also called “lack of insight” https://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/key-issues/anosognosia
Some notes on the chart: for those who need help paying rent or mortgage to stay in their housing, obviously they would not be permitted to get such assistance every month, month after month indefinitely. Some limits would be imposed, eg, only one loan per x amount of time. Also, the loan terms would be much more favorable, for those who needed less help. This would reward those who were living closer to a level that they could afford, eg only needed $200 to pay their $2000 a month rent. For those who needed more help, eg could only pay $10 of their $2000 a month rent, they would obtain less favorable loan terms, since they were not living close to what they could afford.
To a great extent, this is owing to the great nuisance created by shelter occupants who are drug addicts, mentally ill or criminals. Under my plan, virtually none of those types of people would qualify to stay in city-center shelters or shelters in the more “desirable” locations. So that would go a long way to abating nuisance and making city shelters less objectionable. Most all of these lower functioning individuals would only be offered shelter spots in areas outside of the urban center, or even out of state, in part because they are unlikely to have jobs which would require them to be in the area, and secondly because the only reason they have to want to stay in the area is to have access to the illegal drugs which they are using to destroy themselves, and thirdly, because as a society we have to do what we can to reduce nuisance and quality of life disturbances for residents. Of course once people get sober and have the ability to support themselves, they can live wherever they please, but while they are a public liability, they won’t be given all the choices they would like.
Right to Travel.
Courts have ruled (see this article going into this issue: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2018/04/06/court-cases-on-homeless-issues/) that indigent individuals have just as much a right to travel as anyone else, and people cannot be kept out of a city just because they can’t afford to stay anywhere in that city. Hence, every city will need to reserve some spaces in its homeless shelter, for those indigent individuals who are “traveling” and cannot afford anywhere to stay. Those cities who have no shelter or lack space in a shelter, will not be able to cite “traveling” individuals for sleeping in public, as they have a right to travel, but cities can also have police visit and identify such individuals and use the info gathered to ensure that the individual is actually “traveling” rather than trying to move in and permanently live on city streets. Those who stay too long (courts will need to decide what distinguishes traveling from permanently staying) will be prohibited from sleeping/camping in public and fined, jailed or harassed along until they leave town.
How will all this be paid for? Well considering that many cities on the West Coast have already spent billions on this problem with very little to show for it, the money that they would have continued to pour into programs that aren’t really helping, could go towards this. So that’s one source. The other is that the federal government needs to do a LOT more on this issue than it has…really needs to be the primary contributor. Many of you don’t want to pay more taxes for these people, but I don’t see that taxes need to be raised on middle America. We just need to start having the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share…which in many cases, means paying more than 1 cent, since many of the biggest corporations are paying absolutely no federal income tax at all.
If California politicians continue to massively fail on addressing homelessness appropriately, which means, not leaving people for years on the streets and sidewalks while building housing for a few lucky “lottery winners” amongst them, then Trump has said he will be stepping in. I am curious to see what will come of this.
As the homeless crisis gets ever larger and the situation with encampments all over our city streets, sidewalks and parks grows ever more problematic and intolerable, many are trying hard to come up with solutions. As I’ve said for some time, there’s a heck of a lot of ingenuity put into electronic gadgets, computers, software and apps, and if we could shift the focus of our energy and our creative work towards trying to find solutions to homelessness, this would be of great humanitarian value. We just do not need all these apps and gadgets, but we have people on our streets who are suffering and need help.
A few of the more creative ideas for sheltering or housing the homeless are worthy of mention, just to demonstrate the value of really allowing our imagination to guide us in this endeavor.
In Oakland, city council members such as Rebecca Kaplan considered sheltering the homeless on a cruise ship.
This article indicates that the Port of Oakland does not see this as very do-able, https://sf.curbed.com/2019/12/12/21012698/oakland-city-council-kaplan-cruise-ship-homeless saying “There isn’t the infrastructure to berth a cruise ship” in the city and that “our federally regulated maritime facilities” are not suitable for residential use, citing safety and security worries.
Another idea is to use grounded Boeing 737 planes as homeless shelters, as expressed here: https://mynorthwest.com/1642214/dori-737-max-homeless-shelters/? this idea might have been more humorous/satirical than sincere, but I believe that it’s really good to consider repurposing any large vehicle like this which could be remodeled to create “rooms” within it. Just take the seats out and build rows of sleeping quarters.
Perhaps the most original idea yet is to build an entire city for the homeless. https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2019/12/20/all-inclusive-homeless-city-folsom-man/
A man in Folsom, Duane Nason, has a plan to build a $3 billion city just for the homeless.
His reasoning for the need for such is good, as he criticizes our current un-scaleable, un-sustainable, and unworkable plan to house the homeless.
“We still have about 60,000 chronic homeless living on the streets, and so from the numbers form the last 10 years, it’s going to take 200 years to house all of them,” Nason said.
Instead of building 4,000 more shelters, Nason wants to build an entire city to house America’s homeless. The project won’t be cheap.
Yet we all know that one of the biggest problems with the homeless is that they refuse what is offered to them. They refuse shelter, they refuse housing, often because it isn’t what they want or where they want. How would Nason draw people to want to live there? He’d offer many amenities and fun stuff.
“I need to provide an overwhelming desire for them to want to live here and that’s why I’m going to have an abundance of amenities,” Nason said.
He says the city would include TV pods, cafeterias, underground tunnels, and more. Residents would live in dorm-room style housing in 16-story buildings with five wings per floor. Every neighborhood would have an arcade, and it will all be free to the homeless.
“Definitely it’s an ambitious project. There’s never been anything like this in the history of the country. This is going to be very something very massive. It’s going to require a lot of people to work together on this,” Nason said.
Though it may sound intriguing at a glance, once again we have to get real –regarding Nason’s plan and other plans — about who the homeless are and why they are homeless. Once again, certainly not all of them, but a very large number of them are drug addicts, mentally ill, criminals. So what happens when you put a very large number of drug addicts, mentally ill people and criminals in one place?
Right…so…while being creative and imaginative on this problem is desirable, let’s not turn into idiots in the process. “A city for the homeless” is very likely to quickly turn into a criminal enterprise, run by leaders of drug gangs or criminal gangs, who intimidate and terrorize everyone else into submission. There will be no amenities and fun in that. There will be plenty of drugs and people dying in the streets. People will be desperate to get out…and then you’ll need to create a whole other “city for the homeless” …and ad infinitum.
We dont’ need to look too far to find out what happens when you “give” something to a group of homeless people. When Oregon government leaders made the mistake of setting up a tiny home community for the homeless, these homeless decided they wanted to run the place themselves, and they locked out city workers, who then were unable to provide the services that taxpayers were paying for. https://komonews.com/news/project-seattle/tiny-home-villages-lock-out-city-officials
Even if it were possible to somehow create a “city” or community for the homeless, consider the consequences from such a precedent, which would basically be conveying the message that hey, if you dont’ want to have to pay for anything in life, here’s a whole city just for you, come and live for free. Everybody else in any other city has to pay for stuff, but if you don’t like having to do that, just kick back and come here and get all for free.
I think it’s clear that we not only need to think creatively and imaginatively about ways to solve this problem, but we also need to keep in mind the potential consequences of whatever approach we consider taking, the messages that it would send, and be very smart in understanding human nature and how we would motivate or not motivate people, based on what we offer.
Based on these realities, it is not a good idea to offer any kind of highly desirable housing to any homeless individual, (except those who are elderly/disabled and actually unable to pay their own way) much less to one who is a drug addict, mentally ill or criminal. We just cannot be in a position where we are rewardingdestitution and the inability to support oneself and pay one’s way in life, which is what we do if we offer lovely housing to people who can’t afford to pay for it. At the same time, it’s inhumane to not provide shelter and housing for everyone in need. We can and must provide shelter for every human being in need, and some type of basic housing for all.
But the housing that we offer the homeless should be quite basic, quite rudimentary, and while sufficient to basic needs, should not be “desirable.” Only by offering “lower quality” housing to those who cannot pay their own way, can we adequately motivate people to strive to pay their own way.
I definitely do not think the idea of creating a “city for the homeless” is do-able. Even if it’s not immediately taken over by criminal gangs, even if it doesn’t immediately decay into streets full of drug addict zombies with a real-life Walking Dead movie playing 24/7, I can’t see it working well to essentially create a city full of severely challenged and/or destitute people, people who were unable to succeed in life and support themselves. Perhaps one sanctioned camp or one building or one shelter full of such people would suffice to help them build community among each other, but IMO, a whole city of such would be dark and depressing….in spite of “amenities.”
Interior of mental institution
Ultimately, the need to “get real” on the homeless crisis trumps (perhaps Trumps) the value of using imagination, if all we can do with our imagination is have sappy pollyannish daydreams or come up with ideas which would quickly fail.
California has been failing on homelessness in a massiveway, and I’m encouraged by President Trump’s new top man on homelessness, Robert Marbut, to see what more realistic and effective plans and policies he and the Trump administration might be able to bring to the issue.
I’ve seen quite a few articles recently which compare the number of vacant units in a particular city, to the number of homeless in that city.
This is known as the Liberal Non-Sequitur.
Anyone who thinks but a few moments about it, will realize that these two things have nothing to do with each other, and that quite apparently, the only reason for comparing these two numbers, is to make one of two stupid and/or Orwellian suggestions.
Let’s first look at the articles and then, the nothing at all that can be deduced from them.
Some cities already are taxing you if you dare to keep your property vacant, you nasty person, who should be doing what we want with your property, not what you want:
Now…let’s get to explaining the non-sequitur here. How does the number of vacant units, or bedrooms, in any city, have anything at allto do with the number of homeless people in that city, unless you think that (1) rental property owners or homeowners with space in their private home, are eager to fill that space with the drug addicts, mentally ill, criminals, and destitute and down on their luck who have almost no money to pay rent, who comprise the large majority of homeless people., or (2) the government should just take over all private property and disburse the housing to its preferred populations, among which the people who have the lowest income, the poorest attitudes, and are least likely to be able to retain housing that they are put in, will be among the top contenders.
Yet, this is the argument being made, by such illuminaries as W. Kamau Bell and others:
This article suggests that the folks who apparently recently broke into a vacant home in West Oakland, really “should” be the ones the owners of these units should be taking in. As if property owners would just love to have tenants who have so much respect for them that they’ll break in and squat in their unit if they can’t get in the legal way.
It doesn’t make much sense at all to compare number of vacant units to number of homeless, because homeless people are quite often the very last ones who any property owner is likely to rent to. This is particularly true if these homeless are in a city where they can’t afford any apartment at all. How exactly a person who can’t afford the rents in a city is going to be a great candidate for all any of the vacancies there is not clear, but the idea that this would be true, may pertain to this article that I saw recently:
It should be obvious why this happens. Many property owners have buildings that have a lot of issues. They may not be able to afford to fix them up, particularly if they are in areas with rent control that prohibit them raising rents on existing tenants, to make enough money to cover the needed repairs. So, it may seem to some that if a government or nonprofit agency offers to pay them to take in a renter whom very few others are willing to take, both parties could help each other.
And for the homeless, too, even a substandard unit would seem like a step up. A garage with no bathroom or plumbing isn’t ideal, but isn’t it better than a tent on the sidewalk?
Ideally, yes, we’d have fully equipped, standard, legal housing for everyone. But that day may not be soon, and I have a feeling that by being picky, homeless are not likely to get more, but instead may get less, as even fewer property owners are willing to take them in, and the only thing left to do is build large FEMA camps in the Central Valley and have them move in next to the cattle stockyards. Moooo!
As many of you are aware, the Martin vs Boise case is a major legal case in the matter of how cities can create legislation pertaining to homelessness and use of public space, and what rights homeless people have.
In essence, the city of Boise passed a law prohibiting people from camping in public places. Martin (who interestingly enough, had never lived in Boise, but only came there to visit his son) sued, stating this was a violation of the Constitutional rights of homeless. Martin prevailed in the Ninth Circuit court, and the court decision for that case has become a problem for cities all over the West Coast in that it seems to impede their efforts to keep public places clean and free of crime and nuisance. Many cities are quite unclear on the implications of Martin vs Boise, and because they decide it’s more of a risk to make a mistake, they choose the passive route and in order to protect themselves from litigation, do nothing about encampments all over the city. As the City of Boise states in their petition:
In communities throughout the Ninth Circuit, governments are already abandoning efforts to address homelessness rather than face potentially massive liability. The forgotten victims are those vulnerable individuals left to live and die on the streets. There is no time to wait. The Ninth Circuit’s decision has already frustrated efforts to curb the growing epidemic of public camping in the Western United States, which poses serious threats to the health and safety of the public at large, as well as those who live on the streets. This paralysis will continue unless this Court intervenes.
Those municipalities that have not ceased enforcing their public-camping ordinances have found themselves hauled into court.
Even though the Martin vs Boise case was intended to be decided narrowly and applied only to sleeping in public, not setting up permanent encampments, this is not how the decision is uniformly viewed. In particular, it’s become clear that many homeless, homeless activists, and their attorneys, are attempting to exploit the Martin vs Boise case, even in bad faith it seems, in order to lobby for the “right” to camp anywhere they please, in virtually any city or locale they choose. As petitioner City of Boise goes on to state:
However narrow the Ninth Circuit may have intended its decision to be, it has in practice established a constitutional right to camp in public within the Ninth Circuit—a jurisdiction that encompasses nine states, two territories, and more than 1,600 municipalities.
In some cases, cities have apparently been instructed by local courts’ interpretations of Martin vs Boise, that they may not remove homeless encampments if they are unable to offer shelter to those they are moving out.
Note that as Heather MacDonald, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, astutely argues in her article https://www.city-journal.org/san-francisco-homelessness about the takeover of public areas in San Francisco by drug addicts and criminals, one of the primary elements that was overlooked or downplayed in the Ninth Court analysis of this issue, was the fact that homeless people do still have agency, they have choices, they have the power to make some effort on their own behalf, and a court ruling which simply gives people “rights” to sleep in public places without requiring them to make any effort to better their situation, is one that in essence does not dignify the human being.
Note that in the copies of Briefs of Amicus Curiae filed in this case as presented below, one is from Stephen Eide of the Manhattan Institute. His brief opens:
Amicus Curiae’s interest is in seeing this Court affirm cities’ ability to maintain orderly public spaces unencumbered by lower courts’ use of the Eighth Amendment to intrude upon the separation of powers.
The city of Boise lost their initial legal battle in this case, and then petitioned for the case to be heard by the US Supreme Court. This petition is being considered. This site shows the timeline of the case thus far and provides documents in the case: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/city-of-boise-idaho-v-martin/
Note that 29 different states, municipalities and/or other associations filed briefs of amicus curiae. Others attempted to file amicus briefs but those were not accepted.
Some interesting points/arguments in these documents:
From Stephen Eide of the Manhattan Institute:
Unless smaller, poorer municipalities choose to adopt the failed and prohibitively expensive homelessness policies of New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, the Ninth Circuit requires them to surrender the possibility of protecting their citizens from the health and crime problems associated with large encampments, and surrender to those encampments public spaces intended for the entire public to share. Such judicial micromanagement infringes on the separation of powers and guarantees inferior public policy. It cannot be a valid interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, and the Supreme Court should grant certiorari to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision.
Argument: Martin’s logic points to an expanded role for the judiciary over homeless services systems. But the judiciary is poorly positioned to assess the adequacy of homeless services systems.
In practice, therefore, Martin mandates broad and thoroughgoing judicial oversight of local homelessness policy. To keep local quality-of-life ordinances in line with the Eighth Amendment, the Ninth Circuit wants judges, on the “demand” side, to examine the size and character of communities’ homeless populations and, on the “supply” side, the size and character of local homeless services systems. Courts are not competent to conduct such examinations. If Martin remains the law, cities’ responses to homelessness will remain constantly hampered by litigation as judges stumble through policy details better left to be sorted out by local officials.
Still more complicated, from the perspective of judicial competence, is the question of shelter quality. Two of Boise’s shelters are run by faith-based organizations. Both the Ninth Circuit and district court scrutinized whether potential shelter clients were
somehow forced to choose between violating the law by sleeping in public or violating their consciences by being coerced into practicing a religion they found objectionable.
Faith-based organizations, going back many generations, have played a lead role in our nation’s response to homelessness. In many communities, they still have the lead. To suggest that references to Jesus on a shelter’s intake form or “messages and iconography
on the walls” might render shelter “practically [un]available” to the homeless could destabilize existing local service systems.
But given the extent of Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, advocates could well press other judges to find sobriety requirements to be unconstitutionally onerous. Such requirements are valuable to a homeless-shelter client who is trying to get his life back together and sees the presence of intoxicated roommates as a barrier to his upward mobility. But his less motivated peers may see sobriety requirements as an entry barrier to shelter.
If cities are unable to affordably enforce quality-of life laws, there will be dramatic and pernicious repercussions. Across the nation, many libraries, parks, and other public spaces have ceased to feel fully public and have instead come to resemble the private
accommodations of the homeless. The commonly accepted notion that park benches, plazas, and library carrels are public property and thus should be shared implies that they should be used temporarily, not occupied for entire days.
Jurisdictions differ dramatically in the strength of their local tax bases or “fiscal capacity.” Cities with weak fiscal capacities are already struggling to support their traditional array of municipal services— K-12 public education, public safety, maintenance of basic infrastructure, parks, libraries—and make good on their retirement-benefit and pension commitments and debt obligations. During the Great Recession era, three major cities within the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction went through Chapter 9 bankruptcy (Vallejo, Stockton, and San Bernardino). America’s many fiscally distressed cities are in no position to embark on a massive new investment in homeless services. Yet this is what Martin requires—or else the city can do nothing.
If Boise and other cities across the nation lack the authority to take a preventative approach to encampments, there is truly no end in sight to the kind of street disorder that’s now such a source for disgrace for officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and elsewhere.
From International Downtown Association of LA: (they filed the longest brief, about 80 pages long)
The inter-circuit inconsistencies fostered by Martin and the ambiguous language used by the Ninth Circuit has flummoxed local governments throughout the country— Throughout the Ninth Circuit, ordinary people— small business owners, shop clerks, students—find themselves unable to secure basic government assistance in matters of safety and sanitation. Los Angeles’ Skid Row is a prime example. Skid Row, a 50-square-block area in the heart of Downtown L.A., has long been a locus of human hardship. But in large part because of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Martin v. City of Boise, the hardship has become inhumanity.
In one district in Sacramento, tent encampments have increased 466% since Martin was decided; crime both by and on homeless individuals has risen.
Allowing our homeless neighbors to reside on the streets is no good for anyone. For the businesses this means a struggle. For the homeless, this may mean death. For all of us it means a loss of humanity.
From Brief filed by Mary Rose Courtney
The massive build-up of property and tents has made the sidewalks unpassable: Charles Van Scoy, who is restricted to a wheelchair is trapped in his own home; Karyn Pinsky must walk with her young son in a stroller in the middle of traffic.6 The Inner-City Arts Center had to hire security to walk with students and staff to and from campus. Id. Business owners in the area have suffered: customers cannot access their businesses or are declining to hire them due to conditions on the street, they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on increased sanitation and security measures and cannot maintain employees. Id. Joseph Burke has lost tenants and hundreds of thousands of dollars in client accounts. Id. Residents and workers throughout the area are confronted daily by disease, illicit drug sales and use, prostitution, and general filth and squalor. Id. A single mother living in the heart of skid row with her child regularly has to disinfect her home because of the fleas that ride on their pant legs as they walk past homeless encampments surrounding their building. Local businesses have had to close public restrooms to all guests due to pathogenic remnants and misuse of such spaces for drug dealing, sleeping, exposure, and assaults.
Needles on LA streets: photo included in Amicus Brief
By leaving society’s defenseless to remain on the streets in the name of compassion and civil rights, we are ensuring their ultimate decline. By removing crucial tools from our local governments to get people help, the lower court in Martin is allowing them to die “with their rights on.”
A substantial number of entrants choose not to follow even their few residential rules and return to the streets—where law enforcement is, by virtue of the practical impacts of Martin, unable to enforce anti-camping restrictions even for those who have refused shelter. Hollywood’s experience proves that even expensive temporary shelter is no solution in the absence of coextensive lawenforcement.
Rather than grapple with these issues and face costly litigation, cities even outside the Ninth Circuit are throwing up their hands and refusing to act at all.
In Austin, Before the amendments to city ordinance prohibiting camping, officers had a 98 percent voluntary compliance rate; that is, they wrote citations only two percent of the time they encountered persons violating these ordinances. Typically, officers and other city workers were able to use these ordinances to incentivize homeless persons to utilize social services. With the new ordinance amendments, the number of people living on downtown sidewalks just in the last couple months
has increased by 135 percent and homeless persons have no incentive to utilize services…so they don’t.
Burning tent on sidewalk in LA: Amicus Brief
Seattle: the city has declined to pass virtually any restrictions on public living. Even high-level nuisance laws are ignored. Baltimore: Aggressive carwindow-washing by homeless people has become an issue: people are trapped in their cars and intimidated into giving money for a service they did not ask for; if payment is declined, often there is retaliation. Yet the city has no restrictions against aggressive panhandling, largely due to the confusion about the constitutionality of such an ordinance.
It is easier (for cities) to do nothing than to do the wrong thing and face a lengthy court battle or (perhaps worse politically) bad press. Yet that means once again the onus is placed on the private sector to try to cover what is typically a government responsibility. And yet, once again, the private sector lacks the authority to enforce laws, thereby making its efforts minimally effective. When a person rebuffs efforts to re-connect her to civilization, and there is no incentive for her to do so, she is subject to the elements … and in Baltimore’s harsh weather, that means death.
For their part, attorneys for Martin argue that the city of Boise and those joining in with Amicus briefs are very much overdramatizing the situation and reading things into the Ninth Circuit court ruling which are not there. They claim that the ruling is in fact narrow, that all it says is you cannot criminalize someone for sleeping, so if they cannot sleep on private property, they have to be able to sleep on public property, otherwise you are in essence making it illegal for them to sleep.
I believe both sides have a point, but there is a problem with the ruling or the language of the Ninth Circuit court which places an unfair burden on municipalities and does need to be addressed, though I’m not sure by whom. I’d like it if SCOTUS took up this matter. But I believe what may be needed is new federal legislation, and a new federal homeless program, not just a SCOTUS review of a particular case.
Here’s how I see things:
(1) I think the ruling in Martin vs Boise was narrower than many cities are claiming. It seems clear to me for instance, that while sleeping overnight in public places is protected by the ruling, setting up permanent camps is not. Yet some cities feel that the ruling prohibits them from removing camps, and in fact some lower courts have said as much to them.
(2) As well, I believe that some cities may be using the Martin vs Boise ruling as an excuse, and not as legitimate rationale, to justify their refusal to act on the massive problems and nuisance caused by out of control growth of homeless camps. I find dubious some cities’ claims that they are worried about being sued if they try to clean up encampments. It has occurred that cities have been sued for trying to remove camps, and this could continue to occur, but these suits could have taken place with or without the Martin vs Boise ruling, as there are many pro bono attorneys eager to sue cities who try to remove homeless camps.
(3) The main problem with the ruling as I see it, is that the Ninth Circuit court places the entire burden for providing shelter for the homeless who happen to show up in that city, on the particular city where they show up. If a city is inundated with homeless, for whatever reason, that city alone, and no other city, nor the state or federal government, is apparently charged with providing the shelter which allows them to prohibit sleeping or camping in public places. If they dont’ provide shelter for absolutely everyone who shows up camping in their town, they can’t prohibit all that camping all over town. This seems untenable & unjust. Instead of requiring cities to provide that shelter themselves, I think cities should only be required to direct homeless individuals to places that have shelter available — which may not be in that same city. And it’s in this area where I think the solution needed is in the legislative, not the judicial branch. Because the federal and/or state governments need to create a shelter system throughout the country, so that we can then mandate that people with no place to go, have shelters to go to, but cannot camp in public outside.
(4) As well, I agree with Stephen Eide of the Manhattan Institute, that excessive scrutiny of the kind of shelter or quality of shelter being offered, is problematic and interferes with the city’s ability to keep order in its public spaces. If homeless persons are supported in becoming very picky about what shelter they will accept, this can greatly increase the burden and expense the city has in sheltering people as well as diminish its ability to keep the public spaces clear of encampments.
For instance, imagine a homeless woman with this litany explaining why she cannot accept any of the shelter options offered to her: “Not that one, I can’t bring my dog there, not the other, I can’t bring my five huge carts of crapola in with me, the 3rd one has an icon of Jesus over the door which offends me, the 4th one is where I got bedbugs last year, the 5th one someone screamed loud at night so it’s a violation of my right to quiet enjoyment, the 6th one is single sex so I can’t bring my boyfriend, the 7th one is co-ed so I feel unsafe with the men there, the 8th one doesn’t allow me to bring in my heroin, meth and fentanyl, the 9th one does allow people to bring in their heroin, meth and fentanyl, so people are strung out all night which puts me in danger.”
I think the filings in the case have done a good job demonstrating how unfair, unworkable and indeed how incredibly dangerous it is for the courts to require cities to provide homeless services for virtually anyone who decides to show up on their doorstep, or be forced to sit passively by while vagrants of all types simply take over public places and endanger themselves and area residents in multiple ways.
I look forward to hearing that the US Supreme Court has granted the petition and will hear the case, and distribute a ruling on this matter.
UPDATE: The Supreme Court did NOT grant the petition, so the case will not be reviewed by the US Supreme Court, which means the lower court’s decision stands. This is unfortunate, yet it’s also important to realize that court cases tend to be narrow, and narrowly decided, and there’s no reason another case bearing on similar issues might not eventually make it to the Supreme Court. For instance: the Martin vs Boise case doesn’t really make clear, at least as far as I’m aware, whether the shelter offered to homeless by a city, needs to be in that city or closeby. This issue of the burden required to be borne by any particular city vis a vis the homeless who happen to show up there, I predict will be heard by a high court eventually, as this is an issue that is imperative to sort out.
Most of my articles on this site are in effect saying that, in one way or another, much of what our cities and state leaders do on homelessness, is misguided, and that we need a better vision and better policy going forward.
As the crisis worsens, some leaders are stepping up with the new ideas that we need.
The California Compassionate Intervention Act is a proposal authored by retired California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto, which would:
….treat certain existing crimes (“Intervention Predicates,”) as cries for help –- opportunities to both engage the homeless and return respect for the law on our streets.
Under the system, certain crimes, like defecating on public transportation or using heroin or meth in public, would be strictly enforced. However, a special court would be created in major counties to determine whether a person committed those crimes due to economic need, a drug dependency, or mental-health issues.
The court would then “sentence” the defendant to an appropriate treatment plan: connecting the defendant to existing shelters and safety-net programs like general welfare, or requiring that the defendant participate in drug rehabilitation and treatment, or placing the defendant in an appropriate mental-health hospital with access to free prescription drugs. Once a defendant has completed this “sentence” (e.g., completed court-mandated rehab), the “conviction” would be automatically expunged, so there is no harm to that person’s record.
Unlike other approaches, which have sought to criminalize homelessness itself (too harsh) or have focused purely on the economic aspects of homelessness at the expense of ignoring crimes (too lenient), this initiative seeks a balanced approach. It recognizes that many homeless people need help, but that some aspect of encouraging people to get help starts with forcing the issue. It also seeks to return respect for law and order, since many people feel there is a double standard currently for crimes like indecent exposure.
It is not humane to leave people who need help on the streets. This initiative would use the existing system and laws already on the books to get people the help they need. We the people must go to the ballot box on this issue, because governments everywhere have let us down, and have let down the people on the streets
.
I think this is an excellent proposal, as it would do what so many of us realize is needed: show some real compassionfor those living on the streets and sidewalks of our state. As Gatto says, it is not humane to leave people on the street, and it’s high time we recognized this. It’s absolutely appalling that government leaders all over the state and beyond, throughout the West Coast really, have been content to leave people on the street for so long. I think this proposition would work well with Darrell Steinberg and Mark Ridley-Thomas’ plan to urge legislation that would require the state to provide sufficient shelter for all in need, which I wrote about here: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/11/29/a-government-imperative-to-provide-shelter/
If you’ve been following my articles on this site, you’ll know that I’ve been advocating for adequate shelter for all those in need for some time. In contrast to the mantra of West Coast government that “the solution to homelessness is housing“, I’ve been saying no, the solution to the problem we see all over our streets, is shelter. Not because people don’t also need housing, but because the first thing they need, the critical, urgent, emergency need, is shelter.
As an illustrative metaphor: if you find someone freezing to death on a trail in the woods, you don’t say to them, “it’s apparent that you need housing, so, sit here for a few months while I now undertake to build you a cabin.” By the time you’ve built that cabin that person will have died. Also, consider my longer discussion of this matter in my article on the Parable of the Poisoned Arrow, here: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/10/21/the-parable-of-the-poisoned-arrow-and-liberal-failure-on-the-homeless-issue/
The first, critical, urgent imperative is adequate shelter. Once that short-term need is taken care of, you can then begin thinking about that person’s longer term needs for housing.
Some government leaders are finally beginning to realize that building long-term housing is not a reasonable solution to a crisis. You must address a crisis with “policy commensurate with the existing urgency” as Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas has said. And so, I’m glad to see that Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, are now working together on California’s Homelessness Task Force, to propose a ballot initiative for 2020 which would require the state of California to provide shelter for anyone in need. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-27/california-housing-crisis-podcast-gavin-newsom-solve-homeless-ballot-measure
This is one of the best ideas I’ve heard in some time. The only better idea would be that this be a federal law, not a state law, and that the shelters are paid for by federal and not state dollars. I do think that needs to happen eventually.
It’s’ my view that together with constructing enough shelter space for all, we need to eventually prohibit the kind of tent encampments we see all over cities along the West Coast. When asked if they would incorprate a legal requirement for homeless to accept shelter, Darrell and Mark said no. In part their rationale is that they believe 85% of the homeless do want shelter, and so just by offering it we would “solve” an enormous part of this problem, so that it’s premature to worry about what we’d do about the other 15%. They also feel that until we actually construct the shelter, we lack moral authority to prohibit camping.
However, I don’t know where they are getting that figure of 85% of homeless who they claim are willing to accept shelter. From what I’ve seen, heard and read, I get the sense that the number of homeless willing to go into shelter is considerably lower.
This article https://www.city-journal.org/seattle-homelessness reports that 63% of homeless in Seattle who were offered shelter, refused it. In another article I read about homeless in Seattle, it was stated that only 2% of those offered shelter during a 6 month period in 2018, accepted the shelter. In this video, made in Portland, one of the homeless women interviewed says that her experience is that about 80% of the homeless are not interested in being housed
Given the very large number of homeless who are drug addicts, it’s likely that many would refuse shelter or even permanent housing with no-drugs policies, because those situations would interfere with their drug use. Also, contrary to what some may think, most of the drug addicts did not become addicts after becoming homeless, rather, addiction is what caused them to become homeless, as this recovered addict says:
In fact, some statistics from San Diego may reveal more of this particular problem: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/homelessness/story/2019-11-21/details-on-san-diegos-homeless-revealed-in-report-from-annual-count
There, it was found that a full 27% of the homeless who’d been provided with housing, ended up homeless again within 2 years. This indicates that the “housing first” model of simply giving people housing, is not sound. It is quite likely that the reason many returned to homelessness was because their drug addiction or mental illness was not fully dealt with.
In Oakland at present, we have many “activist” homeless who are refusing the shelter the city provides (see Demand number 4 below) , and making “demands” that they be given their own land, allowed to construct their own housing, allowed to self-govern or run their own communities, be given free toilets, hand-washing stations, and trash pick up, and much more.
DEMANDS FROM @VillageOakland: 1) An immediate end to evictions of curbside communities, demolitions of homes, and towing of vehicles people live or store belongings in. pic.twitter.com/uKBRvWvJcq
All these entitled demands reflect one of the by-products of our governments’ do-nothing stance towards the crisis that has been spilling out all over our sidewalks and streets for several years. The fact is that by tolerating sidewalk camping, cities (as well as courts) have enabled the creation of an entire lawless city-within-a-city. Cities have in effect given a green light to a large group of anti-social individuals, who may not all be drug addicts, but who have in common with the sidewalk drug addict that they are increasingly seizing on opportunities to “lay their claim” on public space, seeing as public space is now “up for grabs.”
Thus, we dont’ just have homeless living in tents on sidewalks because they are poor people with no place else to go, we have people seeing that a lawless, off-the-grid counterculture is developing on the sidewalks, and intentionally choosing that. As well, in many cases, court decisions are supporting the development of such lawless communities when these decisions cripple cities’ ability to remove encampments.
Every day, there are appalling incidents connected with these encampments, which reveal the unacceptable burden on ordinary city residents of the status quo.
I think it would be unwise to proceed with a government imperative to provide shelter to all in need, without also doing more to assist cities to prohibit camping and the setting up of tents in public places.
Mark Ridley-Thomas himself said something in the podcast on this issue which I think really supports prohibiting the ongoing sidewalk occupation once adequate shelter space exists. He said that he actually supports the city of Boise’s fight against the Martin vs Boise court decision (LA has joined that fight with an amicus brief) because he feels that we’ve made too many excuses for not getting people off the street, and that it’s been a problem that “everything we do on homelessness is voluntary”. He’s mostly referring to it being voluntary for cities to provide any services or shelter at all, but I think the argument is well extended to the homeless themselves, that cities are constantly only offering help to them, and we’ve all dysfunctionally adapted to a situation where it’s been quite acceptable for the sidewalk occupiers to reject everything that is offered and maintain their occupation of public spaces. I believe very strongly that this dysfunctional completely passive approach to the overtaking of our public places by masses of drug addicts, insane persons, criminals, as well as desperate and destitute individuals, needs to end, and I believe it will end, eventually.
People who are concerned about the spread of homeless camping all over cities, as well as open drug use, are often accused of “lacking compassion” for the homeless and/or tent dwellers. They are accused of not caring about the poor. After all, many say, homelessness could happen to anyone. It could happen to YOU. So, how can you speak as you do, if you yourself could end up homeless? The point being made seems to be, that anyone who truly understood that we are all vulnerable to becoming poor and homeless, would have no problem with totally unregulated homeless camping all over cities on the West Coast and beyond.
I beg to differ.
In fact, it’s precisely because many of us DOsee that we ourselves could become homeless, that “anyone”, who ends up experiencing a devastating sequence of events, could end up homeless, that we do notwant to see homelessness “resolved” as it too often is now, through cities tolerating the appropriation of public spaces for tent camping, and public spaces becoming “The Wild West” with drug addicts and criminals lording over these spaces.
In fact, we are as a nation, particularly in progressive locales, talking exactly backwardson this issue. I’m going to argue that what the deluded “compassion evangelists” are calling compassion, namely leaving people to camp all over the streets and sidewalks, is most decidedly NOT compassion! It’s cruelty. And I’m going to argue that what these foolish deluded compassion evangelists are calling “hateful” and “mean”, namely creating a national network of homeless shelters such that we could shelter every single homeless person (and then prohibit and make it illegal for homeless to “camp” anywhere on public land where camping isn’t allowed) , is actually what WOULD be compassionate. Because we’d then actually be caring for our homeless, instead of leaving them to suffer and rot in “freedom” on city sidewalks.
Simply put, if I suddenly lost everything and had no place to go, no one to help me, it would be cold comfort indeedif the city government, the state and federal government, all said to me, “Well, here’s a spot on the sidewalk, pull up a tent and a chair and make yourself at home….like in this spot here…happens to be next to a tent with a methhead, bike thief, or insane person who screams all night but oh well.”
So…what if I were homeless? What would I do? What would I want the city, state, federal government to do? Neighbors and all to do?
Here’s my thought-experiment exploration into this question.
Instead of starting out this exploration just on the brink of homelessness, let me back up a bit and start further back, so I can set the context.
Suppose I am a regular, housed person (perhaps with a family) with a job, and a nice apartment which is is not cheap but I can afford it at present. However, like many of us do, daily life always carries a certain undercurrent of anxiety. I feel anxious, aware that it’s possible I could lose either my apartment, or my job, or both. My anxiety may not be about homelessness per se, but about slipping behind, about being unable to save, about financial stress, or perhaps about poverty.
Homelessness is not identical to poverty: these are two different issues, which all too often are being simplistically collapsed into one in our public discourse. While homelessness is highly visible and is being treated as a “crisis”, the other, poverty, is unfortunately more widespread and more “hidden.” And to my great frustration, while many conservatives have shown little concern for the poor all along, the “progressives” who historically did seek policies to help the poor, seem to have dropped the ball on making poverty and the concerns of the American working class a central issue. Instead, the left has become a troupe of snobby elitists speaking gobbledygook. They’ve jumped onto a bandwagon of virtue signalling, engaging in Identity Politics nonsensespeak, promoted censorship and restrictions on free speech, shown far more empathy for illegal immigrants and law-breakers than for upstanding hardworking American citizens, (particularly white working class Americans, whom they may refer to as “deplorables”) and enabled dysfunctional, anti-social, and criminal behavior, including open drug use, petty theft and the trashing and mass takeover of public places by tent dwellers.
Poverty is a very serious problem in our nation, and a growing one. It’s a complex problem, though: one involving stagnant wages, increasing “wage inequality”, diminishing options for the working class, a lack of a national safety net, loss of industrial jobs and the rise in jobs in the higher-skilled tech sector, loss of a safety net for the elderly and disabled, and more. Books like Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed“, Jessica Bruder’s “Nomadland“, Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted“, Edin and Shaefer’s “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, and Sasha Abramsky’s “The American Way of Poverty:How the Other Half Still Lives” help reveal some of the terrible and heartbreaking plight of America’s poor.
To be fair, though, poverty in America also means looking at those many millions who, instead of being helped OUT of poverty, are being assisted to remain impoverished, by ineffective and poorly conceived policies which either foster dependency on the government, or make it so difficult to obtain help, that people have to spend far too much of their time, and/or have to give up what little employment they have, in order to qualify for assistance.
Many of the poor do become homeless, but the majority of poor are “hidden” because they are not homeless. They are thus suffering in a certain invisibility. So, to effectively deal with the “homeless crisis”, at least insofar as it involves the descent of the poor into utter destitution, we have to back up and consider those many millions living on the edge, in poverty. If I were in a situation of financial crisis, I would first of all want to know that there is a “safety net“, such that if I lost my job or housing, became disabled or ill, or faced huge medical expenses, I would not wind up living in my car or on the sidewalk.
Developing public policy on fighting poverty is complex….Sasha Abramsky has some good ideas in his book The American Way of Poverty. I’ll add that I think it would help tremendously if we could just all agree on 2 things: (1) that everyone should be able to get all the medical care they need, and not have to end up dying because they can’t afford care, and that (2) there should be a nationalnetwork of shelters/rudimentary housing available, which provided food, clothing and services, such that no one in need would ever (a) be homeless, (b) go hungry, or (c) lack clothing or basic services to help them find their way up out of the hole they’d fallen into. This network of shelters/housing would indeed be “rudimentary” — we cannot and should not be giving away expensive, whole apartments to the destitute, as Los Angeles is foolishly doing, providing $629k apartments to the destitute and homeless. See here for instance: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/08/los-angeles-la-california-homeless-shelter-housing-apartments-condos/3882484002/
Doing this is not only completely unsustainable, but it’s a slap in the face to all those who work for a living and may not be able to afford such a place working full time.
I also think that a guaranteed basic income(say on the order of $20k per person) which was sufficient to pay for housing and food, basic costs of living, in at least the less expensive areas of the nation, is a viable idea and is something we should work towards. Finally, I think that in order to better take care of American citizens, I agree with conservatives: we need to put a complete stop to illegal immigration, and have more limits on legal immigration and the number of refugees we’re willing to accept. The resources we do have should first go to those who have a legal right to be here.
One difficulty with enacting programs to help the poor is that many people resent having to pay for those who they can see quite plainly are lazy-asses who aren’t making any effort to improve their lot and are (for instance) content to sit on the sidewalk all their life drinking beer. Why, these argue, should my hard work go to paying for such people? Well, I think we need to get past the idea that there’s any way to force everyone to be a productive member of society. We can’t do it. There will always be lazy bums. And in my book it’s far better that we pay much less to house them in FEMA style camps, than allow them to take over the plaza in the center of the city in dirty tents. It’s better we provide them free medical care at early stages of need, rather than end up paying much more for expensive 911 emergency care when their untreated illness leads to an expensive longterm hospitalization. It’s better that we give everyone $20k in guaranteed basic income, which some morons will blow in one night in an intense methamphetamine party with strippers and call girls, rather than refuse to provide this income, and thereby deprive those millions who suffer invisibly because they don’t have money to get a dental procedure or have to choose between paying for heat or paying for food.
The one bit of justice we could meet out is that the dimwits who blow their $20k in the first night or week, will be assigned to live in the tiniest FEMA tent in the most remote and undesirable location in the US for the rest of the year.
Also…it’s important to make a distinction between some basic assistance to the poor to attain a bare decent level of survival (food, clothing and shelter) versus the communist types of ideology that there ought to be equity of outcomes. I most definitely do not believe in trying to obtain equitable outcomes. I agree with Jordan Peterson that the word “equity” is quite dangerous. Humans are inherently very different, with very different levels of intelligence, motivation, skill. Even with totally equal opportunity, we can never have equal outcomes. So, the pursuit of equity entertains dangerous delusions.
I have a MENSA level high IQ, as well as an unusual degree of integration of different psychological functions (eg, thinking AND feeling, sensation AND intuition) and it’s been a constant source of frustration throughout my life when I am required to interact with people who either who either have a significantly lower level of intelligence, or whose thinking is much less developed than mine. I end up feeling that I can figuratively run about 10 to 20 loops around the racetrack, in my mind, while they struggle to make one circuit. The slowness of other’s minds is often quite burdensome for the highly intelligent. I could not work well with someone of an IQ of 100 or less, which apparently, is rumored to exist in large swaths of some continents. That said, people of low IQ need work that they are able to do, and I have concerns about how the work they’ve traditionally done in many nations (manual labor, industrial labor) is being offshored or automated and totally phased out.
Now let’s continue the thought-experiment: if I did feel like my financial situation was becoming bleak, and the trajectory was very concerning, I would not just continue on in denial of this situation, “hoping” that I would be “lucky” and things would not continue to get worse. Rather, I would start to explore all options available to change course. This would include (1) ways of increasing my income, and (2) ways of decreasing expenses.
My “bottom line” criteria about finances would be, that I need to have some money saved, so that in an emergency, such as job loss or housing loss, I would have money saved to cope. If I did not have money saved, and could not save money on a regular basis, I would immediately be looking to make changes. Too many people just plod along with no savings at all. This is quite dangerous, unless you’re certain that in an emergency your friends and relatives will come to your aid. How much savings? Well it depends on several factors, which would need to be assessed based on your needs and costs of living in your area.
As regards increasing my income: I fully agree with anyone who argues that they should not have to work 2, much less 3 jobs just to stay afloat. That isn’t reasonable. Even just working one job, Americans have less free time than many living in other nations who are given more annual vacation time. We need reasonable work hours to stay sane and happy. What other options are there to increase income? The primary one is to change careers. Take a look at what other careers are available that would pay more, and for which there is sufficient demand, that you are likely to get hired without having to put enormous effort into job searching. Career counselors can help with these questions, as can visits to your local public library, where the librarian will direct you to resources on career opportunities. Much info can also be found via a simple internet search online.
Retraining need not be expensive: often one can get a loan to go to school, community college courses are not expensive, and more, one can learn a lot just from self-education, books and videos are available for career training in some fields. Also, various forms of self-employment should not be neglected: many are making income from selling things online, or finding a service that others need.
I have had 3 major career changes in my life — one required considerable educational expense, the other 2 did not.
So, if I were facing financial stress, these explorations into alternate careers would be something I’d be looking into.
Secondly, I’d start taking a look at ways to decrease expenses. There are a lot of resources out there on this topic as well. Some resources will address cutting expenses across the board, in all expenditures, and some will focus on certain areas, such as transportation (do you really need a car) and housing.
Here are some examples of how I decrease expenses: when I go on vacation, I never stay in hotels. I stay in campgrounds. (This of course limits where I can vacation….). I never go to live theatre, live concerts, and rarely go out to eat, as all those are expensive. I spend little on clothing: I don’t dress fashionably, and would be just as content shopping at Goodwill as any other store. I sew patches on many articles of clothing rather than throw them out. A consequence of my disinterest in stylish clothing, (as well as the fact that I often go out without combing my hair), is that I am often mistaken for a poor or “homeless” person. In fact once I was walking down the street with a coffee cup in my hand and began to walk towards a trash can to put my coffee cup in it, and as I began to say hello to the woman standing nearby, she scolded me saying she did not give out spare change! I really could care less how others see me or if I’m mistaken for a homeless or poor person. I’m too old and too freespirited to be concerned about such egotistical worries such as how others see me.
How I look in the morning: I’m not homeless, just dressed in GoodWill Style
I do not “redecorate” and buy new furniture: I use the same furniture I’ve had for many years, which I bought originally in second hand stores. I do not buy new electronics or appliances to keep up with fashion. My smartphone is 7 years old. My newest vacuum cleaner was a freebie I found on the sidewalk. Ditto with my newest microwave, it’s one I found on the sidewalk. There are lots of approaches like these which can reduce expenses.
Housing is by far the largest expense for most all of us. What can be done about that? One option is to start looking around for less expensive housing in your area. Perhaps scale down — if you have a 2 bedroom apartment, get a one bedroom. If you have a one bedroom, get a studio. If you have a studio, consider renting a room or suite in someone’s home. Another option, both for renters and homeowners, is to consider getting a roommate or roomates if you dont’ have one yet. The other option is to consider moving to a nearby city where housing is less expensive. You can’t afford housing in San Francisco, so instead of waiting until you run out of money and end up living in your car, consider moving to Oakland, Pinole, Antioch or Vallejo, where housing costs less. Another option is to consider moving to another state, where housing is likely to cost significantly less than in California. These are all things I would consider if I were finding myself “living on the brink” and spiraling down into dire financial straits.
We often hear talk among the homeless that they feel they “should” be able to stay in the city where they were born, and that the city “should” provide for them, but I hear very few people asking the obvious next question — why, if the city will provide for homelessto stay in the city, wouldn’t the city provide aid for anyone at allwho worked for a living and had an apartment, but found it difficult to make ends meet, and was afraid they would have to move to another locale. Some of the responsible working people have to move and leave the city, but the destitute drug addicts and those who made big mistakes and fell down the toilet, should get help to stay? That doesn’t make sense.
All these things about increasing income or decreasing expenses may sound obvious, but from so many stories I’ve read and tales heard from people I’ve personally known or encountered, often times people do not make common sense decisions when on a financial precipice. For instance, I’ve read about people working a job that pays $8000 a year, and wondering why they are facing homelessness. Well, that’s not a do-able career, one paying that little, unless you live in the Alaskan outback and have no living expenses because you can live off the land. So, start looking around for other career options. I’ve read about many people who “ended up homeless” because they couldn’t pay the rent on their apartment….did they not consider moving into a less expensive place, at least for a short while, such as a room in a house? I read about a man who ended up homeless because he just had to help every relative who came to him for help…and helping them all out financially ended up meaning he had no money to pay his own rent. I knew a homeowner who was struggling to get enough clients in her self-employed business…I recommended she take in a tenant, for some rental income, but she said “no, I dont’ want someone messing up my kitchen.” Well, now she has no kitchen because she lost her home in foreclosure when she couldn’t pay the mortgage.
So, point being, a lot of people end up losing their home and/or homeless because they make foolish decisions.
Cities can help people who are at risk of becoming homeless, both by providing information and resources and perhaps some counseling to those in need of help, as well as by paying one-time disbursements to help those who end up evicted because they did not have the few hundred dollars it would have taken to keep them housed. There ought to be such programs in every city.
Now…suppose I did become homeless…what then?
The first move I would make, would be to see if I had any friends or relatives, who might either let me couch-surf at their home, or camp in a tent in their yard, while I took stock of my options. It would of course help in this endeavor, if I did actually have friends and relatives, and also, if I were not a drug addict or person with serious mental illness.
Now, suppose I had no friends or relatives willing to help me. Or suppose they would be willing to help, but because of the “homeless crisis” in the area, they actually already had a homeless person camping in their yard, so they couldnt’ take me in as well. And I was reluctant to just set up a tent in the local kids’ park.
My next move would be to seek out a vehicle to live in, as people are much, much safer living in a vehicle, as opposed to living in a tent on the sidewalk. If fortunate, I’d already have a vehicle. If not, hopefully I could borrow funds from a friend or relative to get one, or (if I had not lost my job and source of income as well) save up a bit and then buy one. My ideal vehicle to live in, if I were homeless, would be a used van. Not an RV or large truck or bus, as those are too big, and create too much of a nuisance in cities with people living in them, and I would be concerned about causing nuisance.
Well, hear me out….I think there’s a big difference, actually a humongous difference, between people who end up homeless as a result of factors out of their control, and who, when they end up homeless, work indefatigably to get out of homelessness, versus those who either intentionally give up housing for the “option” of living on the streets, or who plop down too easily into homelessness and for all intents and purposes, seem to intend to spend the rest of their life living in a tent or in a vehicle in public spaces. Yes, “anyone” can end up homeless, but it takes a particularly irresponsible and IMO anti-social type of person to bail out of civilization and start laying claim to public space, exploiting the “homeless crisis” as an excuse to aim at permanently homesteading on public land.
So, if I “suddenly” ended up homeless, I would seek ways to cope through this challenging time, living in a vehicle on public streets if I had to, but I would most certainly not assume that this was going to be my new permanent lifestyle. I would be taking advantage of all services and programs offered to those in my situation, and would be working every day to find ways to get employment, if that was what I lacked, and/or housing. As well, if I had to live in a vehicle on public streets, I’d do so in the most minimalist, respectful and least impactful way possible. I would not put out my belongings on the street next to my vehicle. I’d change locations every day to avoid bothering anyone. I would not park/camp in residential areas. In general I would seek to use the advice about “stealth camping” in order to avoid detection and not negatively impact neighborhoods. https://www.parkedinparadise.com/stealth-camping/
Suppose I didn’t have enough money to buy a vehicle, what then?
Well this would be unlikely, as a major part of my “survival strategy” in life is that I always have enough money saved for an “emergency” situation, meaning, something like losing everything but living in a vehicle. However, if for some reason I didn’t even have that (eg, my vehicle broke down or was destroyed in an accident or fire), what would I do or want?
The primary thing I would NOT want, is for the city, state and federal government to have literally NO PLAN for sheltering all those in need, and for the government to tell me that I could just set up a tent on the sidewalk. I’m aware that a great number of current “homeless” are arguing the reverse: they want very much to be allowed to colonize city sidewalks, live in tents all over the city, and they are refusing shelter space when it’s offered to them. In part I believe this is because many of these “homeless” are drug addicts who would not be allowed to use and sell drugs, or continue their trade in stolen bicycles, etc, in a government shelter. As well, however, there is a solid point to be made that many shelters are unsafe. Violent incidents are occurring at homeless shelters on a regular basis, and in fact I think most of the violence perpetrated by homeless, is against other homeless. See all these articles about homeless attacking other homeless in shelters: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/nyregion/homeless-shelter-stabbing-new-york.html
However, though many may think they are safer on the streets than in shelters, this is not the case. People living on the streets very regularly lose their possessions when thieves steal them, homeless women are regularly subject to sexual harassment, attack and rape, as this homeless woman describes regularly experiencing: https://twitter.com/Edantes112/status/1184993779356295168
A big part of the problem is that shelters are oversimplified, not organized with an eye to separating out different populations of homeless. Everyone alike, criminal with long record, or “regular” person who just lost a job, is tossed into the same bin. This doesn’t work. Getting more sophisticated with the shelter system, more elaborate, a whole network of shelters through the nation, which separate out different populations of homeless, is imperative.
So what I would want “if I were homeless” , is that the federal government set up a network of shelters throughout the country, which were organized by type of population. Those with drug addiction would be housed separately, those w/ mental illness, those w/ criminal records. Men housed separately from single women, couples housed separately from single, families with kids in separate places, people w/ pets housed separately. These shelters would not be expensive hard-sided standard buildings, which are far too expensive to work on the needed scale. Instead, we would see a network of FEMA style camps, camps like those used by the UN to house refugees, the “Sprung Tent” style circus tents with many bunks or cots in each. https://www.sprung.com/
Within each camp or shelter tent, food and clothing would be available, as would a service provider to help connect everyone with options for permanent housing and employment. Ideally, these shelters would be located in areas where employment was available, eg the Central Valley of California where jobs in agricultural settings were available. That way shelter residents could have the option of making money while gaining traction to move on and out of the hole they’d fallen into.
What about those who are housed, what should they do about homelessness?
The most important thing anyone can do about homelessness, in my view, is to get informed. The bottom line is that, we cannot “solve” homelessness, if we dont’ even know what the heck is going on, either in our city, or the nation as a whole.
Perhaps the major misconception about homelessness, is that it is driven mostly by lack of affordable housing. It’s one thing for ordinary uninformed citizens to be saying this, telling this lie, but when this is being said by city and state leaders, who are responsible to be informed and know better, we have something verging on Orwell’s 1984 taking place. Causes of homelessness may vary across the nation, but at least in major cities on the West Coast, the primary driver is not affordability of housing, but rather drug addiction, mental illness, and criminality. See this video for instance
Which clarifies in a graphic and disturbing manner, that the use of the term “homelessness” is wildly inaccurate to describe the takeover of public places by drug addict camps.
So, people who are housed who want to do something about homelessness, should first of all get educated. Read the news. Not just the progressive liberal media, which appears to often be invested in misrepresenting the problem and presenting “fake news” about the “homeless” issue by downplaying the drug addiction element. Fox News is a helpful corollary when the progressive news machine veers towards fake news.
Admittedly this can be a depressing subject for many, and a lot of people just don’t want to read the news, or see homeless people for that matter. This is understandable: everyone needs to have their own boundaries, and it might be too much for some to take all this in, particularly if they live in an area not impacted by this issue. But if you’re not willing to take in the news and get educated, then dont’ pretend that you have anything of value to say about this issue. Show some respect for those who have put in the effort, sometimes an enormous effort, to get educated, and close your mouth and listen, if you have not read the news, if you have not up close what is going on in the homeless camps across the West Coast and beyond.
For instance, I have two friends who find the topic of homelessness disturbing, and both of them live in cities where homeless encampments and roving vagrants with serious mental illness, are significant problems. One of them finds untreated mental illness to be upsetting, so she ignores all instances of it and won’t watch news or videos that depict this. Well that is her boundary, and that’s fine, but it’s important for her to realize that if she’s not going to get educated on the problem, then she really has no business criticizingor arguing with those who have observed the painful reality of what is going on on the streets, and read articles about it.
The other friend is even worse in a certain way. He too finds homelessness distressing, so his response is to turn away from all instances of it. He will look the other way, ignore it when it’s in his neighborhood, and “try to focus on positive things.” Well that’s okay as long as, once again, he doesn’t arrogantly act as though he can lecture others from his position of ignorance. But he doesn’t refrain from this. He criticizes neighbors who are concerned about homeless messes and encampments in their area, and lacks all awareness about the amount of drug addiction rampant among the homeless. He considers it as “maligning people” to refer to the drug addicts as, in fact, the drug addicts that they are.
No one is required to get educated or informed: but if you (and this includes government leaders!) aren’t willing to do so on this subject, then sit down and shut up, because almost nothing you will be saying will be useful to anyone if you are speaking from ignorance.
Both these friends, for instance, seem to lack the deference and respect that they should be showing me, knowing the enormous amount of time and energy I’ve dedicated to becoming informed about the issues pertaining to homelessness. I’ve spent not only hundreds but thousands of hours spent reading news stories, essays, city ordinances, proposed legislation, read city budget plans, read and viewed first-person accounts told by the homeless themselves, arguments by homeless and homeless advocates, reading details of lawsuits, read posts on social media, looked over hundreds of photos and videos shared by concerned neighbors about problems in their area, heard accounts from residents of many cities who “live in the trenches” with serious homeless problems in their face….believe me, I’m informed. This doesn’t mean I know everything, but I’m a darn sight more informed than those who read an article or two here and there, and turn their face away from homeless camps whenever they see them as they can’t stand depressing things.
Once people do get educated and become aware about the problems with homelessness (and drug addiction, mental illness) in their area, there are a variety of approaches that they can take.
Here’s an outline of the possible activities or approaches one can take to homelessness:
1. Get informed. Read the news, learn what your city is doing on homeless issues, find out about laws that apply in your city or region, read about policy ideas. Connect with neighbors and find out what others are doing. 2. Help homeless people directly. 3. Do some charity work or good works to help individual homeless persons. 4. Now, if you are interested in doing charity work, ask yourself how your charity efforts are helping SOLVE the problem instead of just perpetuate it, and ask yourself if you’d like to help SOLVE the problem. You might not be temperamentally suited for more than helping people directly, but if that is the case this is good for you to be conscious of. 5. After you get informed, share your knowledge on the topic and help educate others. 6. Engage with your city council and city, state leaders and communicate with them about what you’d like to see done to address this problem. The more you know about your city’s strategy on homelessness, the more intelligently you’ll be able to contribute to this discussion and exploration. 7.Make efforts but do not be attached to the outcome of your efforts. 8. Take care of yourself, because the subject can be depressing and tragic and you need to attend to your own health and emotional needs. 9. File complaints about homeless nuisance in your area: encampments, trash, open drug use, intimidating/aggressive behavior by some homeless, suspicious activity, crimes, homeless “takeovers” of public spaces. Call or write to the 311 line. Read up on the city municipal code so that you can understand what laws may be broken by homeless campers…eg blocking public sidewalks, or even encroaching on a public right of way by setting their tents in the parking area of a public street. 10. If trying to solve the problem “through the proper channels” isn’t working, consider alternate approaches. 11. First, think about what your goals are in what you want to accomplish in dealing with the homeless nuisance and encampments. Here are some possible goals: (a) you don’t mind if the camps are there, but you want the trash cleaned up. And on a regular basis. (b) You don’t mind the camps and trash, but you want to make sure there are no fire risks or dangers to public health posed by the camps. So for instance, you want to see a prohibition on camps that are not outfitted with portapotties. (c) You dont’ want to see any camps in the city at all. (d) You realize that it’s not possible to obtain the goal of no camps, so your goal is that the city set rules about where the camps/tents can be and where they cannot be. For instance, the City of Berkeley does not allow objects to be set on the sidewalks or people to lie down on the sidewalks in any residential area of the city. (e) You dont’ want people to be permitted to use illegal drugs openly in public places or parks. (f) You are concerned about criminals in camps and want police to check for people with outstanding warrants in all the camps. (g) You want the homeless moved off your block or away from the front of your house or business (keep in mind that it may be pointless to move them from your business, only to have them set up in front of the business 2 doors down. Think BIG PICTURE). Etc, there are many other possible goals you might have, or your neighbors may have. 12.One option is to sue the city for negligence or endangering public safety or health, or failure to provide services or maintain public parks that residents are paying to use. Residents in some cities have sued to block the city from putting a homeless shelter in an area they feel is inappropriate. 13. Another option is to use some form of “anti-homeless architecture” to block tents from being able to be put on the sidewalks, or RVs from being able to be parked on the street. See my article on this issue for ideas. https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/07/11/anti-homeless-architecture/ 14.Another option, if the city is refusing to enforce existing laws and/or asking the police to “stand down”, is to use the means of “escalating the situation” or “exacerbating the situation” in order to push the city and police to take action. For instance, if the city won’t take action if it’s just one or two tents in the street, how many tents will be needed until the “tipping point” is reached and the city takes action? It could then be YOU, working with your neighbors, who set up those additional tents in the street, thus “exacerbating” the situation to the point where the city clears out everything. It could be that the city wont’ take action if a homeless person “peacefully” camps in front of your home, but if they are NOT peaceful, perhaps police will take action. You shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells to avoid angering someone who should not be there in the first place. So if going about your business and routine as you normally would do , serves to “provoke” a homeless camper and “escalate” a situation such that police will come and deal with it, perhaps this will work to your advantage. 15. Another option is to think about possible ways to “protest” the homeless takeover of public spaces. This is where one can get very creative and there are a quite a number of options. See some discussion of this below.
Elaboration on these points about what you can do.
Helping The Homeless Directly.
Some people go for the “I’ll give them some spare change/ a sandwich” approach, perhaps while quoting Scripture, where Jesus advises us to give to everyone in need. Well, when Jesus was alive there was no methamphetamine, there was no heroin, there was no cocaine and fentanyl, so I think his advice would be different now and that he would not wish us to give $ to people so they could kill themselves with more dangerous drugs. But if you really want to give out change or sandwiches, that is your right to do. I’ll just say that I think the food is kinder. But consider to what extent that endless handing out sandwiches is doing to solve homelessness. I’m reminded of a young woman who once came up to me crying that I should give her $2 because she was sleeping outside. There’s a logical fallacy there. How is my giving you $2, or for that matter, 20 people giving you $2 every day, going to get you out of this hole you’ve fallen into? Particularly if it was caused by drug addiction, which judging from this woman’s state, I got the sense was the case.
It’s for reasons I’ve described here, that I view the “hand out a sandwich” approach to homelessness, as one which likely involves more virtue signaling and investment in the sandwich-giver getting warm and fuzzy feelings, than it does in actually making a positive contribution towards solving this crisis on our streets.
For that matter, I view many forms of charity as beset with similar problems. Some people give out more than sandwiches — they give out socks, sleeping bags, tents, all sorts of things to those in need. So, do this if this is your style. All such things can be very useful, certainly, for immediate needs. The homeless really do need all these things, and some of what’s given to keep them warm and dry, could save their lives outdoors.
However, such forms of charity have limited use in doing anything to actually SOLVE the homeless problem — rather they just perpetuate it, enable the problem. Particularly given the huge number of homeless who are drug addicts and those with serious mental illness, who we SHOULD be caring for in other ways than by promoting approaches that simply leave them on the sidewalk, one can argue that anything which supports them continuing to live on the sidewalk, such as by providing them more and more tents and camping materials, is actually at cross-purposes to solving the problem.
In fact, given that “homelessness” is quite often better described as mass-city-enabling-of -drug-addict-takeovers-of public-places-across-the-city, then, ironically, whatever we do to make people more comfortable in their “drug addict encampments” , is much more part of the problem than part of the solution. For what we see across our cities is only in part a homeless issue, and in fact, the actual “homeless” component may be fairly small. Rather what we are seeing that is perhaps much more significant, is that city and state leaders are enabling mass takeovers of public spaces, drug addict homesteading on public spaces, and the creation of a virtual “lawless city-within-a-city”. I’ll be writing more about this later.
HEre are some actions you can take which I believe are much more useful than engaging in “charity” works which just perpetuate and deepen the problem…
Share Your Knowledge
First, after you yourself get informed by observing the problem and getting educated through articles on the subject, you can start sharing your knowledge and educating others. The more people who really understand what’s going on in our cities, the larger the groundswell to push our government leaders towards taking appropriate action, which means something other than enabling drug addiction and using sidewalks as de facto insane asylums. You can share your knowledge by: (1) speaking to your friends and neighbors, (2) engaging in conversations on media articles and social media, (3) writing blogs and letters about the issue.
Advocate
Next you can write to your elected representatives and advocate for them to take appropriate action. Doing this advocacy from an educated position will likely be more effective than expressing opinions from an uneducated and ignorant position.
Take Care of Yourself
With a problem as depressing as homelessness and drug addicts overtaking public spaces, if you are someone who really cares about the state of the city, it can be easy to become cynical and bitter. So, part of what you have to do, when addressing these issues, is make sure to take care of yourself! It can be bad for your health to have your head in the figurative toilet all the time, always focused on this issue. Take time away. Go out for dinner, go for a walk, go to the zoo, go on vacation, curl up and read a good book. For God’s sakes, do not let the homeless drug addicts ruin your life by propelling you into depression, anger, constant outrage, unrelenting cynicism, or lifelong bitterness. I have met people, in life or online, who seem to think that unless they stay outraged 24/7, the homeless problem (or indeed, any other problem they care about) stands no chance of being solved. Do not fall into the trap of such thinking. You will not be a better advocate if you cause yourself to fall into depression. Your self-destruction serves no one, and it does not make you more virtuous either. Rather it makes you someone who lacks ability to care for yourself.
It’s particularly important, in my view, to learn the difference between making efforts and useful contributions towards a solution, versus being attached to the outcome. You need to at all costs avoid being attached to the outcome of your efforts! If your attitude is that since you made a complaint to the city, then the city MUST take action, and you’ll bang your head against a wall until they do, then you will destroy yourself waiting for things to change. And your martyrdom at the cross of attempts to solve this problem, serves no one. Be realistic. Be aware of the limitations of city resources, as well as the obstacles that may be involved, as well as aware of policy issues that may be involved. For instance, in some cities like San Francisco and Oakland, it’s fairly well known among those who try to get educated and follow the news, that city leaders are attempting to restrict homeless camping in some areas while allowing it in other areas. So they are “containing” the problem to some extent. This will no doubt be very upsetting to those who find that they are living in one of the “containment zones”, but it will also save them a lot of banging their heads on a brick wall to just accept this as the reality for the time being, while continuing to put in efforts so that this need not be the case too long into the future.
The “containment zone” may feature “walkless” sidewalks….
File Complaints
In addition, you can help just by continually (in whatever ways you are able) making efforts to file complaints about encampments and homeless nuisance in your area. Report illegal dumping, illegal camps, deranged vagrants, open drug use, streetpeople harassing others, people living in vehicles on public streets. If enough people swamp the city in complaints, this can help both by increasing the likelihood of city cleaning up problem camps, as well as by creating evidence through accessible public records, to show the extent of the problem, as well as perhaps form the basis of residents’ lawsuits against a city for its negligent failure to address ongoing nuisance.
Consider Organizing Protests
Depending on how dysfunctional your particular city is about homeless mess in the public spaces, it might actually make sense for you to start organizing protests. One of the difficulties that many city residents have, is ironically related to their own law-abiding nature. Often the residents most upset about homeless mess are those who see the most rationale for having laws and then enforcing those laws. They tend to be “law-abiding people”. However, if your city leadership has completely broken down, become corrupt or dysfunctional, and it’s clear that the city leaders have begun enabling drug addiction and criminal behavior while failing to protect residents, it may well be that it could be useless and futile for you to continue to beseech city leaders to take care of a serious problem in your midst, when they have no intention of doing so.
In that case, it may be much more useful for you to start making plans to organize some type of protest. Again, this will be difficult to do for the reason that many “regular” city residents are not protesters by nature. They may be uncomfortable with suggestions to use any but the “proper channels”, even if it’s explained to them that use of proper channels isn’t working. They may then say, “well we have to elect different city council persons”, failing to realize that the numbers are not there to get the right people in office. For instance, there are unlikely to be the numbers needed to elect a Republican mayor in San Francisco in the near future, and none of the Democrats elected are going to be able to attend to what’s going on in the streets of SF in an effective manner.
So if the time has come for thinking “outside the box”, I encourage you to consider various options for protests. Get creative, leave no stone unturned in thinking of possibilities. What kind of protest you organize depends on many factors, so again, you need to really study the situation in your city, read the news, know the extent of the problem, identify where the city is failing, and understand what kind of reaction you are likely to get with different types of protests. For instance, a business owner in Oakland tried to do a “protest” about homeless campers next to the Home Depot store in that city, and offered to give money to the campers to leave the area. He was soundly booed off the stage because he didn’t have a good enough understanding of local politics.
As an example: suppose you live in a city that allows this:
Eg, the city allows homeless to basically pile all their crap all over the sidewalk, completely blocking it, AND to pile their things in the street, blocking part of a public thoroughfare.
Well before organizing a protest you might want to try pressuring the city to enforce city municipal code that prohibits obstructions of a public right of way. ADA laws in particular require that sidewalks be clear enough that people on wheelchairs can pass by. One way of highlighting this problem would be to get help from a disabled person in a wheelchair, show them trying to navigate down this block and held up by all the homeless crap on the sidewalk. If local media can help spotlight this issue this might assist your effort. Also most municipalities have laws prohibiting “encroachment upon a public right of way” that would mean no one can just use the public street to store their stuff or camp out.
But if none of these efforts bear fruit, you might consider a “protest” such as this: have several neighbors go to the local homeless shelter, say they are homeless, and get a free tent. Homeless agencies in most every city now give free tents to all homeless. Once you get those tents, set them up all over the street in your area, and fill the tents with garbage. The more tents in the street the more effective the protest. You really want to make it clear that people can no longer effectively park in that area because of the number of tents on the streets, or walk safely, due to the number of tents on the sidewalk.
Of course, if you set up a tent in the street and are not there to “patrol” it, it’s likely someone else might take over and move into your tent. In which case you can still organize a “protest” because now you have a situation ripe for conflict: for instance, two “homeless” fighting over whose tent is whose. Often when police/city fail to attend to problems, it can help if the problem is “escalated”, because police may be more likely to respond to a problem that is escalated at a higher pitch.
In some cities, this point about streets and what they are to be used for, has been made with giant logs, rather than tents. An Oakland business struggling with RV parking all over that area, began to set out logs on the street to block the RVs from being able to park there.
Then again, another type of protest would be, to completely close off all access to the street for a time, blocking all vehicles from being able to drive through (except possibly those of the neighbors). Get media attention on it and say “until the city gets these campers off this street, we are going to close this street”. There are many options for different kinds of protests.
Bear in mind though that with any such protest, you’re likely to be “hated on” by those who wish to enable the takeover of all public spaces by drug addicts, mentally ill, criminals and other homeless. So take into consideration that there will be “counter protests” to your protest and moves to block you from carrying out your protest plan.
So, think outside the box and get creative. One theme to keep in mind is to ask yourself, if the homeless are creating any particular sort of problem, what would happen if that problem were exacerbated? And then if you and your neighbors begin to take it upon yourselves to exacerbate that problem, you may just make a point very effectively. Because cities often don’t deal effectively with things until the issue is over the top and highly exacerbated. And you can help this happen.
Study Policy and Support the Best Policymakers
As well, you can help solve homelessness by doing research and identifying those politicians, policymakers and/or intellectuals, who do actually have useful ideas about how to address this problem. Then, support them, back them, talk about them, try to help get the spotlight on people who have shown that they have the practical, original ideas which could be very useful, if not absolutely imperative, to use in solving this issue. For instance, Edward Ring of the California Policy Institute, and Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute, consistently have excellent commentary and ideas. https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/31/how-trump-can-declare-war-on-the-homeless-industrial-complex/
In fact, spend some time reading the ideas of the best thinkers/policymakers/intellectuals on this issue, and you may develop your own thinking and allow you to better advocate for real solutions.
For instance, I have some policy ideas, based on years of taking in information about this issue.
Before I present my ideas, let me briefly remark on what our government leaders are doing that IMO is not working. To begin with, the primary mistake that is being made, is calling the homeless situation a “crisis” or “emergency”, but then totally failing to address it with “crisis” or “emergency” type approaches, and instead, using long-term, even many-decades-long “solutions”. Instead of setting up inexpensive shelters and rudimentary housing, quick solutions appropriate to an emergency, government is building very expensive housing, some of which is so expensive that serious questions should be asked about the possibility of corruption involved. For instance, Los Angeles spent $34 million to build homeless housing that will only house 54 people. https://la.curbed.com/2019/11/14/20963725/isla-intersections-affordable-housing-homelessZ
Given this low cost, how is it that housing which consists primarily of such containers, can run to such a high price?
Moreover, such homeless shelters will be housing some of the most dysfunctional or low-functioning people in the city, including, again, many drug addicts, criminals, people with serious mental illness, who collectively make up a large number of the homeless. Should these be given place in areas of prime real estate, expensive areas where people have to pay significant rents or home prices to gain entry? Edward Ring asks this intelligent question: https://californiapolicycenter.org/the-destruction-of-venice-beach/
54 people is 0.0009 or 0.09% of the total homeless in LA, 60,000. Even if there were space in LA to build all the buildings needed, at this rate, the cost of housing all homeless in LA would be 60,000/54 X $34,000,000 or nearly half a billion dollars….and that is just the initial outlay. There would be billions upon billions more needing to be spent for utilities, maintenance, repair of the facilities damaged by trying to house people with untreated active psychosis, untreated drug addiction. Not to mention some investment return for any developer constructing such a project. As well, this assumes that once all these 60,000 were housed, there would not be additional homeless, which is not an assumption that can be made based on any evidence at all. Rather than decreasing, after housing has been built and shelter has been provided, the number of homeless in major West Coast cities has increased from 17% in LA to 47% in Oakland, over the last one to two years.
So now let’s take a look at what I recommend doing instead:
(1) Address drug addict takeovers of public places in these ways: either (a) Re-criminalize use of dangerous drugs where it’s been decriminalized, so that drug addicts can be taken to jail, where those who’ve recovered, report that this alone allowed their life to be spared.
or (b) Allow police to search all tents, items placed in public places and seize and destroy all illegal drugs found there. Or, if needed, allow police to do this AFTER making at least one observation of the occupant of that particular tent/site, using illegal drugs. When drug addicts realize they cannot continue to take over public spaces to create mini drug cities within a city, they may be less resistant to getting treatment. Or (c) pass legislation which would require involuntary drug treatment for those with 2 or more citations for using illegal drugs in a public place.
(2) Address untreated mental illness by passing legislation which both funds the construction of new psychiatric facilities, and which paves the way for involuntary treatment for those who’ve demonstrated that they cannot care for themselves. (3) For those who lose a job or housing and end up homeless primarily through financial loss, set up a nationwide system of homeless shelters based on the UN refugee camps and FEMA camps set up in natural disasters. Inexpensive, quickly set up rudimentary housing and shelter that would provide a secure, dry place to stay while people are receiving services to help get them back on their feet.
For example, for the homeless, here is an alternative that could cost-effectively solve the entire problem within months, not years or decades: You can house homeless people in durable $399 10-foot-by-10-foot tents, sleeping on durable $75 cots, four per tent. You can position $649 porta potties to service these tent dwellers, and you can set up a larger tent to serve as a food kitchen and medical station. You could put these tent cities on city owned property or leased private land on the outskirts of town or in industrial areas, and by enforcing revitalized (through court action) vagrancy laws, you could swiftly move the homeless into these managed camps. You could have three types of camps, one for criminals, one for substance abusers, and one for everyone else.
These shelters would be located in as diverse and widespread a network as possible, and would be of sufficient number such that every single homeless person in America could be housed. (4) there would be separate facilities for different homeless populations. Some facilities/shelters for families, some for single, some for those with pets. Some would be for “normal” people with no drug or alcohol or mental illness issues. Others would be specifically for those with alcoholism. Those with more serious drug addictions would be required to stay at shelters where they received treatment for their addiction. Those who refused treatment, would be sent to prison, where they would be treated involuntarily, as is being done successfully in Rhode Island, as is shown on the Seattle is Dying documentary.
It should be noted, that many “homeless advocates” would strenuously object to any attempt to house the homeless in any large structured camp such as a FEMA type or UN refugee type camp. They have begun to perversely refer to such setups as “concentration camps“. So, would they think it’s a “concentration camp” when FEMA sets up temporary housing for those who’ve had to evacuate or lost their housing in a natural disaster, such as a hurricane, flood, fire or earthquake? Would it be better for those who lost their housing, to be asked to just sit on the sidewalk for a few years, while new housing is built? Rather than put them in “concentration camps”? I think not. Yet some, including some who say that they “don’t know much about homelessness”, are objecting to organized shelter systems and camps with arguments that use the term “concentration camp.” https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2016/05/is-anyone-else-a-little-creeped-out-by-the-idea-of-a-homeless-concentration-camp/ and https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/any-plan-by-trump-to-deal-with-homelessness-should-scare-you/
These advocates dont’ have a reasonable alternative: they just seem to object to any attempt to organize and control where people are being sheltered or housed. They also object to government’s refusals to allow homeless to “self-govern”, a concept which has always been ludicrous. In some cases the attempt to self-govern has been completely preposterous, as in this case of a “tiny homes fail” in Seattle, where the homeless actually locked city workers out of their tiny home community, thus preventing workers from providing the services for which taxpayers had paid. https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/11/06/seattle-shutting-tiny-homes-village-homeless-residents-wont-allow-city-personnel-inside/
So…these are some answers to “WWYD” if you were homeless, and “What can you do?” if you are not homeless, which I help will assist you in your quest to participate.
All over the West Coast, and beyond, we hear the same mantra: “the solution to homelessness is housing.” This is being chanted by homeless “advocates” (read: enablers of the takeover of public spaces by drug addicts and criminals) government leaders, city leaders, state leaders. All over the West Coast, and beyond, massive amounts of money, in the hundreds of millions, in fact in the billions, is being spent to “solve” homelessness, while the problems we see on our streets are only getting worse, and the numbers of people living in tents or piles of trash on the streets only grows ever larger.
What is wrong here?
It’s clear to anyone who walks on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, or even Austin Texas, and talks to the people there, that the problem we see on the streets is not primarily a “housing” issue. It’s a problem with drug addiction, as well as serious mental illness.
Why then do our government leaders not acknowledge this? Why the lies? Why the massive fiction and coverup about what we see right in front of our faces, what we smell when going down the street?
As well, why, if homelessness is a “housing” issue, and the homeless simply lack housing, do we see a soaring level of anti-social behavior and crime associated with “the homeless”? For instance, this recent incident where a “homeless” man in the Hollywood area dumped a bucket of diarrhea on a woman who was just walking by. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/diarrhea-poured-on-woman-hollywood-homeless-564585101.html
Though this incident was unusual in its depravity and grotesque aspect, assaults and crimes by vagrants are continually increasing.
This article by Fox News about the ever increasing number of homeless in Oakland, https://www.foxnews.com/us/oakland-homeless-soar-pressure-residents
Oakland residents and businesses are very unhappy with the city’s failure to abate the extreme level of nuisance on the streets.
Additionally, the “solution” of simply “offering” services, shelter and housing to “homeless” people, and simply walking away if they dont’ accept it, is not working and it’s not sustainable. This approach makes it clear that the city is based around the idea that living on streets and sidewalks, parks and freeway underpasses is a valid and legal choice that anyone can make, and that the city is helpless if the majority of “homeless” just decide to refuse all services, shelter and/or housing and insist on creating an essentially lawless “city-within-a-city” on the streets of the city.
This video attempts to awaken people to the reality of what we see on the streets around us, and show that it is not a “housing” issue, through use of graphic imagery as well as jarring juxtapositions. It uses the disturbing images of the present era in San Francisco and LA, accompanied by music from a bygone, much more idyllic era, the time of the Flower Children in San Francisco, the era of love and peace. The video is set as age-restricted due to the nudity and profanity that are included.
As disturbing as the reality on our streets is now, we can still bring back love and peace, but doing that will require real compassion, not the fake, fraudulent compassion that is being pedalled by the toxic enablers of self-destruction, the homeless advocates and government leaders. There is nothing compassionate about leaving people on the sidewalk to rot and die, as this video shows that our leaders are doing. There is nothing kind, nothing meritorious, about neglect of people who literally are crying for our help. The “harm reduction” approach kills people, as enables drug addiction. Only forcible treatment for those lost in the throes of drug addiction will reflect true compassion and kindness, for this alone can save lives.
We do not deny that the greatly increased costs of housing, and lack of affordable housing are serious problems for many, putting them on a financial precipice. . Indeed, the issues of stagnant wages, dwindling opportunities for the working class, and poverty in our nation must be addressed. However, the poor and those under financial strain are less likely to become homeless, than those with drug addiction, serious mental illness, and/or a tendency toward criminal or anti-social behaviors. Hence we do not need “housing” solutions for what we see all over our streets, as much as we need a more effective, less enabling, less indifferent and more truly compassionate approach to drug addiction and mental illness, as well as less tolerance for public spaces which are all but lost to a takeover by drug addicts, tent campers, and anti-social and criminal behavior.
Look for forthcoming articles to suss out the differences between “homelessness” (actually an overbroad term) and poverty, and present possible directions for addressing both of these more effectively.
Here are a couple starters: first, Edward Ring has some excellent ideas about how to help solve the problems we see all over our streets and sidewalks. If it offends you that Ring is a Republican or calls on Trump to solve this problem, ask yourselves why the Democrats with their millions and billions are getting nothing done while people are being left to rot on the streets of our nation, as government leaders just “walk on by.”
Sometimes it’s hard to get evidence of the impact of homeless / vagrants on people just going about their business and work during the day. We hear a story here and there, we can look at 311 reports about physical items on the sidewalk, but what’s often missing is an account of the behavior issues, the intimidation of pedestrians by drug addicts, criminals and mentally ill persons, that is a significant part of the problem of “homelessness”.
Individual stories of assaults on pedestrians by homeless and vagrants are too often dismissed as “outliers”. Many are, incredibly, being told that there is no link between homeless vagrants and criminal or anti-social behavior, even though, as I indicate in this article, the amount of crime perpetrated by transients in Berkeley (and likely elsewhere) is at least 38X higher than crimes committed by those not designated as transients. https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/the-homeless-criminals/
This document contains 46 pages of complaints made to the City of Los Angeles about the appalling and unacceptable conditions of filth and/or intimidating behavior caused by homeless vagrants around the Los Angeles City Hall building itself.
It’s no secret to those observing the homeless crisis throughout the nation, that the cities with the worst homeless problems — the biggest messes on the streets, the most open drug use and drug-addict tent camps, the most deranged and bizarre behavior in public places — are the most liberal, progressive cities: Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Austin. These cities not only have more homeless than less liberal cities, but seem to also have the worst strategies for dealing with these problems, strategies that seem to involve spending enormous amounts of taxpayer money, while accomplishing very little: in fact, as I wrote previously, ( see here: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/the-homeless-industrial-complex/ )
in many cases in spite of the enormous expenditures on homelessness, the problem has simply grown worse. The numbers of homeless in these cities increasing instead of decreasing.
Why is this?
What is being done wrong?
As has been discussed in my article on the Homeless Industrial Complex, one primary issue is that liberals seem willing to exploit the homeless crisis, in order to extract money from residents, in order to spend it on pet programs and agencies — in fact to create and then fund a whole network of virtually useless agencies and programs. I wonder how much of this money, for instance, is being spend just to “study” the problem endlessly.
But now I want to examine another aspect of this, and look at some of the ideological underpinningor support for this “exploitation machine”, if you will. As I see it, there is a fundamental ideological problem, or fallacy, at the basis of the “standard, progressive, liberal approach” to not only this but many other issues. And this ideological problem is well expressed in the Buddhist Parable of the Poisoned Arrow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Poisoned_Arrow
I think it’s quite useful to point to this parable, not only because it captures the essence of the ideological problem involved, but also because many progressives value Buddhism, and/or are practioners of Buddhist meditation or some similar type of meditation. So there should thus be a bit more willingness to pay attention to Buddhist teachings which could guide action on this issue.
This, in essence, is the parable:
It’s just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. Hisfriends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a priest, a merchant, or a worker.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me… until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short… until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored… until I know his home village, town, or city… until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow… until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated… until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.’ The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.
Astute readers will immediately see the “moral of the story” here:
The Buddha always told his disciples not to waste their time and energy in metaphysical speculation. Whenever he was asked a metaphysical question, he remained silent. Instead, he directed his disciples toward practical efforts. Questioned one day about the problem of the infinity of the world, the Buddha said, “Whether the world is finite or infinite, limited or unlimited, the problem of your liberation remains the same.” Another time he said, “Suppose a man is struck by a poisoned arrow and the doctor wishes to take out the arrow immediately. Suppose the man does not want the arrow removed until he knows who shot it, his age, his parents, and why he shot it. What would happen? If he were to wait until all these questions have been answered, the man might die first.” Life is so short. It must not be spent in endless metaphysical speculation that does not bring us any closer to the truth.[2]
Sangharakshita notes that “The important thing is to get rid of the arrow, not to enquire where it came from.”
The parable is considered a teaching on being practical and dealing with the situation at hand.
And there we have it, in essence this is the problem with the progressive approach. With the popularity of identity politics, which is fast becoming a fanatical fundamentalist religion infecting the whole Democratic party, there’s been a disturbing shift away from practical solutions to real-world problems, and into pursuit of ultimate causes that is an endless, futile journey down a rabbithole, or hall of mirrors.
It’s as if progressives can no longer look at the facts and statistics in front of their faces, but have to look for backstory after backstory, cause behind cause, until they find themselves investigating issues that occurred 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago and more. What a random criminal does today, is inextricably linked in this type of progressive liberal mind, to events that occurred in 1954 in Alabama, even if that criminal wasn’t alive then, and/or none of their ancestors even lived in America prior to 1986. Or: instead of trying to come up with practical solutions to the violence in inner city black neighborhoods NOW, progressive liberals are focused on things that occurred 200 years ago, and in trying to gain “reparations” for those.
All of this amounts to the very kind of useless, impractical inquiry on the nature of the arrow and the nature of the one who shot the arrow, as described in the wise Buddhist parable.
What we have to realize, if we dont’ want to end up simply playing our violin while Rome burns to the ground, is that this endless fixation on root causes is ultimately futile. Because it doesn’t simply end at a convenient-to-your-narrative point 200 years ago. Once you start investigating root causes, you cannot just stop at a certain point that is most advantageous to your preferred narrative or theory. Because if you really take this train, it’s going to deliver you back to the beginning of time, the point where God waved His/Her hand and created Adam and Eve.
For instance, I find it curious that in tracing back the causal chain, a great many people seem happy to stop at a point which conveniently suits their pre-existing agenda to allege that “white people are to blame.” We’ve seen a lot of people tracing back causes of problems in inner city black communities, back to slavery in the American south. But why stop there?
In fact, if you really examine all the evidence, there is a much stronger case to be made that the way “white people” stand out in relation to the subject of slavery, is that they were the first ones to end it. The “white” nations have no modern-day slavery, while blacks have yet to end it in their nations.
Yet in spite of all this complexity on the subject, there is amongst many progressives, an enormous bias to frame or “spin” this causal quest, to a point where “white people are to blame.” In this and other quests for causality, progressives show themselves to be incapable of objectivity and heavily biased to “find” a solution that matches their own pre-existing agenda.
The same bias exists in liberal’s “studies” or searches for causality related to homelessness. We find, in essence, that we are being told that since homeless people are poor, eg they are “oppressed victims” under the identity politics rubric, it’s a sort of monumental lack of compassion to be focused on practical solutions instead of uselessly tracing back causal chains to find the people ultimately at fault: which is likely to be white people and instititutional racism, or the whole capitalistic system. I took a look at that issue here: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/09/29/racism-and-homelessness/
This kind of point of view, the perverse view that it’s actually morally wrong to look for practical solutions to the terrible problems we see on our streets, is illustrated in opinions like these, which are all too common:
In other words: not only you should not be complaining about the mess on the streets, but there’s actually something wrong with you if you want clean and safe streets.
You can try to explain away and excuse this or that homeless person’s behavior by their drug addiction. Then you have to acknowledge that their drug addiction was caused by a horrendous childhood full of psychological or sexual abuse. But then you have to go beyond that, and recognize that their parents were also victims of abuse. And then you have to realize as well that those parents themselves were victims of abuse. And then another step back takes you to victims of a horrible crime or social injustice…and then in exploring the causes of that crime or injustice, you find yet more victims of abuse.
And then a few more steps and you’re back at Adam and Eve at the origin of time.
The pursuit of causation never ends. Which is why, in terms of the need to solve the practical problem in front of our faces, it really doesn’t matter WHY any particular homeless person became homeless. The cause doesn’t matter — what matters is the practical solution. Given homeless person X, what can be done for them NOW. Given homeless person Y, what can be done for this one NOW. Given this phenomenon of 1000 homeless people, 5000 homeless people, or 59,000 homeless people in our city streets…what can be done NOW? In essence this comes down to ways to figure out what different kinds of homeless people they are, and how to shelter people of each type.
As well, instead of digging endlessly backwards to find root causes, I suggest we incorporate the truths found in existential philosophy (as well as common sense), which dictate that people themselves are largely responsible for their own lives. So if someone is homeless due to drug addiction, instead of patronizing them and treating them as a victim, let’s empower them by saying that they are a drug addict because they made the choice to use dangerous drugs. And now to get out of the hole their own choices have created, they need to make other choices.
Of course, it is useful to know if there’s a widespread drug abuse problem in the nation, and if this is related to an existential crisis of meaning, or family breakdown, or to try to discover whether there’s an increasing gap between working class wages and available affordable housing. The point is not that we shouldn’t take a look at such issues. Those issues though pertain to long term planning, not the short term action which is needed just to clean up the streets of dirty homeless camps.
We should not replace the importance of taking immediate practical action, with long-term studies and long-term plans — the pursuit of which, if they involve most of our energy expenditure, will all but guarantee continual paralysis on the homeless crisis. Our priorities need to be adjusted towards practical action. FIRST you take immediate practical action aimed at getting people OFF the streets and into shelters. THEN and only after that is accomplished, do you start making longer term plans.
One argument made by Jeff Kositsky in this discussion of homelessness, was that if you build shelters, you have to also have a program to be able to create “exits” from those shelters, because there are huge numbers of new homeless, so that if you’re not placing people in housing, you will have, he suggests, a virtually unlimited demand for shelter space. But this appraisal of the situation fails to account for the fact that by making itself required to avail the homeless of “exits” to standard housing, cities are likely making themselves magnets, attracting people to come and get what they are offering. And it also leaves us (along with Heather MacDonald) begging the question, as to why any city, particularly one with the highest cost of living in the nation, should be expected to shelter and/or house everyone who ends up camping in a tent on its streets.
The tendency to view the homeless person as a perennial victim, someone who has virtually no agency, but can only be a victim of circumstances, unfortunately tends to be a part of cities’ policy formation. For instance in this roundtable discussion of homelessness by Bay Area leaders, https://www.ktvu.com/video/616898 , in almost one hour of discussion, we see not a single mention of people having any responsibility for their own plight. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tells the story of one homeless man in Oakland who ended up homeless because he helped all his relatives. Libby mentions helping people avoid homelessness by giving someone $800 if that is all they need to pay rent and stay housed, but if you don’t teach that person not to give that $800 away foolishly, you could see your investment in them fail. And then they end up needing more money the next month, and on and on. Yes it’s often good to help people, but sometimes it can also be important to let people experience the consequences of their mistakes and bad choices. I’ve watched a lot of stories and videos about people who are homeless. And my impression is that very few of them indeed appear to be people “just like you and I.” Rather, I’m seeing a lot of low-functioning people, who I am not convinced should be subsidized to live in high quality, essentially middle class level housing, in one of the most expensive areas of the nation for the rest of their lives, when less expensive housing could be found for them elsewhere. A woman who works regularly with homeless in LA says that she “very rarely” meets any among them who are “normal” people, like the rest of us except for not having any housing.
People may need help to get out of homelessness. But we don’t need and cannot wait for the “perfect” solution, the 50-year solution or the 200-year solution to homelessness, wherein every single homeless person is given a brand new, private $600k to $700k home, something that many hardworking people cannot afford — this is the kind of ridiculous “solution” being proposed by Eric Garcetti in LA and Gavin Newsom. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-07/homeless-housing-bond-measure-audit-shelters-galperin
It’s also the ridiculous solution that is being implied by an over-fixation on ideal long term results: everyone having their own affordable housing, which is all standard, expensive “middle class” housing of the kind that is increasingly unaffordable even to the middle class.
In order for us collectively to realistically provide housing to all in need, the housing will have to be much less expensive, and hence, much more rudimentary. In fact, it may only be a “step up” from homeless shelters. Think military style barracks occupied by several people per barrack. People may argue that such housing is “not humane”, but it’s a heck of a lot more humane than leaving people to rot and die on the streets. Also, such a solution does not exclude the pursuit of longer-term solutions for more less expensive housing overall.
What’s in your face, mayors and governor? Drug addiction, open drug use, widespread use of sidewalks as outdoor insane asylums, not people who just couldnt’ afford the high rent. This kind of scene is not a result of high rents:
In conclusion: too many city and state government leaders are simply leaving the figurative poisoned arrow in the body, by failing to take any practical measures to fix the spiraling disaster of homeless camping and open drug use, sidewalks turned into toilets, human waste and hypodermic needles everywhere, deranged and dangerous behavior, on their city streets. Instead they sit in comfortable offices and dawdle, theorizing about ulimate causes. In doing this they engage in the very type of useless speculation the Buddha taught against, and increase the likelihood of greater harm and death to the body, the city.
This article is intended to explore one of the issues associated with people living in vehicles on the city streets, that many may not have considered. Often, we think of vehicle-dwellers on public streets as having less of a negative impact on the public spaces, than people setting up tents on the sidewalk, or sleeping in the bushes or at parks. Particularly if all their belongings are contained in their vehicle, and if they dont’ dump trash or sewage in the street, one might be led to think they are not too much of a problem.
But there is one issue associated with people living in vehicles on public streets, that deserves more exploration.
And this is the issue pertaining to people living in that vehicle next to a public school, daycare center, or other place where children congregate.
It’s the issue of the possibility that there could be a criminal, drug addict or even a sex offender living in a vehicle on a public street, too close to a school.
Think about it…there is a loophole in the sex offender registry requirement, which is that if someone is living in a vehicle on a public street, they are not registering their “address”, since a parking spot on a public street has no address.
Yet sex offenders are not permitted to live within 500 to 2000 ft from a place where children congregate, such as a daycare center or school.
And it has happened that sex offenders have been found living in RVs very close to schools or daycare centers. These are some examples of such:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And:
And in this case, a sex offender living in an RV had 2 children inside and fled police on a long chase, culminating in a SWAT team stopping the RV and rescuing the children.
At the time of this writing, we’ve been informed that it appears there is someone living in an RV/trailer right next to the playground of Rosa Parks Elementary school in Berkeley. Who is in there? A nice, friendly person? A bike thief? A drug addict? A sex offender? ? You don’t know, and how do you feel with mystery RVsand mystery RV dwellers not only all over the city, but particularly when they live right next to where children congregate?
So, precisely because you do not know who is living in that RV or other vehicle parked right next to the public school, at the very least, cities should never allow people to live in vehicles on public streets within a certain distance from public schools, day care centers, or other places where children congregate.
Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is a recipient of the 2005 Bradley Prize.
(the photos included here were not part of MacDonald’s own writing and are included just to add visual interest)
This city has been conducting a three-decade experiment in what happens when society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior. It has done so in the name of compassion for the homeless. The result: Street squalor and misery have increased, while government expenditures have ballooned. Yet the principles guiding city policy remain inviolate: Homelessness is a housing problem, it is involuntary, and it persists because of inadequate public spending. These propositions are readily disproved by talking to people living on the streets.
A formerly homeless woman living in a city-subsidized hotel, asked if she does drugs, replies: “Is that a trick question?” Jeff, 50, slumps over his coffee cup at 7:30 a.m. A half-eaten muffin sits next to him on a filthy blanket. “I use drugs, alcohol, all of it,” he tells me, his eyes closed. “The whole Tenderloin is for drugs.”
The city sends the message relentlessly that drug use is not only acceptable but expected. The Health Department distributes 4.5 million syringes a year, along with alcohol swabs, vitamin C to dissolve heroin and crack, and instructions on how to tie one’s arm for a hit. Officials have installed 17 needle-disposal boxes and kiosks throughout the city, signaling to children that drug use is a normal part of adult life.
Public drug use has grown worse since the approval in 2014 of Proposition 47, the state ballot initiative that downgraded a host of drug and property crimes to misdemeanors. Local prosecutors and judges, already worried about contributing to “mass incarceration,” are loath to initiate misdemeanor drug cases. San Francisco police officers complain that even dealers get neither jail time nor probation. Drug courts have closed in some California cities, the Washington Post reports, because police have lost the threat of prison time to induce addicted dealers to begin treatment. The number of clients in San Francisco drug court dropped to 185 in 2018 from 296 in 2014, a decline of more than 37%.
The city also enables the entire homeless lifestyle. Outreach workers hand out beef jerky, crackers and other snacks. The city’s biannual homeless survey claims that “food insecurity” is a pressing problem, but the homeless don’t act like food-deprived people. Waste litters the sidewalks and gutters. A typical deposit outside a Market Street office building includes an unopened 1-pound bag of walnuts, a box of uneaten pastries, an empty brandy bottle, a huge black lace bra, a dirty yellow teddy bear, a high-heeled red suede boot and a brown suede jacket.
Residents come and go as they please, order meals at any time of the day, and bring their pets, partners and possessions (known in shelter parlance as “the three Ps”).
Elevating the rights of the homeless over those of the working public has cost taxpayers billions, with nothing to show for it. The “unsheltered” count continues to rise—up 17%, to 8,011, in 2019 from 2017—and San Francisco continues to wonder why. Is it lack of city-created affordable housing, as advocates and politicians maintain? No other American city has built as many units of affordable housing per capita, according to the Bay Area Council Economic Institute. From 2004-14, the city spent $2 billion on nearly 3,000 new units of permanent supportive housing, which comes with drug counseling and social workers. More have been constructed since, and thousands of shelter beds and apartment units are in the works.
No one has a right to live in the most expensive real-estate market in the country, certainly not on the public’s dime. It isn’t clear why any city is morally obligated to provide housing to someone who starts living on its streets. But assuming such an obligation, the money that San Francisco spends trying to house the homeless locally could go much further outside its boundaries; the millions saved could go to mental-health and addiction services.
Clean and sober campuses, serving an entire region, could be built on abandoned or undeveloped land in industrial zones and rural areas. Cities and counties should pool resources for these facilities, since the vagrancy problem is fluid—people move from one place to another. The bare-bones campuses must be immaculately maintained, safe and disciplined, so residents learn habits of self-control. Everyone should work.
The tales veer from one confused and improbable situation to the next, against a backdrop of drug use, petty crime and chaotic child rearing. There are few policy levers to change this crisis of meaning in American culture. What is certain is that the continuing crusade to normalize drug use, along with the absence of any public encouragement of temperance, will further handicap this unmoored population.
Carving out a zone of immunity from the law and bourgeois norms for a perceived victim class destroys the quality of life in a city. As important, that immunity consigns its alleged beneficiaries to lives of self-abasement and marginality. Tolerating street vagrancy is a choice that cities make. For the public good, in San Francisco and elsewhere, that choice should be unmade.
Getting all homeless individuals housed across the US is a vexing problem. There are so many dilemmas and obstacles in accomplishing this important goal. And many of you, no doubt, would likely believe that to solve this problem, we need to take a similar approach to that which we take towards many a vexing problem: we need to aim higher.
I’m here to argue just the opposite, that the best way to solve homelessness, is not to aim higher, but in fact, to aim lower. To have lower aims, lower goals. Now that you’re gasping in wonder about what the heck I could mean, let me explain. It has to do with the saying you may be familiar with, that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
As I see it, would say that the primary obstacles in getting this accomplished, is that as a nation, collectively, we have devoted far too few resources to 3 things:
(1) getting legislation in place to allow families and governments to accomplish involuntary institutionalization of those with serious mental illness, who are incapable of caring for themselves, and setting up enough psychiatric facilities to house these people.
(2) getting legislation in place, and getting sufficient treatment facilities set up, to allow cities and states to force drug addicts into treatment, such that their lives can be saved, and public spaces protected from the dangers created when they are overtaken by drug addicts and drug addict camps, and needles and feces and other by products of untreated drug addiction taking place in public commons.
(3) getting adequate affordable housing set up, such that every homeless person can be sheltered or housed. This is where my strategy of “aiming lower” comes in.
One of the mantras you’ll often see quoted, in terms of housing the homeless, is that “the solution to homelessness is housing.” Yet, we have to inquire —- what exactly does that mean, particularly in the context of “housing” as it exists in this nation?
Anyone who’s ever bought a plot of land, and thought about setting up home inexpensively, anywhere in the nation except maybe the remote tundra in Alaska, will have been forced to discover, often to their great disappointment, that when you build housing in America, you can’t do just whatever you want. You can’t build a treehouse out of flimsy plywood, lacking electricity, plumbing and heat, and live in it, in most any city in the US.
You can’t buy a plot of land in San Francisco, Berkeley or Oakland, tow your Airstream trailer onto it, and live on your own land in your own trailer. That’s prohibited in most urban centers.
You can’t build an inexpensive one room cabin, even with electricity, plumbing and heat, in a neighborhood with zoning that requires the construction of “similar” structures, meaning, other McMansions with 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, and double-glazed windows, fire egress from every room, and all such highly expensive buiding and zoning requirements.
The moral of the story, as I’ve pointed out in other articles, is that we have collectively created government regulations everywhere in the nation, which are totally at odds with housing some of the most destitute and vulnerable among us, including all the homeless: we’ve regulated ourselves out of all inexpensive housing. See for instance, my article about how we need a return to rooming houses and SROs. https://housingsolutions.home.blog/2019/06/15/a-history-of-boarding-houses-ideal-forms-of-affordable-housing/ So, the unfortunate and very tragic irony, is that the government wants to house the homeless, but its own regulations make that very difficult to impossible in many cases.
That many investigations demonstrate that the majority of homeless in many areas are homeless due to drug addiction or mental illness, does not deny the reality that a great many people are homeless as a result of poverty. They literally cannot find a way into the system that has all but outlawed the housing that they might be able to afford. One excellent story about a woman’s struggle to stay housed when employed in a low income career, is here:
She well depicts the endless and awful loop or tragic “Merry Go Round” that she finds herself stuck inside.
Unfortunately, the way many people describe the lack of affordable housing, including the approach far too many government officials take, who should know better, is that they attribute this unaffordability, to property owner’s greed. “Those greedy landlords”, we very often hear. Yet, it should be obvious that you cannot force a developer to construct an apartment building at construction and government costs that result in cost of $500,000 per unit, and then force them to rent that unit out at a significant loss for $200 to $300 a month, all because someone argues that this is 30% of their disability income and “I should not have to pay more.”
Nope, that does not work.
Governments, particularly very liberal ones, have taken this controlling and contemptuousapproach to property ownersfor far too long, blaming them for the rents they charge, imposing rent control upon them and taking away their rights to run their own business, forcing them to pay “relocation fees” to evicted tenants, and in essence, taking the approach that homelessness can be solved with enough violence towards property owners. This wont’ work. And as should be evident across California and beyond, treating property owners with contempt results in less housing being built, not more, which will only increase the cost of what housing is available.
The results of insufficient affordable housing are many, and are seen at every turn in the too often fruitless quest to house the homeless.
We see it as a Tragic Merry Go Round, as when cities devote resources to creating sanctioned camps where they can provide services to homeless and seek to place them in housing somewhere in the area, only to find, too often, that these people once placed in housing, end up losing it again and becoming homeless again.
These homeless in Oakland, were given permanent housing in Stockton, but ended up leaving that housing, citing too much crime and dangers associated with the housing. Where did they go? Not to a homeless service center in Stockton, but back to Oakland again.
This article says that 25% of those who pass through San Francisco’s Navigation Centers, end up homeless again:
Within a year, the city found that one out of every eight bus ticket recipients had returned and sought services in San Francisco once again.
In Portland, Ore., a city that has spent three years sending hundreds of its homeless residents around the country, the numbers were worse. Officials found that three months after the departures, nearly half of those transported who could be reached had lost their promised housing.
Many clients have also been unable to secure permanent housing after their transition out of the center.
Pathways has struggled to find enough permanent housing for its clients, according to Almanza. Almanza added that many landlords are unwilling to rent to low-income and previously homeless tenants.
According to Stefan Elgstrand, spokesperson for Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, Pathways clients stayed in the center for 88 days on average. Elgstrand added that 22 percent of the 101 community members who were rehoused were unable to keep their placement.
Neumann and Hensen are working with former Pathways client Arika Miles, who was brought to Pathways by her daughter last November. Miles’ daughter is currently living at the Pathways center, but has been asked to leave because she’s pregnant with a baby boy. Miles said her caseworker claims she is a “liability.”
Miles was placed in permanent housing by Pathways in March. She is currently living in an illegally converted garage in Richmond with no hot water or electricity.
Looking at this Pathways situation, reading about this here, we can get the sense that working to place people into permanent housing, isn’t going to work, if there isn’t sufficient permanent housing (or even permanent “shelters” ) for such people.
So, in a sense we also need to “aim lower” and use our creativity and ingenuity to figuring out ways to provide services and shelter for less. Perhaps redirect some energy from the endless production of more electronic gadgets and apps, to finding new and less expensive ways to shelter and house people.
There is insufficient housing for low income people, or subsidized housing, particularly in states like California, where the waiting list for subsidized housing is years long.
The housing that does exist for low income people, is affordable because of its less desirable aspects: it is in ghetto areas, high crime areas. Or it is in buildings with “challenges” such as being in a bad state of repair. Or it is in “residences” which, as the one Miles was placed in, are not really habitable spaces. And such obstacles, again, we can view largely as a result of government zoning laws, building codes, and other regulations, which essentially make it virtually impossible to build structures at low enough cost, such that they would be affordable for low and very low income people.
Thus, if you really want to shelter or house all the homeless, you have to aim lower.
including, quite possibly, very basic and historically inexpensive housing such as rooming houses and SROs, as well as such rudimentary housing that might well resemble large UN refugee camps or FEMA shelters, such that everyone who needs shelter can access it, and everyone who needs housing, can find at least a rudimentary form of housing in this nation.
It might seem, on the surface, a cruel suggestion to say that we should aim lower, and aim to provide less to the homeless. However, the reality is that by aiming high, we are completely failing, and the result is that people are stuck living in tents on sidewalks and under overpasses, in squalid dirty camps full of feces and hypodermic needles, lacking toilets or hygenic facilities. By aiming too high, we are too often providing the homeless nothing at all, except a sad and tragic Merry Go Round ride.
Rather than leave the homeless stuck in the terrible status quo, which presents public health dangers to them and to the public alike, we could aim lower, and construct more of the equivalent of UN refugee camps, sanctioned tent camp facilities, which would get people into cleaner surroundings. These camps may, sadly, end up being some people’s lifelong home, but at least this is a more secure home, with better services and community, than leaving the homeless to fend for themselves on city streets or live in their car, darting parking tickets and having anxiety about the lack of funds to pay for gas or repairs.
Solving the homeless problem requires dealing with the realities that we have at present. We cannot magically wave a fairy wand and create millions of “free” apartments in buildings in a dapper and charming part of town, for all the homeless, much less for all those who ended up in the gutter due to problems with drug addiction and mental illness. But we can create large tent shelters, we can build rooming houses where they can be housed much less expensively than if we think we have to provide everyone with their own apartment.
Now, if you dont’ like this idea and think you could come up with a better one, take a listen to some of the stories told by the homeless, and reflect on those, and form ideas about what you would do to solve this problem, which takes into account the reality of housing, as well as the reality that housed residents need and deserve to be protected from public health dangers, drug activity, crime, blight and nuisance in their neighborhoods, and that it is not acceptable for public parks, sidewalks and streets to be turned into campgrounds, or for the city to solve the homeless problem on the backs of neighborhoods.
What are some concrete ways that cities could aim lower and accomplish more?
(1) Start building rooming houses and boarding houses again.
(2) Change zoning laws so that more existing structures can be used for rooming or boarding houses.
(3) Terminate the ineffective and counterproductive rent control laws, that will invariably result in less housing, not more, and more expensive housing, not less expensive housing. These rent control laws also make it much more difficult or impossible to evict problem tenants, which means that landlords are going to be much less willing to take a risk with any prospective tenant — such as a formerly homeless one.
(4) Change rules for eviction processes so that no eviction takes longer than one month to accomplish. Prohibit jury trials for eviction cases. For any eviction that takes longer, the government would be required to pay the monthly rent to the landlord, so that they are not losing income and facing the possibility of losing their property in foreclosure, just because the government has created obstacles in timely removal of nonpaying renters or any other type of renter being evicted. Streamlined evictions would also greatly increase the likelihood of landlords being willing to take risks on to whom they rent.
(5) Instead of constructing only hard-sided standard homeless shelters, consider setting up soft-sided shelters, eg large canvas “circus tents” with bunkbeds or cots, to shelter the homeless.
(6) Consider setting up the equivalent of large refugee camps or FEMA camps to house some of the homeless on a semi-permanent basis. It just is not possible to provide enough “standard” housing, at the greatly subsidized rents that would be affordable to the many in need. Consequently, by aiming lower and creating very rudimentary forms of housing, basically large tent camps or communities of repurposed garden sheds, in regions that have space for this, we can house everyone at a higher level of housing than they are obtaining by setting up tents on sidewalks or living in cars.
(7) Set up more city-run sanctioned tent encampments, with city-provided tents, city -provided toilets and facilities, in appropriate areas (not residential or commericial zones) that have space for this.
Some cities are actually making good progress by this approach of aiming lower.
A city sanctioned camp in Modesto has worked very well, and the city of Berkeley is planning to set up a sanctioned camp based on this model.See page 203 in this Berkeley City Council document: October 2019 Berkeley City Council
How did you become homeless? Some of the stories of the homeless….a lot of the stories of individual homeless can be found on the Invisible People YouTube Channel. Take a look at some of these stories and decide for yourself what you would do to try to shelter or house these people, and finally free them from the Tragic Merry Go Round of ending up homeless once again:
(Note/disclaimer and trigger warning: this blog article makes use of a dangerous element, called a sense of humor. This may be dangerous to many, so if you lack the equipment to venture further, I suggest you rush to your mouse clicker right now and click yourself out of here! Before it’s too late …..and you land in, of all things…reality!!)
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It’s come to my attention that it’s high time to address racism as it relates to homelessness. Many of you will have realized the importance of this topic for quite some time, and wondered why it’s taken me so long to get to it. In fact, for many of you, on the very first day you began to be concerned with homelessness, the topic of racism would have been on your minds. Some of you may have reflexively asserted a truth that we often see reflexively asserted these days: namely that it’s not possible to have homelessness without racism, that in fact, racism is responsible for most all the homelessness we see in the nation, just as racism is responsible for most all the ills we see anywhere in the world.
Well, I’m finally here to explore this topic, albeit belatedly, but what I say may disappoint some of you who are devotees, nay, fanatical disciples, of the theory that there is a thick miasma of Institutional Racism that permeates the entire nation, nay, the entire earth, and that every unfortunate thing that occurs anywhere on earth, is readily traceable back to this toxic miasma, this progeny of white supremacy, and thus, really, this by-product of whiteness itself.
For instance, recently there was an opinion piece on Berkeleyside, see here
Unfortunately, less than 2 days after publishing that opinion op-ed, Berkeleyside shut down commenting on the article. This didn’t happen before a number of astute commenters tore apart the poor critical thinkings skills involved therein, but still, I think the shutting down of such commentary is just one more example of the illiberal left’s intolerance for open public discourse, and perhaps even for the insistence that we actually use logical arguments when we discuss issues.
This article asserted , in a statement demonstrating a stunning capacity for illogical thinking, that there can be only 2 reasons why blacks are so much more likely to be homeless not only in Berkeley, but across the nation: “either there is something wrong with black people, or there is something wrong with policies.” The author of this article stated:
Blacks are nine percent of the general population of Berkeley and 57% of the homeless population. Comparing black and white percentages of Berkeley’s total population, a black resident is thirteen times more likely to be unhoused than a white person.
Berkeley’s not alone. Across the United States, blacks are thirteen percent of the general population and forty percent of the homeless population. The National Alliance to End Homelessness cites several factors that contribute to this extreme disproportionality, including housing discrimination and higher rates of poverty, incarceration and untreated mental illness.
At a recent talk at Zellerbach to discuss his new book, How to be an Antiracist, American University historian Ibram X. Kendi presented a novel frame for examining racial inequities: They exist either because there’s something wrong with black people or because there’s something wrong with policies (historic and contemporary). Because I reject the notion that there’s anything wrong with black people, I turn my attention to policies and practices that have a discriminatory impact but persist due to racist rationalizations positing black inferiority. Housing policies and practices, lending policies and practices, education, health care, employment, criminal justice — in every one of these arenas, reams of studies show how blacks suffer discriminatory treatment, sometimes intentional but often as a function of the unconscious biases that virtually all Americans of every race carry to some degree.
One wonders why people like this book author would come to one of the most elite of educational institutions in the world, the University of California at Berkeley, to essentially broadcast and advertise their possible lack of capacity for coherent logical thinking. Aren’t such people afraid that if they stand up on stage arguing a false dichotomy (which, if you have a university education, and have any training at all in critical thinking, you would know is a logical fallacy) , people might make fun of them and declare that some of the arguments in their book are crapola???
Yet such authors, in their pursuit of bold new avenues in illogical thinking, have the great advantage on their side, that instead of educating university students in critical thinking skills, in logical thinking, in the ability to make sound and logical arguments, many universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, have somehow been transformed into centers for advanced indoctrination and brainwashing. Instead of being taught how to think, many students are now being taught that logical, critical thinking is dangerous, and in fact, that it could very well be a product of racism itself.
But a possible shortage of logical thinking skills is not the only difficulty that such authors apparently have, since it’s very well known, as it this material frequently appears in articles in various media and all over the internet, that very few intelligent observers are arguing “there is something wrong with black people”. Rather, the argument that one can see plastered all over the internet, is that “there is something wrong with some subcultures, and some people’s values.” There’s something wrong with some people who, when presented with two or more choices, pick the one that is more likely to lead them to poor health, obesity, failure, self-destruction, gang life, drug addiction, crime, imprisonment, welfare, poverty, dependency, homelessness, early death, as well as spending too many hours in front of a flatscreen TV watching talk shows. Why are we failing to do research on why people make stupid or self-destructive choices, when they are radically free to choose anything? This would be a far more productive direction to put our energy and resources, than into yet more racist policies which infantilize and patronize blacks, treating them as inferior, by operating on the assumption that they alone, in all the world and in all of history, are the only people who apparently lack the skills to run their own lives.
And more, the fact that some people make the wrong choices in life, is not a result of some invisible poisonous miasma enveloping the world, it’s not the fault of all white people, it’s not the fault of national policy, it’s not the fault of events that occurred in history 200 years or more before these people were born. Rather, it’s exclusively and solely the fault of those people who make those bad choices. That some people are disadvantaged, and do not have as many opportunities as others, does not mean they suddenly have no agency and turn into dependent infants. They can still make choices within the circumstances where they find themselves, and ethically, existentially, they are obliged to contend honestly with their circumstances, rather than give up on life and seek someone else to blame for them.
This is an existential truth: the truth that (on the inside, not in terms of external circumstances) each of us is completely free. We may not be very free in terms of all external circumstances, of course, but we are totally free both in terms of the choices that we make, and in terms of the attitudes and thoughtforms we create within ourselves, our attitudes towards our external circumstances.
Not all of us have the same choices, of course, and some have more opportunities than others do — or even, many, many more opportunities and advantages. No doubt some people are greatly disadvantaged. (Suggestion: let’s use the words advantaged/disadvantaged, and stop using the word “privilege, as in the racist term “white privilege”, as it’s not necessary to demonize whole groups of people to tell the truth, and it’s simply false that advantages or disadvantages fall totally along racial lines). Yet, I think we collectively fail to appreciate how important just the smallest healthy behaviors can be, the impact of even the smallest good choices. There is virtually nobody in this nation, who cannot make at least some choices that would be to their advantage, choices which would allow them to be healthy, instead of in poor health, eating better foods, instead of junk food, educated, instead of uneducated, skilled instead of unskilled, employed instead of unemployed, a decent citizen instead of a criminal preying upon others, living clean and sober instead of becoming a drug addict, housed instead of perennially unhoused, spending their free time to better themselves, versus spending their free time in ways that degrade themselves. And so on.
So, let’s now get to the matter of racism and how it relates to homelessness.
One form of racism that applies to homelessness, is this: it’s found in those, very frequently liberal, thinking of themselves as enlightened and progressive, congratulating themselves on their education in antiracism and their indoctrination into white guilt, who are quite unaware of the profound racism involved in their bigotry of low expectations. In essence, they engage in that dynamic of psychological projection so very often found in progressive liberals: blaming others for the very things that are found in themselves.
These individuals who seem to take pleasure in blaming others for racism, while blissfully unaware that its their own racism that, at least in terms of our national policies, and the enabling of crime and self-destructive behavior, can often cause the most damage.
This racism is enabling others in their dysfunctional behavior. It’s encouraging people in their irresponsibility. And it’s been at the basis of development of national policy for many decades now, all this is accomplished by the bigotry of low expectations. In essence, such liberals, as suggested by the author of this Berkeleyside article, would deprive black people of free will and agency, by asserting that blacks are incapable of success without white people to help them, in fact, to constantly develop new policies to aid them. Thus, the argument is essentially that the main reason that so many blacks have ended up homeless, is because of something that white people have done wrong.
This extraordinarily patronizing and condescending, and indeed racist approach, is built solidly into our national policy in the US. This “White Savior” racist and ultimately self-aggrandizing approach to black individuals has been part of our policy now for many decades, and it’s done incredible damage.
We dont’ need any more of this:
The damage has been, that we’ve encouraged black people that they are notresponsible for their own actions, their own choices, their own lives. We’ve inadvertently encouraged boatloads of black people (for our collective patronizing, racist preaching along these lines has reached into all education systems, and is present in most all school systems) to be dependent upon others, to sit back passively on their heinikins with a giant chip on their shoulder, and hold out their hand, expecting to spend their lives being spoon fed by those they are being taught are the ones really responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened to them.
Quite ironically, those who are most tenacious in actions which demonstrate the racism and bigotry of low expectations, are actually ending up going in this direction, as they flee desperately from the fear of being seen as racist, called a racist, or accused of having some tiny bit of unconscious bias in their psyche. Put simply, White Guilt is a very powerful force, and people are turning themselves into pretzels in an effort to contend with their own White Guilt.
The most ironic aspect of this, of course, is that by allowing themselves being manipulated through assertions that they as white people are originally guilty (which is much like allowing yourself to be manipulated by a Christian fundamentalist who insists that because you have Original Sin, you therefore need to adopt their dogma and declare that Jesus is Your Personal Savior) , these individuals end up doing and expressing things that are patronizing, condescending and racist.
And that reveals, as well, that in contrast to liberals’ assertion that they are out on an antiracism mission, a mission to end racism, the facts demonstrate quite otherwise. Many whites suffering from manipulation of their psyches through the dynamic of “White Guilt”, are unwittingly quite invested in the continuance of some degree of racism, because if racism disappeared, their whole “mission” would collapse. If racism, and the massive (but, strangely, nearly totally invisible) phenomenon of “Institutional Racism” that they allege were to disappear, then something terrible would happen: black people would now be free, and responsible for their own choices and actions, just like everyone else.
However, this good news might come as a threat to the disciples of White Guilt and the addicts of the delusion of interminable Institutional Racism, for whom any success would mean a degree of defeat for their babble about the deep intractibility of pervasive white racism.
I hate to break it to these disciples of this fundamentalist religion of White Guilt…but everyone is already free. Actually, that never stopped being the case. It was the case at the beginning of time, and it’s still true today. Thus, if not in terms of all external circumstances, at least within our own psyches, where it matters most, we are all totally, completely free: the problem is not our lack of freedom, but our unwillingness to accept and contend with that freedom, quite likely because in our heart of hearts we subconsciously understand that freedom imposes a great burden: it means we and we alone are responsible for what we do with our lives. This is Authenticity, to live responsibly, and it’s an existential expectation for all of us that we dare to live up to the promise of our own deep capacity to be radically free.
Yet, when you look around at how some people are spending their lives — eg, dependent for life on government handouts, as gang members, as criminals, as drug addicts, as people apparently content to be homeless and refuse services because of the demands for self-accountability that those services would involve, and their requirement that we take some small action on our own behalf — it would become quickly apparent why some would find it intolerable to be told that there are no barriers to them seizing their own total freedom. Because if they accepted this truth, it would not only require them to start making some effort, but would also burden them with the responsibility for their own bad choices.
The good news, though, is what is always good news about existential good faith and courage: by daring to take up the challenge of being fully human, fully authentic, we can all grow in pride and nobility, we become better and more radiant, fully alive human beings. And there’s simply nothing that can bring as much contentment and joy as this.
Simply put — and I think this is a particularly important point given all the arguments about the impact upon black Americans of a history of slavery — a great many people really don’t want to be free, and would prefer to be slaves: slaves to others’ handouts, slaves to other’s provisions for their own needs, indeed slaves even to others making their choices for them. If slavery really is so abominable to you, then quit being a slave, and stand up and seize your own freedom right this moment.
Freedom is very difficult. Shelby Steele makes this point at 1:06:33 into this (long but compelling video ) about identity politics, that people who dont’ know how to handle their freedom, will simply re-invent some type of slavery to keep themselves from being challenged by the difficult challenges posed by radical freedom.
So in conclusion, there is most definitely a racism related to homelessness. There may be more than one type, but this article is about this one type. It’s the racism of low expectations, whereby we are too quick to try to protect people from the consequences of their own actions and choices. It’s the racism whereby we assert that people aren’t responsible for their own behavior. It’s the racism whereby we reflexively assert, with no evidence at all but apparently just from our prejudice and hatred, and indeed our racism, that if outcomes are not identical among all races, that if more blacks than whites are imprisoned or are homeless, that this must be due to white privilege and white racism.
“White privilege” is a racist term, and it’s high time we dumped it. “White Guilt” is a destructive invention, and it’s high time whites abandoned the notion that they are “supposed” to feel guilt. Nobody need feel any guilt or shame about things that they have never done. There is no such thing as racial original sin, so nobody should be buying the nonsense that they are “supposed” to feel guilty on behalf of their whole race, like the nincompoop Rosanna Arquette. https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2019/08/08/rosanna-arquette-feels-so-much-shame-over-being-white-privileged/1962475001/
To feel that kind of guilty about who one is, totally unrelated to anything one has ever actually done, is neurotic, unhealthy: it’s actually perverse and bizarre. Even if you have done something wrong, continuing just to feel guilty or ashamed about that is not going to help: what will help is making a commitment to a different path. And, in contrast to what the NYT Identity Politics gurus assert, fixating on the racist concept of “White Privilege” is not going to be a solution either. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/style/white-guilt-privilege.html
It’s racist to make assertions about an entire race or ethnic group, which is why, as Jordan Peterson has pointed out, the term “white privilege” is racist. There are quite likely no universal statements we can make about entire groups of people. Hence we should dump identity politics, its superficiality, its bigotry, its innate racism that boxes people in according to very superficial characteristics. As Martin Luther King Jr argued, we should not be judged by the color of our skin, yet modern day Identity Politics fanatics appear quite happy to engage in just such racism.
We are not, collectively, merely the sum of a bunch of ridiculous pigeonholes. We are not to be categorized and dismissed with racist stereotypes. Rather, we live in a world of unique individuals, radically free individuals, who may not be able to choose what happens to them, or what circumstances they find themselves, but are free nevertheless to make choices, to choose their attitude towards their circumstances, to take positive action to better themselves. Bad choices can readily lead to homelessness — for instance, though some assert that “poverty leads to crime”, they fail to appreciate the other side of this coin, namely that “crime leads to poverty”. Dysfunctional cultures that encourage bad behavior and choices, such as spending years in public school but somehow, in spite of all that time spent, never getting an education or any skills, or preparing for any type of career, can cause individuals to fall into homelessness.
While I think most intelligent observers of social issues would reject the hypothesis that “there is something wrong with black people”, nevertheless, anyone who is paying attention to statistics on student achievement, disruptive behavior in students, gang problems among youth, gang murders, the murder rate in inner cities, the overall crime rate, the rate of incarceration of blacks compared to those of all other races, as well as statistics on poverty and homelessness, will have to admit that black Americans are doing poorly in all these areas compared to those of every other race.
And yet, if you observe children of recent immigrants from Africa in public school, compared to children of American blacks, you’ll often see a quite noticeable difference in behavior. The children from Africa are polite and well behaved, motivated to learn in school, while the behavior of the children from black Americans in inner city settings, is often frighteningly appalling and violent. Setting these 2 realities side by side, serves to demonstrate that the issues in question are not racial/ethnic issues, they are cultural issues. And I would go further, and say that the metaphor of a disease or pandemiccould be useful. Because the social and psychological dysfunction that we see in inner city black communities is so severe, and so dangerous and violent in some areas, and the need for intervention so desperate, that I think to say that some entire communities have been devastated by a veritable plague of self-destructive, violent behavior, could better get at the truth than many other attempts to comprehend the issue. Such a perspective also allows us a compassionate approach and one that can offer hope, because when people are sickened by a pandemic, a plague, their sickness is not about who they really are: it’s about something awful that happened to them, that enveloped them. So, taking this approach allows observers, as well as those who are afflicted with this modern “pandemic”, to preserve their self-respect and hope, by coming to see the atmosphere of extremely dysfunctional behavior that they find themselves in, as something which can be surmounted and eventually overcome, overcome by nothing less than one small healthy choice after another. And our collective support to people trying to make good choices.
As evidence of this “plague” — we can find it everywhere— I’ll offer a little bit here. There have been many stories and videos about students coming to school and disrupting the classroom, screaming at the teacher, refusing to cooperate with the educational process. And this black teacher believes it’s mostly black kids who disrupt class and act inappropriately.
This teacher had to quit her job due to the incredibly disrespectful students
Here’s a black student assaulting a white teacher:
And another teacher who is saying classrooms have become unmanageable because the student behavior is so out of control
At the present time, both white and black teachers are terribly afraid to discipline such students if they are black, being afraid they’ll be viewed as racist. The result is enabling of dangerously self-destructive behavior in students. We dont’ need to be letting out of control black kids spending their whole day destroying the educational system like this:
We owe it to young people not to destroy them through our destructive condescension, our bigotry of low expectations, our racist idea that there is something innately “black” about students who are disruptive in school. No, that’s not “black” behavior, that’s disgusting, disrespectful and unacceptable, often criminal behavior, and the sooner students are held accountable for their appalling behavior, the less likely they will end up spending their lives in prison or in a tent on the sidewalk.
These young male dancers tote their boombox along, and illegally play loud music while doing joint-popping dances in the middle of rush hour crowded BART trains, attempting to collect tips in a hat, explaining (lamely) that because they grew up in a tough environment, they really have no choices other than things like this…..engaging in illegal behavior, and perhaps inadvertently, reinacting somewhat stereotypical “minstrel” shows, on crowded subway cars and sidewalks.
I dont’ know about you, but I hold high expectations of black people and like to think that they can do more than toss their limbs around and pull out their joints while begging for spare change. They have just as much potential as anyone else to become PhD scholars and professors, medical professionals, high powered attorneys, skilled tradesmen and women, psychotherapists, small business owners, car detailers, organic gardeners, restauranteurs, skilled auto mechanics or barbers, CEOS, entrepreneurs, federal court judges, presidents of the US, or really anything they set their minds out to do. And, there are a boatload of very successful blacks not only in this nation but all over the world, who can encourage high aspirations.
Some of you, particularly those so indoctrinated to think that white folks are to blame for everything that black folks do, may be taken aback at a suggestion that black people should be criticized for poor choices they make, or for aiming at “careers” which are dead ends, or for having no career plan at all. If so, please take a step back and ask yourself why, if your own white kids stated that they intended to avoid studying and doing their homework, so that they could go pull out their arm joints while begging for change on BART trains, you would be critical of such plans. While at the same time, you’d be found smiling and nodding, encouraging this same nonsense in black youth. I suggest that for you to expect so much less of black children than of your own kids, demonstrates your bigotry of low expectations, and it also points out how we collectively engage in enabling of self-destructive choices and poor life skills.
Instead of more white navel-gazing and self-aggrandizing and racist delusions that every little thing white people do causes a terribly fragile black person to fall down somewhere, what is badly needed is to shine a spotlight on dysfunctional cultures and bad choices, and mount campaigns to encourage healthy choices and behavior.
I also want to take this opportunity to encourage people who are prone to illogical thinking, nay, the delusional dogma of the fundamentalist religion of identity politics, to study the skills of critical thinking, in particular, how to make a logical argument. Studying the logical fallacies is a great way to begin.
People can end up homeless for a variety of reasons, and all of the homeless should be offered help and assistance to get on their feet again. And at the same time, precisely because we want to really help these people, and not see them end up homeless yet again, it’s important to work with them so that they can be guided to accept responsibility for bad choices they made, that may have contributed to them ending up homeless. Choices such as criminal behavior and drug addiction. Drug addiction is not just a medical issue: it also reflects poor choices. People don’t end up as drug addicts if they make healthy decisions to avoid using drugs.
Also, we for those who refuse such help and services, it should be made clear that particularly if they refuse to take basic responsibility for getting out of the hole they are in, they have no right to blame others for their circumstances. By encouraging people to take responsibility for their own choices and actions, we can put an end to the problem of racism related to homelessness.
And more…perhaps we can put an end to the ludicrous “sensitivity training” that is now going on at Starbucks and elsewhere, which was well satirized in this hilarious video:
“I have actual black friends. I don’t think they want me to be always thinking: Black person. Black person. I’m talking to a black person. Look, I tried to drive a stake through political correctness in the ’90s.3 I obviously failed dismally. It’s worse than ever.”
And last but not least….not every claim of “racism” is based on something that actually happened. Wouldn’t you think it very likely that people would make up stories, if those stories gave them power and moral authority and the ability to manipulate others? Oh, I think so!! https://www.vox.com/2019/2/17/18228444/jussie-smollett-attack-hate-crime-arrest-hoax-empire
much of this blog article is written tongue-in-cheek, in satirical style, thus making use of a dangerous element, called a sense of humor. So humorless readers should probably scram before you get triggered. Yes, if you have a completely humorless constitution, click that mouse to depart from here now, before the following humor does you in by jarring your system more than you can handle…!!.)
That sounds mean, doesn’t it? Actually it sounds almost unbelievable. Since we know that criminals are people either (a) trying hard to turn their life around, who unfortunately keep getting it slightly wrong and keep returning home at night with stolen property or illegal drugs…but hey, eventually they will get it right, or (b) people who are rectifying a social wrong, namely that some people have more stuff than others, by taking the stuff from the people they believe have too much, and giving it to those who have not enough, namely themselves.
For these reasons, we should not put criminals in jail. Heck, we shouldn’t even arrest them or subject them to the ignominy of a trial. Instead, put on trial the middle class housed people: how’d they get that way? For sure they stole from others or hoarded public goods. Maybe their crime was that their parents gave them an inheritance, so they could buy a house: well we know that’s wrong. Maybe they have a spare bedroom, but didn’t allow a homeless drug addict to live there for free and gradually denude their home of property which he can’t help but sell to buy drugs. And by the way this is not a crime if you have an addiction, it’s a health matter, so get real, folks!
Every homeless camp has a large number of these kinds of righteous victims, these economic refugees, these misunderstood pariahs, who are being victimized by our society, the police, the middle class NIMBYs, all of whom are so backwards and hateful, that they think we should have laws, and that those laws should be enforced. Now who does that???!!
I mean, really, it should be obvious: whom do laws benefit??? Not the drug addicts, who have a health issue they can’t control, and who need just to be handed money and goods to sell, and free land to set up squalid tent camps upon, so that they can live peacefully with their health issue. Not those with serious mental illness, who need to be free just to live out their paranoid delusions on public sidewalks. Because cities are more colorful and “real” (as in, “we jus’ keepin it real, man“) when they have people with dirty clothes and glazed over expressions walking down the street mumbling incoherently and occasionally randomly assaulting others…all in a spirit of freedom and fun, you must understand. Nor are the economic refugees benefitting by any system of laws and law enforcement, those who insist that camping is the same as parking, that public space is available to be seized for private homesteading, that streets are campgrounds, that what’s yours is mine, and that if you don’t want to work or make any effort in life, but prefer to wait with jaws open until a roasted duck flies into your mouth, cities should provide you a spot to pitch tent and wait it out.
And, since we know of course that it takes a long time of waiting to get a roast duck to fly in your mouth, cities must be required to allow said tents to remain up and their campers sitting there, mouth open expectantly, for a very long time.
No, instead of having laws and enforcing them, we need to take a whole other tack: we need to transform public parks into free-for-all homesteading land. Forget picking up hypodermic needles: that OCD addiction to cleanliness is just a symptom of horrrendously oppressive NIMBYism. Rather, leave needles where they lie, as this ensures that parks will be used by those who need them, the vagrant drug addicts, and not those bratty bourgeois kids. Also, the random accidental stabbings from used needles that thus will occur could help ensure that our drug addict heroes can get all the incidental meth and heroin support that they may need.
We need to make all street medians official places for economic refugees to show off their witty sloganeering written upon their ratty cardboard signs.
Dogs have the right to pee on lamp posts, dont’ they? So are you really saying that vagrants should be denied that right as well, that they have less rights than dogs???
So now let’s get back to this story, this story of incredible hate and white supremacy, bigotry and racism, transphobia and able-ism as well, namely, people who want to put criminals in jail.
Homelessness is not a new problem in Bakersfield, the seat of Kern County, but it has surged dramatically in recent years. The city’s 2019 point-in-time count, which was conducted in January, recorded a 108% increase in unsheltered homeless people compared to the prior year.
Vandalism and property damage, which law enforcement and residents associate with the homeless population, have become major issues, particularly downtown.
“The pressure from the public is enormous,” Youngblood said. “When I say that the people in San Francisco and Los Angeles are fed up and they care about this issue, it’s 10 times that in my county.”
Youngblood and Zimmer stressed that the homeless people who would receive jail sentences would be repeat offenders. The focus would be on jailing those charged with misdemeanors for heroin and methamphetamine possession and use, but Zimmer said she would also like to see trespassing charges included.
‘Put some of these people in jail’
In the meantime, there are plenty of beds — about 600 — at the Kern County jail complex, or “Lerdo,” as it’s commonly known. The effort would begin with a now-empty “mega barracks” that could house roughly 120 individuals.
Using the empty beds wouldn’t require any new laws or sentencing guidelines to go into effect. Rather, Youngblood wants to use existing rules, but for it to work, judges would have to cooperate.
Proposition 47, a ballot initiative passed by California voters in November 2014, reclassified certain non-serious, non-violent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, meaning they no longer carried state prison time. But many low-level theft and drug misdemeanors can still carry a potential sentence of up to one year behind bars. It’s just that those sentencing maximums aren’t typically followed, and misdemeanor drug crimes rarely result in jail time.
Youngblood underscored that in his view, Proposition 47 had taken away his department’s ability to provide drug treatment to individuals while incarcerated.
“This really isn’t about locking people up because they have a drug problem,” he said. “It’s about keeping them incarcerated so that they can receive treatment for whatever their affliction is.”
Zimmer was careful to distinguish between homeless people who are down on their luck and drug addicts and criminals. She believes that the homeless population in Bakersfield is overwhelmingly composed of the latter categories, and that the city differs from other California cities in this respect because it still has affordable housing.
She estimated that 80% of the local homeless population is severely addicted to drugs.
“Some people have severe mental health issues, but most are drug addicts,” she said.
How’s that for you??? Isn’t that ridiculous?? I swear, some of these NIMBYs should be put in jail.
Sidewalks are for camping and defecation, only NIMBYs think they are for walking.
So, to address all this hate amongst the haters, the “See a Tent, Shut the F Up” movement was born.
Which BTW makes liberal use of the F-word to make a point about how we hate the haters. If you explore the Twitter site of “Irkalla Lustre”, the founder of this Shut UP grassroots movement, you’ll see a lot of soft porn, (pics of handcuffs and dildoes and suchlike, and references to BDSM) which of course are related grassroots movements to the Shut the F Up.
At long last, way overdue, CalTrans has finally begun to work with the city of Berkeley and Emeryville and perhaps other cities too, on clearing out homeless camps on its property, in a more effective manner than it has done in the past.
Up until this time, CalTrans has generally engaged in the rather useless approach of simply clearing out camps every few months. Of course, this had no result at all, because the campers would return to the cleared area nearly as soon as CalTrans workers left the area, often the very next day, and set up the very same camp in the very same spot, bringing back all the very same problems of trash, drug use, hypodermic needles everywhere, feces, piles of stolen property and bike chop shops, fire, and massive blight.
Several articles tell the story of the most recent efforts to do repeat clearings of effected areas:
These camps should have been permanentlycleared out years ago. Their residents should have been moved to shelters, locally or elsewhere in the state or nation, or told that you can sleep in public places if you need to, but you cannot set up permanent camps. It’s a shame it took so very long to remove these dangerous and dirty, drug-filled encampments that have sat like open fetid sores at the entrance to the city.
Predictably, as this is a theme of Osha Neumann and the East Bay Community law Center which provides advocacy for the homeless, both Osha and the homeless removed in these sweeps claimed that they have “nowhere to go“. As is pointed out in this video of homeless camps in the East Bay,
Osha has frequently claimed that East Bay homeless have “nowhere else to go” other than the spot where they are currently illegally camping. He insists that the city where these people are camping, must be burdened with sheltering or housing anyone who chooses to land on their doorstep and demand shelter or housing there.
This is unsustainable, the idea that a given city is responsible for housing anyone who shows up there. Particularly given that they have no home, homeless can go anywhere in the nation, and it’s not acceptable that California carries the burden of having now 47% of all the nation’s homeless in our state. More to the point, Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco , which are among the most expensive places to live in the entire nation, are carrying far more than their share of Bay Area homeless. Berkeley has a great deal of homeless services and so attracts many homeless from other areas, as has been described in other articles.
Doubtless there are people, such as the elderly and disabled, who gravely need help and assistance. My concern and that of many other observers, is that the legitimate needs of those who truly cannot fend for themselves and need our help, are not being attended to, in large degree because of the number of others who are homeless due to problems such as drug addiction, criminal behavior, refusing services.
Have you ever seen a homeless person in Orinda? Lafayette? Pleasant Hill? They are rare in those cities, and by all appearances, it seems that people who become homeless in places which are “not so friendly or supportive” of the homeless, tend to flock to places like Berkeley which historically have offered plenty of handouts to them, as well as being more friendly, even supportive, to drug addicts and criminals who’d like to live on the sidewalks or next to the children’s playground, free to engage in drug use or other problematic or antisocial behavior, quite openly with the city’s blessing.
So when the homeless ask, “Where Do We Go?” and have protest marches demanding that the city tell them where to go, as seen here:
then it seems to me that the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and others should step up and tell them where to go: namely, out of our city, stop coming here for free handouts and free camping, because we are full up. We have 5 to 10 times as many homeless in Berkeley as this generous city can handle, or reasonably accomodate. It is not reasonable for people who are destitute to expect to be housed in the most expensive area of the nation. We have housing for the low income and the poor here, and it is all full. There is a very long waiting line for low income or subsidized housing here. So instead of wasting your energy trying to live in a place you can’t afford, use common sense and move to a place where you can afford the rent. Or, get together with others, pool your resources like many new immigrants do (who frequently enter the nation with little but the clothes on their backs) and rent a place with others.
These articles of common sense has been repeated ad nauseum in city council meetings, letters to council, on comments sections on media articles, to the campers themselves, but as one might well expect: they don’t want to hear it. Because as long as there is a chance that the city will enable the flocking of homeless camper pilgrims and drug addicts and criminals to Berkeley to come and hold out their hand, people will do this. As long as there is a chance that these campers will be allowed to set up a permanent camp somewhere in town and do their drugs and crime there, they will do that. If you reward a certain behavior, you’ll encourage it.
In this article, homeless advocate Mike Zint urges that Bay Area cities build more housing for the homeless,
and argues that he should only have to pay $300 for rent based on his income level. Well, if that’s all you can pay for rent, common sense dictates that you move to a place where you can pay that much in rent, and that ain’t here. But there are places in the US where you could get a rent in that range!! Many, in fact. Here’s a nice 2 bd apartment in Memphis TN you can rent for $525 a month. If you lived in there with one roommate, each could have their own private room for less than $300 a month total rent. If you put two beds in each of the 2 bedrooms, which would still give you much more luxurious accomodations than you’d find in any tent city, you could live comfortably for less than $135 a month total rent!!
If the argument is that you want your own private space and don’t want to share a bedroom with someone, then that is solved very simply — just set up 2 or 3 tents in each of the bedrooms, and wa-la, you have private accomodations just like you’d find in any squalid trash filled tent camp, but without the trash and without the cold and heat and the weather.! And in a way that could be comfortably familiar to many homeless camp residents — you get to have your own tent.
And there are lots of such good deals all over the USA, which anyone sincere about getting housed would be delighted to take advantage of. Particularly for those living on government support, who dont’ need to work, it only makes sense that your government check would go further in areas with the lowest cost of living. For those who do work and can’t afford a place of their own, there are still ways, here and elsewhere, to reduce living costs by living with others.
But when it comes to those who don’t actually want housing, including those whose real desire is to set up a criminal enterprise and drug dealing spot in a tent city, they ignore the real opportunities that exist for them. And those…why should we help them at all?
We are tired of the open drug use, the destruction of our public places, the crime perpetrated by homeless campers, the fires in homeless camps, the piles of trash at the entrances to our cities, and we want this to end. We pay for and have created numerous services for the homeless, but we can only provide for so many homeless in this city.
And again, this is where the state and federal government need to step in and say, enough is enough, just like we can’t have every person from every poor and corrupt nation in the world running to the USA and demanding to be let in and taken care of, we can’t have every homeless person, drug addict, or person with serious mental illness, from everywhere in the nation, running to California and holding out their hand and demanding service and shelter.
As well, we need to question the mantra that “the solution to homelessness is housing.” You’re never — at least not in the near term, meaning the next 5 to 10 years — going to build enough free housing to hand out to everyone who wants free or dramatically subsidized housing. We need to aim at eventually providing housing for everyone, but it will not happen soon. We can and should certainly make plans for the long term, to provide more affordable housing. (and you can do that best by eliminating rent control, which always greatly increases rents in areas where it applies).
But for the short term, what you can do is build inexpensive homeless shelters, as San Diego has done, and shelter those in need in a rudimentary and basic way.
Modesto is also doing a good job of sheltering all those in need, with a sanctioned camp which is appropriately located. Utah does a great job at providing housing for most in need. Beyond that, there are several “right to shelter” cities where anyone who shows up and registers as homeless, will be taken care of, including New York, Boston and Washington DC. And again, there are many many areas in the nation where land is cheap, rent is cheap, and jobs are plentiful. We have pointed to those locations repeatedly, and urged those who have fallen on hard times to go to those inexpensive places. Which are NOTin the Bay Area. So if you are sincere when you ask “where can we go?” then we will tell you exactly where you can go, and have a chance of being able to afford a life at much less cost than you would here. But if you are insincere, and do not really want to know where to go, but instead just want to sit on the curb in Berkeley and stick out your hand and demand that someone come by and give you freebies every day, then you are playing a game that you’re not likely to win. Play this game long enough, and even one of the most overtolerant of all liberal cities is guaranteed to get increasingly fed up with your entitlement and the crime and nuisance you’re causing, you will find that life on the streets and sidewalks and under the highways gets less comfortable as you get more frequently “moved along. “
It seems that many homeless campers will see more of this in coming weeks in Berkeley
In spite of the orders to vacate, the “Where Do We Go” people are intending to refuse to cooperate and are standing their ground. See some of their videos, articles here below. So, we will see where this goes…it’s a showdown.
The Where Do We Go movement created a video asking where do they go
A couple things of note: one is that the Where Do We Go people keep highlighting a homeless woman who “cannot walk” and is in a wheelchair. Is she registered for disability income with the government? If not, why not? I would say if you want to help her, get her registered, and then, with her disability income, help her use common sense and get her located in a place where she can afford to live on that income. Which is not in the Bay Area. Living in a tent by the freeway is not a viable long-term plan for a person in a wheelchair who can’t walk, and who is very eligible for disability income.
Second thing to note is that I find it incredible that CalTrans and the police, apparently went into this cleanup without any awareness of Berkeley politics and the fact that they might face resistance in cleaning up these camps. If you are aiming to clean up a camp and remove it, it’s just common sense that you have to be prepared for campers who refuse to cooperate, and you need to be prepared to remove them if they wont’ remove themselves.
Finally, it needs to be pointed out that those sitting by the side of the highway asking “Where do we go?” appear to believe that someone else, notably the government, and in particular the city of Berkeley is responsible for solving their life problems. Why? Why is the city responsible for you? Why do you sit there and hold out your hand and expect to be given free stuff and have someone else take responsibility for YOUR life?
They do not appear to be asking themselves “What can I do to better my situation?” Nor do those “homeless advocates” aiding them appear to be helping them take action along the lines of realistic options open to them. Instead, these advocates appear to be happy to help them engage in anti-social actions of defying the city, and stay pasted to the sidewalks, underpasses and highway medians of the city, passively holding out their hands. This isn’t empowering to them and it’s not the kind of support that is needed.
Where Do We Go???
There are some people in San Francisco, who are also wondering where they can go. They have lived in the neighborhood for years, but can’t take it anymore, with all the drug dealers and crazy homeless people on their street.
This article might also be called, “What happens when city leaders give preference to drug addicts over ordinary citizens.” You cannot run a city such that your default position is that drug addicts and criminals have more “rights” and ability to control or dominate public spaces, than the ordinary residents of the city, yet this is just the position that many West Coast cities are taking, and it’s leading to the destruction of their public spaces, and by extension, to the destruction of their cities.
As those of you who have followed this site will have realized by now, much of the purpose of this site is to shine a spotlight on the dysfunctionality of our current collective approach to homelessness and people camping in public places all over our cities, and to advocate for approaches to sheltering people that would actually work, meaning, they will provide shelter to those in need without resulting in a spread of squalor, crime, and nuisance all over the city.
Perhaps the greatest and most destructive mistake that cities make with regard to the homeless, including serious drug addicts and those with serious mental illnesses, is the approach that drug addicts prefer. It’s overtolerance: allowing people to camp wherever they like. This is an easy approach for cities to take, because it’s in line with the decades they and the state and federal government have already spent doing virtually nothing about this growing problem. Cities, city leaders, and many city residents have spent years, decades, watching nothing being done, watching people live on sidewalks, in vehicles around town, in shantytowns under the freeway, spending their days wrapped in dirty blankets riding BART around the Bay, and contented themselves that “we are compassionate: we let people be free, we let people choose how they want to live.”
I have several friends from Europe who come to my area to visit, and they always express surprise and concern that we have so many people wandering around on our streets who are out of their minds, crazy. I explain to them that in Europe, they actually care for their poor and disabled, while here, we wave a lot of flags pretending to care, but we collectively actually hate them because we dont’ provide care for them, we just delude ourselves into perversely thinking that people who are out of their minds insane or on meth, are freely choosing to live in dirty shacks and squalid tent camps.
The truth is that by allowing drug addicts and those with serious mental illness, as well as people who we refuse to provide adequate shelter for, to “be free”, we allow them to destroy the city: they destroy parks, they destroy businesses, they destroy public spaces, and evetually they destroy the whole city, and we sit back and let all this happen.
People’s Park in Berkeley was one of the first parks to thus be utterly destroyed, and for decades the city of Berkeley has been perversely complimenting itself and viewing as charming, this disgusting, crime-ridden, drug-filled little park, that was perhaps a symbol of free speech and hippie creativity for a few weeks or months, before it was lost to criminals way back in the 1970’s or 1980’s. See this article about that park:
Over 400 people ended up at this camp, as shown here:
When the city finally realized it had been a big mistake to allow the homeless (including, as usual, a large number of drug addicts) to “self-govern”, it was too late, and the park was all but destroyed. As these YouTube journalists point out, the park, now vacant, still stinks of urine and feces many months after the homeless were cleared out, and the restrooms have been totally vandalized and destroyed:
In Orange County in the Anaheim area, city officials made the mistake of allowing hundreds of homeless to set up tents and eventually construct a 3 mile long shantytown along the Santa Ana Riverbed. The results of that colossal error are seen in this split-screen video which shows the Riverbed bike trail before the homeless took over the area, and after:
Many other parks in many other cities are threatened by or have fallen to occupation by hordes of homeless, resulting in trash, blight, nuisance, open drug use and drug sales, bizarre behavior by mentally ill persons, threats and intimidation and crimes and assaults on ordinary parkgoers, and worse. In San Francisco, which has one of the most horrendous problems with homeless in the nation, residents of Dolores Park convened at a city meeting to demand that the city do something about drug addicts taking over Dolores Park. https://missionlocal.org/2019/08/mission-residents-fuming-over-homeless-in-dolores-park/
The way city leaders talk about the problem suggests a massive amount of denial. In regards to the problem at Dolores Park, one city official said ““We do not want to criminalize homelessness, we do not want to arrest our way out of this,” said Cole, who works out of the Homeless Street Outreach Center, a collaborative department comprised of representatives from Public Health, SFPD, Public Works and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing.”
The fact is that we ARE dealing with crimes, not merely “homeless” people. We are dealing with drug addicts, criminals taking over public places in our cities, setting up tents in public parks. By denying this and treating these criminals delicately as if these are wilting violets, these city agents are “homeless-izing criminals”, and endangering the public while protecting and enabling criminals. As well, even for those who are “merely homeless” and not criminals, it is totally unacceptable for them to take over public parks that are used for recreation.
And to say that city residents are fed up with this, is a great understatement. For many, it’s gotten to the point where they feel tempted to take matters into their own hands, as described in this article on Dolores Park, and that is a dangerous point for things to reach. As I’ve pointed out many times, cities cannot so completely fail to do basic law enforcement, that they essentially allow criminals and homeless campers to take over all public spaces.
Allan Gardens park in Toronto is a park that is at risk of being destroyed by the homeless, as is described in these TripAdvisor reviews:
They are living an apocalyptic nightmare, really a zombie apocalypse, a homeless zombie apocalypse, and the city is doing absolutely nothing about this.
“I called LAPD,” said Willens, the controller of an apparel manufacturing firm. “They came out. I said, ‘Get them moved.’ They said they can’t.”
The homelessness crisis has affected virtually every neighborhood in Los Angeles. But the close interaction between encampment residents and businesses and homeowners is especially intimate and confrontational in the industrial zone east of USC, where the car fire occurred, and in a residential area along Grand Avenue not far away.
When it’s too hot to shut her bedroom window, Cindy Ramirez said, she will yell out to the people on the street to turn down the music booming on electricity pirated from disconnected street lights. But she said she can’t shut out the camp smells.
Over the last year, the business people and residents in these two sections of South L.A. have pursued an increasingly testy — but so far futile — campaign of emails, phone calls and meetings beseeching the city for relief.
Police, sanitation workers, council deputies, even a neighborhood prosecutor have attended meetings, listened, expressed sympathy and done whatever was in their power to help.
But, restrained by law, city policy and lack of resources, they have fallen short, unable to do the only thing that is asked of them — to get rid of the homeless camps.
Homeless people live in tents along Grand Avenue in South L.A.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times )
Many speakers bristled with anger and frustration.
“It’s something that’s tearing down our community, the drug dealers, the criminals, the ones beating up our females, our mothers,” said a young man who asked that his name not be used because he feared reprisals.
Others told of their cars being stoned, their yards defiled with feces and hypodermic needles, their children frightened.
“They are drug dealers,” an elderly man said. “We can’t walk over there because they intimidate us.”
When the meeting leader, who also asked to remain anonymous, walked back to her home on 53rd Street around noon, the homeless people who had carted away their possessions for the cleanup were bringing them back.
It all would be repeated in a week, the woman said. Warning signs would be posted. The shelters would disappear. The sidewalk would be sanitized. By the afternoon, the tents and tarps would all be back.
It happens every Saturday.
A city ordinance bans people from living in vehicles parked on residential streets. Still, recreational vehicles often site along Grand Avenue and in the industrial zone.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times )
In the enforcement vacuum, people devise their own strategies. Daniel Tenenblatt erected a fence in the middle of the sidewalk around his fabric factory, where 500 people work in shifts around the clock.
He said the camps were chasing away his customers.
“We sell fabrics,” he said. “We have people coming here and we want to tell them, ‘Buy it here and not in Bangladesh.’ They come in here and it looks like Bangladesh. People piled up. There’s filth. They have to hold their nose to walk in the building.”
Like the camps it is designed to repel, the fence is an illegal structure.
“Within a week the city came to cite us and tear [it] down,” Tenenblatt said.
But Councilman Curren Price’s district director, James Westbrooks, talked to the building department. The inspectors backed off. The fence still stands.
Mitch Blumenfeld, who moved his business, Acme Display, into a building on Broadway in 2015, said several people living on adjacent sidewalks agreed to leave at his request. Others replaced them, however, and he has since been unable to dislodge them.
Now he struggles to keep tents away from his emergency exit. From time to time he steps outside to take photographs. His latest shows a man keeping two dogs in small cages stacked against his wall.
In December, Blumenfeld installed a surveillance camera in his parking lot.
The next Sunday, watching a live feed on his phone, he saw a man from the nearby tent camp hot-wire the gate open. Then a woman stood by waving a cardboard sign offering $20 parking to football fans headed to the nearby Coliseum.
Roldan said he believes any solution has to be permanent. At the same time, he pines for a short-term fix.
“Is it possible to say, ’Hey look, if you’re camped out in front of a residence, or in front of a business, let’s move you to a more secluded space until we figure out a permanent solution’?”
Amy Willens’ car was destroyed when flames from a homeless person’s tent swept into a parking lot. “I called LAPD,” she said. “They came out. I said, ‘Get them moved.’ They said they can’t.”
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times )
In Berkeley recently, a laundromat located in the downtown area had to go out of business because homeless drug addicts kept coming into the laundromat and engaging in unacceptable and criminal behavior. https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/09/22/shop-talk-compast-darling-electric-salon-mr-mopps-berkeley-bubbles The laundromat owners say that they called police about this “at least 100 times” and also went to city council meetings about the issue, to no avail. The city refused to maintain basic order and enforce basic laws to protect the business from the homeless criminals and extremely inappropriate behavior.
In Oakland and Emeryville, the Home Depot, a major business and major source of tax revenue for these cities, has threatened to close its stores in these two cities, because city leaders have utterly failed to remove the homeless nuisance camps right next to these stores. See this story in this video about this problem:
You’ll also see stories about other Berkeley businesses negatively impacted by homeless campers at the Berkeley marina in that video.
The camp behind the Emeryville Home Depot has been a disgusting trash filled, drug-filled blight for years, and there have been fires there. The camp next to the Oakland Home Depot has been filled with a huge number of drug addicts (based on the number of hypodermic needles picked up there every weekend) and criminals who repeatedly break into the Home Depot and the customer’s cars in its parking lot, yet the city perversely will do nothing to abate this enormous nuisance and danger to the store and its customers.
These stories are just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds and very likely several thousand more businesses in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and beyond, which have been very heavily negatively impacted by homeless drug addicts, homeless criminals, and other homeless who engage in nuisance or inappropriate behavior and scare away its customers. In this video, Tucker Carlson at about 2:26 into the video, interviews a Los Angeles business owner who tried in vain to get the city to clean up the mounds of trash that the homeless left right next to her business.
This video documents how crime related to homeless individuals impacts Seattle area businesses:
In this video, incredibly, a business owner had to close his business because a homeless man kept biting him.
This is about another California business that was forced to close due to the homeless problem:
The narrator of that video has a simple common sense approach: to all homeless people, you’re either going to an asylum, or to jail, or to a shelter. No more camping everywhere around the streets. Why can’t we get city leaders with this degree of common sense.
A couple weeks ago, Pipeworks placed dozens of boulders along one side of their property — along North A Street, off North 16th Street — to prevent the homeless encampments from growing. Medford said that portion of the street is Pipeworks’ property and that they worked with the city before placing the boulders.
A city spokesperson said officials are looking into it.
Medford said youth enrollment has dropped by 1,000 children in three years because of the homeless issue.
“We had a woman that drove her child down from Chico to come from a climbing day,” he said. “She got out to Ahern [Street] and turned around, literally turned around and drove back to Chico.”
Medford said a homeless woman once broke out a window and threw a towel full of human excrement into the gym while the staff was inside. He also said a member quit the other day after seeing people “shooting up” outside the gym.
Myah Rodriguez takes her younger siblings to Pipeworks and said the homeless issue is worrisome.
Another Sacramento business owner who had to shut down due to homeless nuisance:
There are many more stories like these that don’t make it into the news or onto YouTube. For instance, it’s now generally known that Comcast closed its office in Berkeley, due to problems with homeless people. Coffee shops Starbucks and Peets in downtown Berkeley have these problems:
Businesses in Seattle are closing or moving due to homeless nuisance:
https://mynorthwest.com/1546962/business-ditches-seattle-crime-waste/
Finally, please let’s not let President Trump, of all people, be the only public official who is willing to acknowledge the destruction that we are allowing to happen to our cities and parks, when we sit back and passively allow people to camp wherever they please. President Trump is a danger to our nation in so many ways, and unfortunately, he gets a lot of his power from the “collective shadow” that liberals create by their massive denial regarding several seriously problematic issues that liberals ignore, from the religious fundamentalism involved in identity politics, to the do-nothing approach to serious problems caused by the spread of homeless camping all over our cities. You just cannot enable criminals and allow such massive nuisance and destruction of cities, and think that this is not going to cause political damage.
Here is the White House report on homelessness in the nation, which indicates that the proportion of homeless that are in California has risen dramatically.
We used to have 25% of the nation’s homeless, now California has a full 47% of all the homeless in the entire nation, which places an incredible burden on our state to essentially provide services that the federal government should be paying for.
People have complained, appropriately, that Trump seems much more concerned about the problems created for cities by the homeless, than about the homeless themselves. This may be true, but it must be recognized that this represents the correction of an imbalance: the fact that too many city leadersappear much more concerned about the homeless, including criminals and drug addicts and seriously mentally ill, than about their own ordinary city residentswhose lives are in some cases greatly stressed or even ruined by the problems created by these homeless. So Trump’s concern corrects the imbalance that we’ve seen. That Trump is addressing this issue is hopeful in the sense that there is a great need for a federal, nationwide approach to this serious problem. It’s way past time for city leaders to stop sitting passively by, allowing their parks, businesses and the cities themselves to be ruined by the increasing number of homeless, drug addicts, criminals, and seriously mentally ill people camping in public places wherever they please.
“A homeless encampment in Oakland that has been the source of constant complaints about filth and crime is being cleared out.
The encampment is located at Union Point Park on Embarcadero along the city’s estuary.
The removal of the large encampment took 10 months, a lot of patience, defiance, litigation and a judge’s order to complete.”
It’s unacceptable that it should take a city so long to clear out an ILLEGAL campsite, particularly one that is the source of as many problems as this one has been.
Homeless and their advocates complain that this is a matter of “whack a mole” and that they want affordable housing.
Once again, as what’s been the case time after time, the next tragic chapter is what some homeless people call a human “whack-a-mole.”
“The city that we are from, the community that we live in is not helping the problem by evicting us from point A to B and from B to A,” said evicted camper Nicole Burns.
“There is no end to this and there’s not gonna be any end until the city starts building affordable housing for everybody,” said Bee. “Not just these condos, not just these luxury apartments no one from Oakland can afford.”
DeVries said the city is working to address the need for affordable housing but says other cities need to follow suit.
“The city has a lot of affordable homes in the pipeline, but they’re not being built fast enough to keep up with the demand,” he said. “We need other cities to follow suit. We can no longer have smaller cities refusing to build affordable housing and expecting cities like Oakland and San Francisco to shoulder the entire burden of the region.”
Everyone wants affordable housing. There’s a limit to how much affordable housing can be built in any one area, in fact there’s a limit as to how many people can LIVE in any one area. And no one should be able to essentially extort a city to get affordable housing for themselves, by repeatedly causing public nuisance and implying that “we’ll stop this when you give us stuff.”
The residents of this camp knew this eviction was coming, ..and they are the ones who actually caused the process to drag on for many months by suing the city. But still, even though they knew they had to leave, they didn’t, and as a result, at least one had their vehicle towed. Yet rather than accepting responsibility for not leaving when required, they chose to blame the city.
Does anyone else see a problem in this process:
A group of people decide to illegally set up a homestead on public land, in a public park. This privatization of the park by a group of illegal homesteaders, makes the park no longer usable by the people who are, through city or state taxes, paying for that public park. Then, the campers/homesteaders continue to cause problems for the park and surrounding area, with trash and crime. Particularly when the park is, as this one was, next to a waterway, the homesteaders may be causing environmental degradation and destruction of a natural resource. In this case, as Joe Devries says on the KTVU news video, there is now a rat infestation in this area, among other possible environmental problems caused by setting up a large campsite right next to a waterway, with RVs, but no RV waste dumping facilities.
I dont’ think people should be able to sue a city over their removal, when they are illegally homesteading on public land. This is not a matter of the constitutional rights of homeless people to sleep in public places when they have no where else to sleep. It’s not a matter of simply sleeping. It’s a matter of setting up large, elaborate, essentially permanent camps — homesteading, in other words, illegally appropriating public land for one’s own private use, in other words. And there’s no constitutional right to do that, so I don’t see why these cases are being filed in the first place, or why, if filed, they are getting the mileage that they do and causing months of postponement in removing serious nuisance. This needs to be stopped.
The camp residents complain:
So people are illegally homesteading on public land, causing environmental degradation and some engaging in crime, and then when the city comes to remove them, they allege that the city is engaging in “cruel and unusual” actions. This would be hilariously ironic if it weren’t a perspective that is so widely shared by many progressives and supported by many homeless advocates and is even influential, apparently, with federal judges.
The City of Oakland is also moving to evict a problem camp in another area:
“Mayor Libby Schaaf said the structures built beneath BART tracks along San Leandro Boulevard from 81st Avenue to 85th Avenue are fire hazards. There have been a string of fires at the camp over the summer.
Mayor Schaaf is going to give those folks another two weeks to pack up, and then, hopefully it’s sayonara to this enormous fire hazard and public nuisance. Shelters, people, massive shelters, inexpensive shelters run by the government like UN refugee camps.
UPDATE October 15 2019
Oakland finally tore down the massive, blocks-long Wood Street encampment in an industrial area of West Oakland. But in order for this to be at all meaningful, the city must also make sure that these campers dont’ just set right back up either in the same place or someplace else in the city. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/us/inside-a-homeless-encampment-as-its-being-torn-down.html
This just goes to show that if you tolerate vehicle dwelling, if you normalize it and make room for it, and act as though it’s a reasonable option, you’ll just get way more of it.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s an area of public land known as the “Albany Bulb”, so named because it’s a section of land that juts out from the rest of the East bay waterfront, in a “bulb” like manner. This area was created by landfill, years of dumping. It began to be formed in 1939 but the bulk of the creation of this parkland took place in 1963, as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Bulb
Homeless campers lived at Albany Bulb for an approximately 20 year period of time from the early 1990’s to 2013. This is a brief description of the history of these people at the Bulb, from the wikipedia article:
Starting in the early 1990s, the Albany Bulb was home to a community of otherwise homeless individuals who lived there on and off for nearly 20 years, despite a lack of official permission from the City of Albany. Their presence was generally tolerated so long as the number of residents remained low. The population living on the Bulb had grown to approximately 50 or 60 in early 1999, leading to a mass eviction by the city later that summer. Homeless people began to filter back over the next few years, including many of those who had been evicted in 1999, and by early 2013, the population had again grown to more than 40. In May 2013 the Albany City Council voted to evict the residents of the Bulb, offering them minimal assistance with relocation to other living arrangements. Ultimately the city ended up offering 30 Bulb residents $3,000 each if they would leave their longtime homes on the Bulb in order to settle a lawsuit brought by the East Bay Community Law Center on behalf of the residents. 28 of the 30 plaintiffs accepted the buy-out and voluntarily left by April 24, 2014.[5] Two Bulb residents, Amber Whitson and her partner Phyl Lewis, refused the settlement and the court dismissed their claims without prejudice. https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/04/30/albany-clearing-bulb-after-settlement-with-campers/
Then in 2008 this video was made about the Bulb by a musician:
This film shows the shantytown home built by one man there, known as “Boxing Bob”
This film made in 2014 by Andy Kreamer, shows those who lived at Albany Bulb just before the city of Albany evicted campers from this area in 2013.
In this film, a YouTuber named “Wonderhussy” takes you on a tour of Albany Bulb at the present time, as she points out some of the old structures that used to be used by homeless campers here, as well as the many artworks at the site.
This article appearing in Curbed tells a longer story, complete with many photos of the artworks at the Bulb:
Over time, towards the end of their stay at the Bulb in 2013, parkgoers noticed an increase in the number of homeless people living at the park, and the number of problems associated with them increased as well. There were fires, and viscious dogs, as described in this article:
And it never really worked well (I dont’ think it ever will) to mix parkgoers interested in walking and recreation, with homeless campers setting up private residences (and sometimes elaborate “courtyards”) on public land. I recall walking there and you’d follow a trail, and find yourself in what amounted to someone’s living room, a public space in a public park, but privatized and appropriated, and you’d feel like you were an intruder. Or if you didn’t feel that, if you continued on the public trail, you could easily be made to feel like an intruder. I recall seeing large kennels there, constructed with chain link fencing, containing barking dogs that did not seem friendly.
In other places, you’d be walking along and suddenly find yourself in the midst of a huge garbage pile, one that apparently the city had no interest in cleaning up.
Even without the problems of drug addicts, fires and garbage, privatization of public spaces creates a serious problem when those spaces are intended to be parks, places of recreation for all citizens.
Instead of being grateful for being allowed to live for 20 years on gorgeous bayfront property, with “million dollar views”, the residents of the Bulb fought the city when they were told they had to leave. The 2013 eviction was made more difficult when Osha Neumann, of the East bay Community law Center, sued the city to try to block it from controlling its own property and removing illegal campers. How entitled can people be, arguing that the city should not be able to control their own land, public parkland, but that it has to allow homeless campers to remain. Because of the lawsuit, the city of Albany was forced to pay thousands of dollars for “temporary housing” for these homeless, which they didn’t even use, and pay each of about 50 of them $3000 to leave. This increased expense to remove illegal campers was not necessary and should not have been required. These were not tenants who were legally renting space. They were illegal campers whose presence had been tolerated, and perhaps the city learned an important lesson here, which other cities should take notice of: when you don’t remove illegal homeless camps right away, doing so much later down the road, could end up costing you dearly.
Some stories about the eviction:
Amber Whitsun, longtime resident of the Bulb, is interviewed here:
And Amber is again here:
And in this video Amber posted on YouTube you’ll see her at about 11 minutes in, scolding the Albany City Council because former Bulb residents are now living on the sidewalks elsewhere. She threatens that she will sleep on Solano Avenue if the city doesn’t do things her way. They didn’t do things her way and she didn’t end up sleeping on Solano Avenue.
Another story about the Albany Bulb, where the narrator calls it “an artists’ squat”.
One of the most beautiful and unique things about the park is the amount of art there. Some of this art was created by homeless campers, but one does not need to allow homeless camping in a public park in order to have art there.
Many cities have this problem: there are a group of delinquent miscreants, or criminals, or drug addicts, though we call them “homeless”, who are constantly causing nuisance and engaging in criminal behavior. They cause the city a great deal of expense in things such as destruction of property, vandalism, assaults, thefts, car break-ins, harassment, as well as dumping garbage and needles and human waste on a regular basis.
Many of us have unfortunately come to accept such things as “collateral damage” of having large populations of homeless in a city. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Particularly when you are dealing with criminals who’ve been arrested and cited numerous times, but which overly liberal judges can’t seem to bring themselves to incarcerate because they don’t want to be hard on the “mentally ill” or those with substance abuse….then what to do?
Sacramento decided to sue. In what may be a first in the state, the city of Sacramento is suing a group of seven “homeless” people (again, drug addicts or criminals may be a more appropriate term) because they are causing a great deal of nuisance and crime in the city.
“Joan Borucki, executive director of the Greater Broadway District, says workers with her business group are constantly dealing with “the aftermath of drug activity” sparked by homeless individuals.
This includes dealing with the human waste, needle pick up, theft, car break-ins and vandalism on a daily basis,” a statement by Borucki in the civil suit reads. “I have recently seen an increase in employees that are threatened with harm by people who are under the influence of drugs.”
Unfortunately, the homeless enablers, the criminal enablers, are calling this “a violation of civil rights.” What about the rights of ordinary citizens who don’t want to have to be continually preyed upon and victimized when they walk down the streets of their city? In truth, the criminal enablers have it wrong: the city isn’t suing people because they are homeless, they are suing the people for constantly engaging in crimes — crimes not directly related to being homeless. So the lawsuit really isn’t about suing “homeless” people for being homeless, but that’s how it is being spun by the criminal enablers, the enablers of drug addicts who are taking over our streets in many areas.
Sacramento’s “homeless” population (again, many of these would be more accurately called “drug addicts”) has apparently increased quite a lot in the past year:
Sacramento’s homeless population spiked 19 percent, to nearly 5,600, compared with two years ago, according to a survey conducted in January.
Other concerning news related to homeless in Sacramento…is this story, about the danger created by homeless camps where campers have been destroying the city’s levees:
People with mental illness are quite likely to fall into drug addiction to “self-medicate”, as is described in this story on Medium.com https://medium.com/@abigailbalfe/my-brother-from-talented-musician-to-homeless-heroin-addict-f19fd1ee2054
by the sister of a talented musician who ended up a homeless drug addict because the system (in the UK, but it’s the same story here) has so utterly failed those with serious mental illness, and their families. His sister pleads for him to be forcibly removed from the streets, forcibly insitutionalized or incarcerated, for his own health, for his own safety, but the system would prefer to pretend he has the capacity to make decisions in his own best interest, and so it will allow him to die on the streets.
A question may come to many, as they have watched people living on streets and sidewalks of their city for decades now. They have seen the problem grow worse over time, they see their taxes increase to pay for more homeless services, and they read reports that the amount of spending on homelessness, in many major urban centers, is in the hundreds of millions. In San Francisco, for instance, spending on homelessness is now around $241 million a year, as reported here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_Area
So as we see, for all this effort, and all this money thrown at the problem, we aren’t seeing solutions. We are actually seeing MORE homeless people living on the streets.
Also, given that California has 25% of the homeless in the entire nation, and spends so much on homelessness, doesn’t it make sense too, that homeless people would journey to California to hold out their hands and receive from what the state is giving?
There’s another aspect to this problem too, that not enough of us are thinking about, which is that it may well be that, particularly given the amount of money involved, many city leaders would prefer NOT to solve the homeless problem. Because if they did, they wouldn’t have all this money to work with.
Just think: if we solved the problem, we wouldn’t be able to hire all the people we do, in homeless services. We wouldn’t be able to hire counselors to provide the same services that seem to get people nowhere, researchers who do studies that can’t seem to come to the obvious conclusions seen by those with no college degree but having abundant common sense, or public works crews to clean up the same camps day in and day out, pick up the same gazillion needles from the sidewalks all over again, scoop up the human poop every day from the streets. Without a homeless problem to thrive on, so much of the “homeless industrial complex” that we have created would fail, so there’s a real way that we’ve created a solution in search of a problem…and with a need to maintain that problem in order to survive.
In this article, author Edward Ring, of the California Public Policy institute, states:
The problem of the homeless could be completely solved in a few months if therewere the political and judicial will to get it done. The national guard could be deployed, working with city and county law enforcement. The homeless could be sorted into groups; criminals, substance abusers, mentally ill, undocumented aliens, and all the rest. For each of these groups, separate facilities could be built on vacant or underutilized government land in or near urban centers but away from downtowns and residential areas. They could consist of tents, porta-potties, and mobile modules providing food and medical services.
There’s plenty of money available to do this. Just in Los Angeles, in 2016 voters approved Measure HHH, allocating $1.2 billion in bonds to build 10,000 units to house the homeless. Since then, Los Angeles voters approved a quarter cent sales tax increase, also to help the homeless. Additional hundreds of millions are coming from the state to help the homeless.
Every major city in California is spending tens of millions or more on programs for the homeless. But most of the money is being wasted. Why? Because there is a Homeless Industrial Complex that is getting filthy rich, wasting the money, while the homeless population swells.
Some of the problems of the “homeless industrial complex” may involve waste, others may involve inefficiency, some may involve denial, backscratching, doing favors for select contractors, and some of the problems may involve fraud and possibly, even crime. For instance, Edward Ring mentions that a shipping container, which can be used for an inexpensive housing, only costs $1900 if you buy it online. But these very same shipping containers are being sold to cities to house the homeless, at a cost of $280,000 each.
Democrats have been quick to attack wasteful spending at the Pentagon, the golden toilet seats and other outrageously expensive military projects, but when we come around to the projects that are favored by liberals, it’s not common to see the same zeal for oversight on these expenditures, and therein lies the problem.
Here’s another perhaps longer article by the Edward Ring on the same issue:
He sums up several “myths” about homelessness that are perpetrated by the puppets of the homeless industrial complex:
O’Brien and his supportershave constructed an elaborate political vocabulary about the homeless, elevating three key myths to the status of conventional wisdom. The first is that many of the homeless are holding down jobs but can’t get ahead. “I’ve got thousands of homeless people that actually are working and just can’t afford housing,” O’Brien told the Denver Post. But according to King County’s own survey data, only 7.5 percent of the homeless report working full-time, despite record-low unemployment, record job growth, and a record-high $15 Seattle minimum wage. The reality, obvious to anyone who spends any time in tent cities or emergency shelters, is that 80 percent of the homeless suffer from drug and alcohol addiction and 30 percent suffer from serious mental illness, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
The second key myth is that the homeless are “our neighbors,” native to Seattle. Progressive publications like The Stranger insist that “most people experiencing homelessness in Seattle were already here when they became homeless.” This assertion, too, clashes with empirical evidence. More than half of Seattle’s homeless come from outside the city limits, according to the city’s own data.
The third myth: O’Brien and his allies argue that the street homeless want help but that there aren’t enough services. Once again, county data contradict their claims: 63 percent of the street homeless refuse shelter when offered it by the city’s Navigation Teams, claiming that “there are too many rules” (39.5 percent) or that “they are too crowded” (32.6 percent). The recent story about a woman’s “tent mansion” near the city’s Space Needle vividly illustrated how a contingent among the homeless chooses to live in the streets. “We don’t want to change our lifestyle to fit their requirements,” the woman told newscasters for a KIRO7 report, explaining how she and her boyfriend moved from West Virginia to Seattle for the “liberal vibe,” repeatedly refusing shelter. “We intend to stay here. This is the solution to the homeless problem. We want autonomy, right here.”
Those who question the distorted and twisted narrative put out by the actors of the homeless industrial complex, are, quite predictably, shouted down as “lacking in compassion”, and Rufo has this to say about that:
Nothing is apparently more important to the activists than their public display of compassion—certainly not the growing number of depraved incidents at homeless encampments or involving homeless people, including a mass shooting, a human immolation, a vicious rape, and a series of stabbings. They shout down anyone who questions their narrative.
The author of this excellent article also has a different theory about the deeper cause of homelessness, than you will hear from most city leaders and homeless industrial complex agents. He sees the root cause in disaffiliation, loss of relationship:
The United States generally remains in denial about the reality of homelessness. While ideologues denounce various villains who “cause” homelessness—capitalists, landlords, racists, computer programmers—the reality is that homelessness is a product of disaffiliation. For the past 70 years, sociologists, political scientists, and theologians have documented the slow atomization of society. As family and community bonds weaken, our most vulnerable citizens fall victim to the addiction, mental illness, isolation, poverty, and despair that almost always precipitate the final slide into homelessness. Alice Baum and Donald Burnes, who wrote the definitive book on homelessness in the early 1990s, put it this way:
Homelessness is a condition of disengagement from ordinary society—from family, friends, neighborhood, church, and community. . . . Poor people who have family ties, teenaged mothers who have support systems, mentally ill individuals who are able to maintain social and family relationships, alcoholics who are still connected to their friends and jobs, even drug addicts who manage to remain part of their community do not become homeless. Homelessness occurs when people no longer have relationships; they have drifted into isolation, often running away from the support networks they could count on in the past.
A video on the Homeless Industrial Complex in San Francisco was done by Colion Noir here:
What can be done, then, about homelessness?
There are many places in the nation where we are actually seeing viable solutions, because city leaders are taking sensible approaches. Rufo says:
If she can summon the political will, Seattle Mayor Durkan can implement some emergency measures that will dramatically reduce the social disorder associated with street homelessness. For examples, she can look to other cities that have shown that homelessness can be contained with smart, tough policies.
In San Diego, for instance, city officials and the private sector worked together to build three barracks-style shelters that house nearly 1,000 people for only $4.5 million. They’ve moved 700 individuals off the streets and into the emergency shelter, allowing the police and city crews to remove and clean up illegal encampments. In Seattle, the mayor should petition the private sector for donations to build similar emergency shelter facilities, construct them on vacant city property in the industrial district, and run a dedicated free bus line from the shelters to the downtown core so that residents can access additional services and eventually find work.
In Houston, local leaders have reduced homelessness by 60 percent through a combination of providing services and enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for street camping, panhandling, trespassing, and property crimes. Seattle’s police department and Navigation Teams must be given the authority to enforce the law and put an end to rampant street camping. There’s nothing compassionate about letting addicts, the mentally ill, and the poor die in the streets. The first order of business must be to clean up public spaces, move people into shelters, and maintain public order.
After describing the enormous and wasteful sums that are being spent to basically create a party tent for homeless campers who’ve taken over Venice Beach in California, Edward Ring makes a list of ways to “rein in the homeless industrial complex” as follows:
WAYS TO REIN IN THE HOMELESS INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
(1) Acknowledge there’s a problem. Agree that it’s no longer acceptable to throw money at the homeless epidemic without questioning all the current proposals and the underlying premises. Billions of dollars are being wasted. Admit it.
(2) Recognize that a special interest, the Homeless Industrial Complex – comprised of developers, government bureaucrats, and activist nonprofits – has taken over the homeless agenda and turned it into a profit center. They are not going to solve the problem, they are going to milk it. Their PR firms will sell compliant media a feel-good story about someone who turned their life around, living in a fine new apartment. What they won’t tell you is that because of the $400,000 they charged to build that single apartment unit, dozens if not hundreds of people are still on the street with nothing.
(3) Act at the municipal and state level to set a limit on the cost per shelter “bed.” This cost must represent a compromise between ideal facilities for homeless people, and what is affordable at a scale sufficient to solve the problem. There is no reason the capital costs for a shelter bed should be $50,000 each, but that’s exactly what’s proposed in Venice – $8 million for a semi-permanent “tent” with 154 beds. Similarly, there is no reason a basic apartment unit for the homeless should cost over $400,000, but in Los Angeles, by most accounts, that’s what they cost. This is outrageous. Durable tents and supportive facilities should be set up for a small fraction of that amount. Pick a number. Stick to it. Demand creative solutions.
(4) Stop differentiating between “bridge housing” (basic shelter) and “permanent supportive housing.” Permanent supportive housing IS “bridge housing.” Amenities better than a durable, dry, sole occupancy tent and a porta-potty can belong exclusively in the realm of privately funded nonprofits and charities. Until there isn’t a single homeless person left on the street, not one penny of taxpayer money should be paying for anything beyond basic bridge housing.
(5) Accept that homeless shelters will be more cost-effectively constructed and operated if they are in industrial, commercial (where appropriate), or rural areas, and not in downtown areas or residential neighborhoods.
(6) Abandon decentralized solutions that involve seeding safe neighborhoods with mini-homeless shelters in converted residential homes. Estimates vary, but between 35 and 77 percent of homeless people suffer from substance abuse, and between 26 and 58 percent have mental illness, and by some accounts over half of them have a criminal record. It is not just too expensive, it is dangerous to mix a homeless population into family neighborhoods.
(7) Go to court. Challenge the decision in Jones vs the City of Los Angeles, that ruled that law enforcement and city officials can no longer enforce the ban on sleeping on sidewalks anywhere within the Los Angeles city limits until a sufficient amount of permanent supportive housing could be built.
(8) File a state ballot referendum to overturn Prop. 47, which downgraded drug and property crimes. Prop. 47 has led to what police derisively refer to as “catch and release,” because suspects are only issued citations with a court date, and let go.
(9) Recognize that the rights of the homeless must be balanced with the rights of local residents, and that homeless accommodations should be safe but should never be better than the cheapest unit of commercial housing.
10) Confront the fact that a lot of homeless people are homeless by choice, not because they’ve ran out of options, and they DON’T WANT HELP. Act accordingly: Do we give these people control over our public spaces, our neighborhoods, our parks and beaches? And what of the others? The mentally ill, the substance abusers, the criminals? Do we give them control of over our public spaces?
More about the homeless industrial complex…which explains why the more money San Francisco pours into the homeless problem there, the worse the problem becomes!
And in San Francisco, in January 2020, the head of the city’s Public Works department was arrested by the FBI on charges of corruption and recieving bribes:
“The complaint alleges corruption pouring into San Francisco from around the world,” said David Anderson, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, at a news conference Tuesday.
Anderson accused Nuru of “corruption, bribery kickbacks and side deals by one of San Francisco’s highest-ranking public employees.”
Nuru also provided Bovis inside information on specifications for public toilets and homeless shelters so he would have the jump when the contracts went to bid, according to the FBI.
Housing First is not only failing, it’s causing homelessness to get worse across the nation. This should have been quite obvious to government leaders, given that so many people, in fact the majority, have become homeless because of drug addiction. They lost their housing because of an addiction. So if you just give them housing again and dont’ treat the addiction, what do you expect to happen? Right. They will lose their housing again. Which is what is happening with a huge number of the addict homeless given housing. But somehow government leaders could not figure this out, and we’ve all paid the cost, with so much money wasted. Homelessness has increased 15% nationwide since “Housing First” was implemented.
In that one you’ll see Andy Bales, of Skid Row’s Union Rescue Mission, and HUD Secretary Ben Carson, both saying that Housing First doesn’t work. “Housing should be second
It’s an often-repeated mantra among the city leaders and advocates for the homeless, that “the solution to homelessness is housing.” As I’ve shown in many of the articles on this site, however, this viewpoint is overly simplistic, as it fails to take account of the fact that a great number of people have ended up homeless because of problems that housing alone wont’ solve — such as drug addiction, serious mental illness, or criminal behavior. In fact, as many news stories on this situation have indicated, it’s likely that the large majority of those who are homeless, have one or more of these kinds of serious problems. Recall the homeless woman in the “Seattle is Dying” news story, who stated that she hadn’t met any homeless person who didn’t have a problem with drugs.
Still, many will argue, that even if homeless people have such additional problems as these, their lot will still be improved by giving them housing, which will increase the stability in their lives and allow them to address the other problems that they have. This may be quite often the case. I think most everyone is likely to do better if they have shelter or housing, as compared to living on the streets.
But it may be the case — and as those who’ve worked in depth with the homeless have seen, and will tell us, if they are honest — it’s not so simple a matter that we collectively face, as just finding a way to give shelter or housing to everyone. Because some people are actually unable to keep the housing that they are given — even if it’s subsidized, and they pay little or no rent.
For instance, in investigating the homeless situation in Los Angeles, a reporter there found that it was not uncommon for people to be given housing, only to lose it again in a short amount of time, because they were unable to follow the rules at the site.
For the first time since 2011, he was off the streets.
But within weeks of moving in, he began to break his rental agreement, according to one of the apartment owners who soon issued a “30-Day Notice to Vacate.” It listed nine violations, including drug use, unauthorized guests, vandalism and theft.
“Neighbors are in fear of their safety and belongings,” the co-owner wrote.
Flenoury contested the claim, and his case manager had tried to intervene and help him adjust to his apartment. But he couldn’t monitor his behavior every day. There was a fine line between being helpful and being intrusive.
Within days of receiving the letter, Flenoury was picked up by the LAPD and later convicted of failing to register with local law enforcement as a sex offender. He had gone from his new apartment to Men’s Central Jail.
He served 180 days, according to the Sheriff’s Department, and then was back on the street.
Another similar story is told about others recently taken off the streets and housed in Los Angeles:
The biggest problem for Niecy was an ex-boyfriend with a machete.
One night in early January, at a little past 11, she called 911. She said the former boyfriend was banging on her door with a sledgehammer. It turned out to be the machete.
Police arrived. They had gotten to know the apartments well. In the last three months of 2018, the Los Angeles Police Department had responded to 46 reports of suspicious activities at the two buildings, some of them actual complaints including domestic violence, vehicle theft and burglary.
The officers told Niecy to get a restraining order. But she didn’t bother.
A security camera had recorded the incident, and in early February she received a letter from a law firm telling her she had 10 days to move out.
Six weeks later, Dion was on the street as well. He had relinquished his unit after what he said was a fight on the premises. He claimed he had been set up. The People Concern was trying to find him interim housing.
Niecy and Dion had lost a rare opportunity and once again joined the city’s vast community of homeless.
“A major problem with the Housing First policy, according to Graham, is that it focuses solely on giving someone a roof over their head and not allowing for the expectations that enable residents of the Community First! Village to thrive.
A lot of cities are throwing a lot of money at homelessness, trying to solve the problem, but unless they are tracking the effectiveness of their work, such as by keep statistics on whether those to whom they provide housing, are able to stay housed, this money could actually be wasted.
We hear a lot, as well, about people needing “supportive services” to stay in their housing. But this begs the question — how much are the rest of us, taxpayers, expected to spend on people who have so much trouble with such very basic things in life, that even when they are given subsidized housing and barely have to work to pay for it, they still can’t manage to keep it? How much is it fair for us all to be paying for these people, and are there ways of housing them that would be less expensive?
For instance, when I read about these homeless people being housed, it seems that they are always being given an entire, private apartment. This is something that even a lot of people who work for a living aren’t able to afford. So why are those who are not able or willing to work, being given what many people who work hard, are not receiving? Why can’t we house the formerly homeless in rooming houses, why aren’t we constructing SROs for them to live in, which would cost less to build and cost less to house them? Or even less expensive, would be to build shelters or housing where several people could live in each room? These types of living situations would afford people less privacy, it’s true, but who says that people who are so heavily dependent on government aid, should get everything they want? Particularly when many who are given housing will just end up losing it again, I think it would behoove us to spend less on the housing that is offered, and provide something more minimal and basic.
What do we do with those who have least ability to support themselves?
It would behoove us to note, that in all of this consideration of how to house some of the most dependent or least functional people in our society….to be clear that this is the problem. It’s not about some “generic” homeless people that we have to figure out how to help….it’s the problem of what to do with those who seem to have the least ability to help themselves,who have the most unhealthy and/or self-destructive or dysfunctional behavior, the least education and skills… who seem unable to work to support themselves, and who may often lose housing when given housing. In other words, the people at the very bottom of the barrel. What kind of help needs to be given to these people, and what do we have a right to demand of them in exchange for that assistance? At a bare minimum, every kind of shelter or housing has some type of rules, and yet, there are people who are unable to adapt to even the most basic rules…and they are the ones who are likely to stay homeless and “refuse services” or be unable to benefit from assistance or housing.
I suggest that we have not given sufficient thought to this topic…we have expressed the noble ideal of wanting to house everyone, but we have not reckoned with the reality that given the difficulties or problem behaviors that some have, it may actually not be possible to house them. What then?
When they have few other options, some homeless people opt to venture underground to live….into tunnels, caves, heating or sewer ducts. This phenomenon apparently goes beyond the USA, as this video of a man living in an underground duct tunnel just outside of Warsaw, Poland will show:
Why not go into a shelter? Because “alcohol is banned and the timetable is straight.” I suggest some shelters ought to allow alcohol and alcoholics, perhaps while putting these folks into a substance abuse program.
Note the very elaborate construction this man has done to homestead on PUBLIC land: installing doors with spray foam. Painting the walls. Installing $2000 solar panels. Installation of LED lights, shelving, bedframe, much furniture. Use of a propane tank. He’s been living here for SEVEN YEARS on city owned land. He’s a few feet away from a bike path and keeps a loaded revolver by his bedside.
Look at the elaborate construction! It’s admirable what work he’s done there but it must be understood that this is public land and he has no right to appropriate it for private use. A few rare individuals doing this would have little impact, particularly if they are far from roads or trails (this one is NOT far from roads or trails). Yet, the concern is when there are many people doing this, as well as the potential for conflict when the general public goes to use their public lands and find themselves in the midst of an illegal camp there. No one should have to worry about going hiking and accidentally ending up in an illegal squat on public land. Also….there are environmental issues…eg where does his waste and trash go?
When people are desperate for a place to live, and are not being cared for as they should be by our state and federal government, and given shelter and/or housing, and then when they take shelter in public places, all sorts of “collateral damage” occurs. There’s blight, nuisance, piles of garbage, rats attracted to the garbage, human waste on the sidewalk, drug addiction out in the open, crime to support the drug addiction, bike chop shops set up in sidewalk tent camps, crazy and violent behavior in camps that endangers the city residents and other homeless, very negative impacts on our parks and other public spaces, threats to the viability of community businesses, security risks and personal safety risks for both the homeless and housed, and the danger of fires and disease.
And now, there’s the problem of “predatory landlords” . This new problem comes into the picture when people start making a business out of “renting” a new form of “housing” to the homeless, which is not really housing, and not really legal. These “landlords” are renting often direlect, sometimes inoperational vehicles parked on public streets, to people who are desperate for shelter and may have no other viable option.
The RV Landlord in this case, Richard Winn, thinks of himself as “a decent landlord”, though truth be told he doesn’t give the keys to his “properties” to his tenants, as he’s afraid they might drive away with them. Also, his tenants cannot use the facilities in the RVs, but are required to poop in a bag.
Winn never gave residents keys to their units. Tenants were not to use the toilets. If they did, Winn asked them to put their waste in a bag.
And sometimes Winn disabled the power, because his tenants might drive away. All of his units were RVs scattered along the side and main streets in the industrial neighborhoods of north Seattle.
“The homeless, you know, they’ll take advantage of you if you don’t keep things straight,” said Winn, 63.
That kind of landlording would, in any typical rental situation, be shut down in a heartbeat. And Seattle is starting to sit up and take notice about this situation.
But what Winn calls benevolence, the city of Seattle would label predatory, because his tenants are beyond the reach of city and state tenant protections.Many of the RVs on Seattle’s streets are in extreme disrepair, creating eyesores and serious environmental and health hazards in neighborhoods across the city, drawing anger from business owners and residents alike.
Another “vehicle rancher” in Seattle named Thiago Cross has bought RVs for as little as $1 each at the tow yard, and recycles these, hauling them out to the street and renting them, often to only end up seeing the very same tow company towing them back to the very same tow lot, a cycle that results in more deterioration in the vehicle over time. The tow company owner said he’s had employees get bedbugs from going inside these vehicles so he no longer allows them to do that.
In Venice, California, there’s a man termed a “Vanlord” who buys direlict vans and rents those out to people to live in:
And:
He himself lives in a van on the streets of Venice. Venice homeowners are not happy with this arrangement, particularly as some of these vans are inoperable.
The same situation is occurring in Silicon Valley, where RV landlords are renting out RVs parked on the public streets to people to live in:
The going rate for renting someone’s direlict RV or van, seems to range from $300 to $500 a month. But that comes at great risk…not getting the keys to the property, and if the home ends up “towed”, these tenants can’t even get their property out of the vehicle until the vehicle owner comes to help them.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is taking aim at those RVs and vehicles, specifically a practice known as “car-ranching,” where a “predatory landlord,” according to the city, will buy a towed vehicle at auction for cheap, and rent it to a homeless person or family.
“We have an obligation to protect public health and ensure that our neighbors are not living in inhumane conditions. And we will hold accountable those who prey on vulnerable people for profit,” Durkan said in the news release.
The deeper problem is that, ultimately, all forms of living on the sidewalks and streets are unsafe, improper, and pose public health and safety risks to all of us. Whether people are living in tents or in plywood boxes, in RVs or vans or trailers, all of this is unhealthy and dangerous and all of it needs to be banned, which cities will have a hard time doing until our government gets serious about building enough shelters (or UN-style refugee camps) for those who need shelter.
the City Attorney began talking about the need for the city to have a “FEMA type general” to oversee the homeless situation there, and this is the first talk I’ve heard about high level coordination, which I’ve been arguing for years is needed. We need this situation organized as we would have the UN organize shelter for those whose homes were destroyed in a massive fire, flood or earthquake. The situation is similar in many respects to a natural disaster and we can and should respond the same way.
Among the causes of homelessness, are the increasing cost of housing, together with the greater scarcity of housing. I don’t think this is the largest cause of homelessness, but I do believe that the housing problems we see will worsen, if we don’t take action to mitigate them, and increasing homelessness will be one result of that.
The housing crisis and the affordability crisis that we see in the Bay Area, are spreading to other parts of the country, while worsening here, as these articles indicate:
If we had a static or slowly growing population, the housing that presently exists would be sufficient, as younger people or those moving to a region, would just be able to take the housing left by those passing away or moving on. If we think about it, it’s really only the fact that population is growing more quickly than our housing stock is growing, that is leading to crises in housing and in affordable housing. Yes the problem is worse in areas which are more popular, and draw more newcomers, like coastal California. But as the Los Angeles Times story above indicates, this crisis is likely to spread throughout the nation.
With overpopulation, there will be crises in all the resources needed by the population. We may imagine food or water shortages as the worst, but what we are seeing now with scarcity of housing, and its consequent rise in cost, is part of this same scenario. Even if we had no entering immigrants, we would be facing a crisis, as the resources of the earth are limited, the space to build housing is limited. But we are seeing large numbers of immigrants arriving, and we may see many more as Central American nations and African nations continue to fail and their residents migrate to other parts of the world. In fact, as this article indicates, US population growth is largely caused by migration: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/world-s-population-could-swell-10-9-billion-2100-u-ncna1017791
If we took a common sense approach and used available resources as our yardstick, and refused to allow resources to be overused, that alone might lead us to have to drastically cut back on the number of immigrants we allow into the nation. It would also lead us to decline to build many new housing developments, and force us into talking more about population control. All of which we seem reluctant to do…I think primarily because it’s embarassing. Democrats have a fatal flaw in their world view: they are unable to talk about issues which are embarrassing, meaning any issue that suggests a need in behavior or cultural, social change, that does not primarily afflict a white population in the world. Let an issue pertain to any “people of color”, and progressives suddenly cannot talk about it. This problem in even being able to talk aboutissues, is ultimately a problem stemming from the perversity of identity politics, (which we could also call “the politics of extreme self-righteousness”) under which the idea that one can objectively approach and discuss any problem, is being dismissed, in favor of the idea that you can only talk about a certain problem if you have the right identity…if even then. Because if people dont’ like what you are saying, then regardless your “identity”, people will accuse you of being a traitor to that group, and thus, argue that you have no right to speak. In its essence, identity politics is a mad dash to leave all intelligible, coherent and logical arguments behind, and run towards the ad hominem argument as an approach to everything. Under identity politics, nothing depends on logic or good arguments any more…everything depends on the most superficial — and, I would argue, least meaningful — aspects of who we are, such as skin color or gender.
We see this same problem of the inability to face problems, or even mention them, in many places — and the more areas where we have this problem of not even being able to talk about it, the more ineffectual we become — because you absolutely can’t solve a problem that you have decided you can’t even talk about.
Liberals can talk about First World resource use, because the First World nations have white leadership, but can’t talk about overpopulation, because of who’s doing the overpopulating, not rich white people. Liberals can talk about mass shootings, which are largely perpetrated by white males, but can’t talk about street crime, gang violence, murder and property crime plaguing our streets, because of who’s committing the crime — the proportion of black perpetrators of murders and street crime like robbery, carjacking, burglary is overrepresented in nearly every urban center in the US. Liberals can talk about opioid abuse in poor white areas in the south, but apparently not about drug abuse among the homeless, because …well the homeless aren’t all rich and white, or even all poor and white. Liberals apparently can’t talk about problems in Baltimore, or New Orleans, or Detroit…because those problems are related to race. Trump talked about the problems in Baltimore and was called “racist” for doing so, even though the things he said had been said by representative Elijah Cummings himself, when he referred to the legions of drug addicts roaming Baltimore streets as “zombies”:
This is untenable and it’s not sustainable, this idea from identity politics that truth depends on who is saying it, that a fact can be true if a black person says it but is sheer racism if a white person says the exact same thing, or that some are not allowed to say things that others are permitted to say. It’s pure insanity, and if we continue in this direction we will indeed prevent ourselves from being able to solve, much less even address, the very serious issues facing us.
I am afraid this “fatal flaw” of being embarrassed to talk about so many things, will be fatal not only in Democrat’s political prospects, but will actually result in mass fatalities as we continue to ignore the disaster developing in plain sight.
We may look around us in the US, at all the open land, and reason that there is still a vast amount of space where we could build housing. But we’ve seen many reasons why we cannot or should not build housing or communities — some areas are flood prone, others are fire prone, and most critically for the future…..many areas do not have water to sustain communities — this is true in the Midwest, the Southwest of the US, and we are seeing it happen in a shocking way in Chennai, India, a city of 9 million which is running out of water, and where water has to be delivered daily in fleets of trucks: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/06/28/major-indian-city-runs-out-water-million-people-pray-rain/
Zimbabwe also has areas running out of water: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/world/africa/zimbabwe-water-crisis.html
Cape Town, South Africa also had to ration water recently, as shown in this YouTube video, and a man who had a car wash business was put out of business when it became illegal to use water for anything but drinking.
That New York Times article does not in my view take the issue seriously enough, and looks for technological ways out of the problem, unwilling to name the obvious issue: overpopulation. They end the article with some words about better “water management”.
This YouTube video by USA Today does better on that:
Note the Indian authority saying about the water crisis: “It would be an understatement to call it serious.” In India, groundwater depletion has been building for several decades, and little has been done about this problem. What will happen when parts of India completely run out of water? If we think we have a “refugee crisis” now, or a “homeless crisis” now, consider that scenario.
The world’s land and water resources are being exploited at “unprecedented rates,” a new United Nations report warns, which combined with climate change is putting dire pressure on the ability of humanity to feed itself.
The report, prepared by more than 100 experts from 52 countries and released in summary form in Geneva on Thursday, found that the window to address the threat is closing rapidly. A half-billion people already live in places turning into desert, and soil is being lost between 10 and 100 times faster than it is forming, according to the report.
Climate change will make those threats even worse, as floods, drought, storms and other types of extreme weather threaten to disrupt, and over time shrink, the global food supply. Already, more than 10 percent of the world’s population remains undernourished, and some authors of the report warned in interviews that food shortages could lead to an increase in cross-border migration.
And yet, it’s of concern that in this article too, the author completely fails to even mentionoverpopulation as a part of the problem, if not the primary cause of these problems! The article points to “institutional changes” and “cutting emissions”, but those things cannot save us from the serious problems created by runaway global population.
This is, if we look at it seriously, far more than a “housing” issue. It’s far more than a “housing” crisis that we have on the horizon. The “housing” issue that we are seeing is just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s actually quite likely the most manageable and least serious of the results of overpopulation.
It’s my contention that none of these “crises” we are facing, whether of food or water, or homes, or affordable housing, should come as a surprise to us, if we had been paying attention all along. It’s the fact that our government leaders are incapableof paying attentionto the growing signs of crisis, incapable indeed of even talking aboutany “embarassing” problem, and/or incapable of imagining the consequences of shortsighted policies (such as the release of those with serious mental illness into the streets, without a structure in place to provide care for them), that is hurdling us headlong into a dire future.
The 20 nations with the fastest growing populations are these, as reported on this website: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-20-countries-with-the-highest-population-growth.html
7 of those are in the Middle East, the other 13 are in Africa. I think it’s because the areas with the highest population growth are all in nations of “people of color” or Third World nations, that liberals have a very hard time facing this problem head on. The articles I read tend to sidestep or minimize the problem, by pointing out for instance that we in the First World nations are bigger resource hogs than those living in Third World countries. This is true to some extent, but that is irrelevant when Africa has another famine, or runs out of water in another nation. It’s also less relevant when we see floods of Africans migrating to or trying to migrate to First World countries, like Europe. When more of the population shifts from Third to First world nations, resource use will correspondingly increase.
Let’s act before we literally die of embarassment, eg, die because we are too embarassed to talk about a problem that is gradually killing us. Just as we would criticize a farmer who kept putting more cattle to pasture on rangeland than the land could support, we have to be critical of people who have more children than they can support, than their land or nation can support. It’s lovely to have children, but it’s cruel to have children irresponsibly. We appreciate and may call “compassionate” the neighbor woman who takes in stray or unwanted animals, as long as she is taking in a reasonable number that she can care for. Two or three or five stray cats is fine. But when she takes in two or three hundred stray cats, and we have to call the police and fire department because of the stench, and they find her living in horrible conditions amid cat poop and cat corpses around the house, that kind of “compassion” is not compassion, it’s mental illness.
Also, trying to expand where we build housing by continually expanding into natural areas deprives wild animals of the space they need to live, and we are driving many species to extinction already. We are grasping only much too late, the consequences of destroying vast forests. The Amazon forest is being destroyed for farmland…why? Because of overpopulation…more farmers, therefore more of a need for more land for more agricultre. It should not be hard to use simple logic and conclude that at that rate, there will eventually be no forests left at all. Forests used to cover Britain, but they were mowed down starting 6000 years ago, to make way for agriculture, and later, to meet timber needs of the first World War.
All of these shortages, in food or water or housing, are all warning signs, the “canary in the gold mine” that we ignore at our peril. We should not wait until we run into food and water scarcities in more areas of the world, or in the US, until we realize we need to do something to mitigate the growth of population.
What happens when people don’t heed the warning signs and make efforts to curb population growth and excess use of limited resources?
Just as I believe it’s wrong to “solve” the homeless problem on the backs of neighborhoods, by continuing to do nothing and allow homeless encampments to cause serious problems in one neighborhood after another across the nation, I also believe it’s wrong to try to “solve” the consequences of overpopulation by imposing its consequences on cities and nations which are not causing the problem. Overpopulation and excessive use of resources needs to be addressed precisely where it is occurring — for instance, India has a very severe shortage of water which will in a short amount of time put hundreds of millions of lives at risk — https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/india/india-water-crisis-intl-hnk/index.html
rather than accomodated by allowing people fleeing broken nations to migrate as refugees into other nations, where they will continue to cause the same problems as those that lead to the fall of their home country. Even if other nations were willing to take some refugees, it’s not feasible for neighboring nations, much less more distant ones, to take hundreds of millions of refugees, on the drop of a dime, when India finally runs out of water.
India’s water problem is largely caused by overpopulation. As the article states:
India’s population is outgrowing its water supply. India is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous country in less than a decade — and by 2050 it will have added 416 million urban residents, according to the UN. Years of rapid urbanization with little infrastructure planning means most cities are ill equipped to handle the additional population stress. Demand for water will reach twice the available supply by 2030, the UN report said — placing hundreds of millions of lives in danger.
Hence, I believe in addressing the consequences of overpopulation in much the same way we would address a pandemic of infectious disease: by quarantine. The 20 nations where population is growing most rapidly — including many which have the least resources to provide for even a stable population — should be forced to solve their crisis, or die of it, rather than spread their problem across the globe. Give financial and structural aid to these nations to reduce population and more wisely use resources, but if even after receiving such help, these nations fail to mitigate their problems, then let them reap what they have sowed.
In our nation, at least at present, housing is the main crisis we face due to overpopulation. We can and should take steps to reduce the growth of our national population, by greatly curbing immigration, since that is the main driver of population growth.
To mitigate the tendency of affordable housing scarcity to lead to homelessness, we need to do more than simply amp up the status quo. Simply building more over-large, expensive single family homes will not help. We need more housing, and we need less expensive housing, meaning that we need to design housing in new ways so that its cost can be brought down. Changes to zoning codes to allow smaller homes, reducing the burden of elaborate building codes and requirements, reducing permit fees, and recognizing that one of the most affordable types of housing is the rooming or boarding house, may help us head in a better direction.
And for God’s sake start talking seriously about the overpopulation problem.
Did you know…
That there have been many homes and businesses damaged due to fires that began in homeless encampments? Including at least one Oakland home, in fire that began in a homeless camp behind it, and one Oakland business lost its warehouse in a fire that also began in a homeless camp behind it.
That there were 196 homeless camp fires in Oakland in a 19 month period between January 2017 and July 2018?
That there were 300 homeless camp fires in the city of Colorado Springs in 2018?
That over 50% of all vegetation fires in Contra Costa County are said to have their origins in homeless encampments?
I didn’t know these things, until I did some research into fires originating in homeless camps in the East Bay, and beyond.
This film highlights the dangers associated with homeless encampments, and goes chronologically through a series of news reports of fires and violent crimes and mysterious deaths associated with East Bay homeless camps.
Update:
A 2016 Berkeley Fire Dept. report stated we had 92 fires in 2016 designated in “Structures by Fixed Property use Occupancy” and Berkeley’s current population is 122,324. Of the 244 total fires recorded in 2016, 92 fires are permanent structure related.
As of today, we have 20-30 fires attributed to RVs and encampments over the first 6 months of 2019. Berkeley is on pace to have approx. 50-60 fires by the end of PEAK WILDFIRE SEASON in the coming months. With an estimated 1000-1200 homeless people in encampments, RVs/campers/Vans/School busses and based on current fires logged in Berkeley for this specific population segment. There is an overwhelming and disproportionate share of uncontrolled fires attributed to the RVs,/Campers and encampments in Berkeley that poses a very important threat to our public safety in the coming months and years. If Berkeley continues on its 2019 trends there will be 60 encampment and RV fires by the end of 2019.
Therefore, permanent structures accounted for 37.7% of the fires, encampments/RVs accounted for 24.5% of the fires and the remainder eg. grass, dumpster and freeway fires accounted for 37.8% of the fires.
It is also likely that a large percentage of the dumpster and garbage fires are also started by the carelessness of individuals who may be living in the encampments as shown in the local news over the past year. Therefore, we are likely underestimating the fires and of course the resources and staffing required to manage/control these fires.
Why would we want to have RVs/Campers and encampments in our town without some fire safety and regulatory standards in place? Why? Why? Why? Safety Regulations are established to protect society. The next large catastrophic fire can and will be on the hands of City Council and the individual members of Council who can and will be held legally and financially accountable for the tragic loss of property and life in the coming years, if they do not act now to tackle the RV/Camper and encampment issues in our community.
Using the City of Berkeley’s own Homeless Survey from 2017 results; of the 303 individuals surveyed, 105 individuals or 35.6% came to Berkeley for purposes of accessing our homeless services and/or benefits offered. 23.8% of these individuals came from outside of Alameda county and/or out of state. Berkeley is a vacation destination for this countries homeless and RV dwelling populations.
The guiding principles of Sovereign Immunity will not protect them if they knowingly are allowing hazardous conditions and violations of city, county, state and even Federal laws from being broken to appease the 1000-1200 people living in RVs and encampments and creating the next firestorm of catastrophic proportions.
Should we start advertising in Winter cold weather locations about how great our homeless services are here in Berkeley?
Slogan: Come to Berkeley, don’t spend a dime; we will give you a dime bag! Please enjoy the carefree living and sunshine tax free, registration free and regulation free!
City of Berkeley, please stop absconding with are scarce resources, keep our streets safe from crime, fires and pave our streets now. NO MORE TAX MEASURES until you fix what you broke…….and overlooked your fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers and homeowners, renters, and taxpayers of Berkeley.
Hear, hear!!
UPDATES: More fires at homeless camps in the East Bay.
Fire at camp near Home Depot in Oakland. Sept 9 2019
Fire at camp in Oakland on East 12th street. October 8 2019
This article https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/election/local-election/article239996098.html
states that ” since the beginning of the year Fresno fire crews have responded to 435 fires — of which 187 were related to homeless people.” As there are 1152 homeless in Fresno, with a total city population of 534,093, this means that 43% of Fresno’s fires are caused by 0.2% of the population. Doing the math on that, implies that 187/0.002 rate of homeless fires vs 248/.998 rate of all other fires, homeless cause 376 TIMES MORE FIRESthan all others combined!! I expect this is true for many cities other than Fresno.
This video was created to give people a sense of the impact of homeless encampments, both tent camps and vehicle-dweller camps, in the inner East Bay, in the cities of Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland, which is where the greatest concentration of homeless individuals can be found in Alameda County.
I present “drive-by” views of these parts of the cities where the camps are located, and add in news commentary about particular camp locations, and critiques of city government response to this issue.
I also add commentary addressing the fact that, in spite of overwhelming evidence that what we are really dealing with, in most cases, is a drug addiction problem, city leaders and agencies continue to refer to this as a homeless or “housing” problem.
I have added some humor as the misrepresentations on this topic, as well as the colossal failure of many city governments to take effective action on the problem, create a situation ripe for satire and irony.
Throughout the West Coast urban centers, liberal city leaders from San Diego to Seattle have taken an overtolerant response to the proliferation of camping on city sidewalks and vehicle dwelling on city streets, as well as a dangerously overtolerant approach to use of illegal drugs and open drug use and drug dealing on city streets. This problem is described in this Fox News video:
In the video, at 5 minutes in, a Los Angeles business owner, whose family has owned the same business in downtown Los Angeles for over 100 years, describes the appalling conditions on the streets around her business, and the city’s complete failure to respond in any way at all to her communications of concern and pleas for help.
San Francisco is in much the same situation, if not worse in some respects than Los Angeles, and a website called www.openthebooks.com has mapped out instances of reports of human waste and hypodermic needles on the streets of San Francisco from 2011 to 2019. The visuals are staggering, and show a city map completely browned out by feces.
The map of hypodermic needles shows the same thing…a city buried in red.
There is no reason why the horrendous and dangerous conditions found on city streets in Los Angeles and San Francisco, could not expand and grow larger in East Bay cities like Berkeley and Oakland as well, if city leaders continue to fail to take seriously the public health and safety dangers posed by drug addicts and other homeless individuals camping on streets and sidewalks of our cities.
Liberal city leaders often talk of wanting to take a “compassionate” approach to “the homeless”…but there’s no compassion in allowing drug addicts to slowly kill themselves living in their own filth, while being enabled to create dangerous conditions in the surrounding community. Nor is there any compassion at all in demanding that ordinary city residents and businesses simply tolerate these increasingly intolerable conditions.
The film shows footage of the large homeless camps located adjacent to the Home Depot stores in Oakland and Emeryville. Home Depot officials have complained to these 2 cities many times about these camps, which are causing heavily negative impacts upon their businesses. In spite of huge problems with break ins into the stores, and into customer’s cars, with items stolen from the stores clearly seen in the camps, and evidence of drug use in the hundreds of hypodermic needles found in both camps on a regular basis, both Oakland and Emeryville have utterly failed to protect these stores and their customers by clearing out the camps. Home Depot has had to result to multiple threats to pull their stores out of these 2 cities.
It’s unconscionable that it has taken SO much effort by Home Depot for the city to get off its rear end and take action on these incredible nuisances, full of garbage, drugs, and criminal activity. It’s appalling — really insane — that the city has basically sanctioned a camp full of criminals to locate itself, for many months, right next to a business that it constantly preys upon. The city should be sued up the wazoo for such negligence.
It’s pretty clear to many (see this post about the horrendous situation in Seattle and Los Angeles) that many West Coast cities are doing a terrible job trying to “fix” the homeless situation. In essence, city leaders have been unable to even begin to implement a plan on developing appropriate shelter for thousands of homeless. They also lack spine, worry too much about appearing to be “anti-homeless” in their policies on encampments, and so they passively allow nuisance encampments to proliferate through their cities, resulting in intolerable nuisance and negative impacts on businesses and residents.
Some businesses and residents, fed up with the city’s inaction, have begun to try to protect themselves from the serious negative impacts of large homeless camps just outside their front doors, by installing a variety of what might be termed “anti-homeless architecture”. This Los Angeles Times article explores this:
Property owners, business owners and neighbors should not be even put in this situation. They should not be forced to try to protect themselves, and deter nuisance occurring right in front of or adjacent to their homes or businesses. This is what law is supposed to do, this is what police are supposed to do, this is what city government is supposed to do. But when it comes to the homeless mess in major urban areas on the West Coast, cities just cannot seem to take effective action. They hum and haw, they say the “right” things, the “nice” things, they say they want more housing, whatever — but they can’t manage to stop squalid camps, (many of which are drug addict camps) from popping up all over the city, in front of people’s businesses. The more money they throw at the problem, the more homeless they get. City leaders like San Francisco’s London Breed don’t seem to realize that money won’t solve this problem — in fact money may be causing the problem. The number of homeless in San Francisco increased 30% over the last two years. It’s better ideas, effective ideas, the ability to say “no” to nuisance, and spine which are needed.
So, property owners employ large, heavy planter boxes, rocks, cactii, fences and more to either discourage or prevent people camping right outside their property. And this seems to be working for them, for the most part. It is apparently far more effective to simply take one day or a week to install anti-homeless architecture, than to make over 300 calls to the city pleading with them to clean up the nuisance, only to get no help at all from city agencies.
I find it highly ironic that city leaders in Los Angeles, when interviewed about this issue, state that the barricades these property owners are putting up are illegal, and are blocking a public right of way.
…city spokeswoman Elena Stern said:
“The city will continue to cite illegal fencing and planters that restrict … the public right of way,” she said.
This is ironic because if the barricades had not been placed in these locations, it’s very likely the “public right of way” would instead be obstructed by tents and the piles of debris and garbage generally associated with homeless camps. And, apparently, the city would notcite these campers for obstructing the public right of way. So, in my view, you can’t have it both ways. Either obstructing the public right of way is not allowed, and no one gets to do it, and anyone so obstructing the way is cited, or anyone can obstruct the public right of way and no one is cited. You can’t apply the same law in different ways to different populations — that would be blatantly discriminatory.
But the politics of any “anti-homeless architecture” are certainly controversial, making this method of solving the city’s problems, a difficult one to utilize in regions where it’s easy to encourage the masses to hate on someone by referring to them as “anti-homeless.”
In San Francisco, a restaurant in the Castro received a great deal of negative flack just based on the mere suspicion that a “rainbow rock” placed in a nook outside the restaurant, was secretly intended to be a “homeless blocker.”
The angry reaction to this colorful rock was, as represented in a Tweet which has since been deleted, “When you wanna look inclusive but hate homeless people.”
In the point of view expressed in that response, it seems that no one is allowed to do anything to mitigate problems caused by homeless camping (or even just random drug addicts sprawled on the sidewalk), even if this is occurring right up against their business, because to take action would be “hate.” Yet, the question is….what would be your attitude towards your own customers, if they complain about having to step around people sprawled on the sidewalk just outside, and you were to sneer at them? I would say that as a business person, it would be better not to “hate” your customers, but take their concerns seriously. And I would also say that arguing that homeless people belong in shelters or city or state run camps, rather than spread across the sidewalks of a city, is not “hate”, it is compassion and it is a much more reasonable approach than many of our city leaders are taking.
UPDATE:
More and more city residents are having to take matters into their own hands to protect their neighborhoods, their streets and sidewalks from the crime and nuisance caused by drug addicts and homeless campers…most recently, residents of a San Francisco neighborhood trucked in boulders to set on their sidewalks to block tents from being set up there. https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/SF-residents-buy-boulders-place-them-on-sidewalk-14464233.php Now if San Francisco’s city leaders were reasonable people, this would not be necessary for residents to do, as the city would prohibit all camping in public places, and require the homeless to stay in shelters or sleep on sidewalks in areas specifically designated for that activity— say, in front of the city council person’s homes.
Of course, this kind of effort by area residents is controversial in highly liberal areas. So no surprise, this result:
A woman was “offended” by the boulders, and tried to sell them on Craigslist.
Which begs the question, …if this woman thinks she can appropriate and sell other’s property, things they bought, and which they own, but put out in “public space”, why shouldn’t anyone else be able to do the same, and for instance, offer to sell a tent that someone else owns and has set up on a sidewalk, in public space?
The boulders are private property in public space, but so are the tents private property in public space. If you can stick your tent in a public space but at the same time say no one else can take it, than I can put a boulder in a public space and also declare that no one else can take it.
Meanwhile, in Oakland, a business owner in West Oakland got fed up with RV dwellers turning his street into a giant campground. So, using a forklift, he began filling the street with logs. Presto-bingo, no mo RVs right out front!
In Los Angeles, meanwhile, the city has decided that some blockages of public sidewalks are acceptable, but others are not. They’ve fined business owners who put fences out on the sidewalk to block tents from being set up there, which bring nuisance and danger to the area and deter people from patronizing their businesses. But at the same time, they invite homeless to set up tents on those same sidewalks. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/fencing-off-las-homeless/2293442/
This is illegal. You can’t have inbuilt biases in the law which show preference for your preferred individuals, and the city is not permitted to appropriate public sidewalks for use to warehouse its homeless. This action by the city would not stand up if pursued in court.
Berkeley is gradually trying to come up with regulations on RV parking in the city, as well as, apparently, regulations on “house car habitation” meaning living in any sort of vehicle anywhere in the city. Sophie Hahn has proposed a 2-week permit system, where anyone could apply to get a permit to park their RV or other vehicle used for habitation, for no more than 2 weeks in any calendar year, either on the public street, or on the lot of a single family home or duplex (not large apartment building)
If this proposal remains limited to 2 weeks a year as currently indicated, and living in vehicles on city streets or on private property would be otherwise prohibited, this proposal seems somewhat reasonable and would primarily benefit those coming here in RVs and campers to visit friends. I would suggest altering the proposal, however, and disallowing RVs or any vehicle being used for habitation, from parking within say 100 feet of any residential building. This would help prevent RVs from parking IN FRONT of people’s homes, or immediately adjacent to them. They could still park in a residential neighborhood (eg, if visiting friends there) but only in a spot not too close to a house. I would also stipulate that RVs could only park in residential neighborhoods if the RV owner was visiting a friend in that neighborhood (eg, that friend they were visiting would need to also be a signatory for them to get the permit) Otherwise, if they are just a random person traveling through, they would have to park in commercial or industrial districts of the city.
This proposal would not help any of the “homeless” people living in RVs or campers, or long-term vehicle dwellers, currently living on city streets. Because it’s been quite clear that many of these people living in these vehicles on Berkeley streets have lived in them for months or years already, and really want permission to continue to do so, indefinitely into the future, or at least for another quite significant length of time. Getting a permit to park and live in their vehicle on a city street for only 2 weeks in a year isn’t going to help them very much at all, unless they can find a way to game the system and get many 2 week permits per year for the same vehicle with, for instance, different fake owner names.
That said, many Berkeley residents, seeing how “lily livered” the city leaders have already been in standing up to the onslaught of vehicle campers filling up the streets (it was reported that city leaders were unable to evict the campers from the Marina using city employees and Berkeley Police, and instead they leaned on a private organization doing a festival at the Marina to eject the campers), are not confident that the city has the mettle to actually enforce permit limits on RV parking. It’s been rumored that city leaders are considering RV permits for longer amounts of time, such as up to 3 months, which would, if created, essentially make pointless the city’s prohibition on RV parking on city streets.
One would hope that by now, Berkeley City Council members have gained an understanding of the problem that unregulated dwelling in RVs and other vehicles on city streets creates for the city. However, in response to his email to the City Council about this issue, a city resident obtained this reply from Council Member Cheryl Davila which presents concerns about her capacity to understand the problems created by complete lack of regulation on this matter. This was her reply:
Note her inappropriate use of the term “sanctuary city” to refer to Berkeley’s response to RV dwelling. This misuse of the term — actually an abuse of the term — muddles the issue and invites people to believe that they are entitled to live in vehicles on public streets, thinking that Berkeley has created a “sanctuary” for this illegal behavior. In fact the term as used by the city refers to immigrants, not to people living in vehicles.
Some residents are encouraging city leaders, instead of allowing permits for RVs to park for 2 weeks on city streets, to direct RVs and other campers back to the Marina. I heard one resident ask if EBRPD (East Bay Regional Parks District) could be contacted to find out if they could make room for an RV parking area somewhere in the parks. I think these are really very bad ideas, seriously daft, and I’m incredulous that people who do see the problem with growing RV encampments would even suggest them. Public parks used for recreation and play, should neverbe mixed
Homeless tent camp, Allston Way, Google image
with homeless camps. The combination could be fatal to the park. Nearly all homeless camps contain drug addicts, people with serious mental illness, and sex offenders and other criminals. These populations should never be placed in parks where people go to recreate and get away from the stresses of life, next to children’s playgrounds, or on bayfront property with million dollar views. Berkeley’s Aquatic Park, which should be a nice place for families to take their kids, has been suffering from many homeless camps or tents or RV dwellers in the immediate area, as shown here:
In addition, if city and regional parks begin to be used for homeless camps, this could set a very bad precedent. It could even quite inadvertently lead to support for the argument (by government and members of the “homeless industrial complex”, among others) that parks are a luxury, and that housing the homeless is a priority. Given enough time and enough people who are eager to seize the opportunity for “free housing”, it’s quite possible that if we started to go in that direction, of repurposing parks designed for recreation, to be used for homeless camps, that eventually, all city and regional parks, and even parts of state parks and forests and more, could be lost through being transformed into giant homeless/refugee camps.
Homeless camps, if placed anywhere in a city, should be placed in areas where their populations are least likely to cause problems for residents, businesses or others — for instance, as Oakland has done with their new RV parking area, in East Oakland in an industrial area near the coliseum.
Also…a lot of the RVs and campers that otherwise homeless people are living in, are blighted and direlect, and it’s not uncommon for them to catch fire…..
Photos of an RV that burned in an “RV alley” on Grayson Way in Berkeley:
Meanwhile….as the city tries to figure out how to say “no” to the onslaught of vehicle dwellers invading the city, they don’t seem to have any difficulty policing people’s language:
Also, there is a apparently a state bill up for consideration, which would require community colleges to basically allow homeless students to camp on college property.
This seems wrongheaded. I can see homeless people enrolling in community college not to actually go to class, but only to be able to camp indefinitely on college property. When you propose something like this you have to think it completely through, and a lack of ability to think through unintended consequences tends to be the fatal flaw in many progressive policies.
Meanwhile….the city of Oakland is likely to allow the Oakland Home Depot to fence off the dead end street where RVers and tent campers have set up an encampment. The Oakland Home Depot has pleaded with the city for quite a long time to get rid of the encampment, which plagues its business and, they say, some campers living there are stealing from the store. The Home Depot plan is to fence off the street to prevent camping there. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/07/11/home-depot-to-fence-out-rv-dwellers-behind-store/
The Berkeley City Council on July 23rd discussed the matter of seeking an area of land to create a “safe parking site” for RV dwellers, to stay for up to 3 months, while receiving help to find permanent housing.
There were several problematic issues that were revealed in the thinking about this at the meeting.
The Council spent a lot of time talking about whether they should ask the California State lands Commission if they would be open to a request to use part of the Marina for an RV “safe parking site.” In essence, a homeless campground. This is ridiculous on several levels. Only councilmembers Kesarwani, Droste and Wengraf opposed this foolish plan. First, camping at the Marina, much less using it for a homeless campground, is strictly prohibited by state law. This was true throughout the nearly 2 years during which the city of Berkeley irreponsibly chose to fail to enforce this law and allow RV dwellers to camp at the Marina. Second, it took a great amount of work to finally extract the illegal RV campers from the Marina. To consider returning them there again is foolish and offends all those who were negatively impacted by their previous illegal encampments there — the DoubleTree hotel, HS Lordships, the boat owners, and all parkgoers who don’t want to be confronted with a homeless camp and garbage, drug addicts and harassment when they go to their public parks. Third, the Berkeley City Council is not “innocently seeking information” by asking this of the State Lands Commission, by arguing that “there is a homeless crisis.” It is not okay to legitimize any offensive or irresponsible action, on the basis that “there is a homeless crisis.” In fact, as many of us are are aware, it’s much less likely that what we see occurring on the streets around us represents ” a homeless crisis” as much as a drug addiction and mental illness crisis. So let’s quit using this “homeless crisis” argument, to justify outrageous and irresponsible actions.
It is not “innocent” to consider using the Berkeley marina, the crown jewel of the city, for a homeless camp. It’s been made very clear to the city that they have a financial problem at the Marina due to their negligence in attending to development of this gorgeous area. As Wengraf and Kesarwani made clear, and as should be quite obvious, they will not get a new tenant for the HS Lordships site, if they use the Marina for a homeless camp. Not gonna happen.
Just as one would not propose to “innocently” ask the National Park Service for permission to set up a homeless camp in Yosemite Valley, or low-income affordable housing in Tuolumne meadows on Tioga Rd or along Glacier Point Drive, “because there is a homeless crisis”, so likewise we don’t ever consider putting homeless camps in gorgeous parkland. Never. Fourth, Berkeley is already doing more than its share in providing shelter and services for homeless individuals. There are a much higher number of homeless people in Berkeley, compared to other similarly sized or larger sized cities in the region. Cities need to do their part and serve their share of Bay Area homeless. Enough with the nonsense that homeless people can migrate to their favorite city and plop down there and demand services, shelter and housing and be catered to by nincompoop city government who are unable to say no. Fifth, if you listened to the RV dwellers and their advocates speak at the meeting, you would have realized that all of them were advocating for the right to live indefinitely on public streets, or somewhere in Berkeley. None demonstrated that they had accepted the reality that Berkeley intends to ban RV parking on public streets. So, it’s not clear that even one single RV dweller would benefit even if Berkeley did set up a “safe RV Parking site” somewhere in the city (but, let’s be honest, we are talking about camping, not parking). Because what Berkeley has been talking about offering is a 3 month transitional stay while they help people find other housing. None of the RV dwellers want to go anywhere outside of Berkeley. Sixth, since Berkeley has stated it will not enforce the RV ban (passed in March 2019) until it sets up an RV permit system, all the RV dwellers currently living on public streets in Berkeley, have already had more than 3 months to continue to live on the streets. Why have they not used this time to seek viable permanent housing somewhere other than in an RV on Berkeley streets? If they need help doing so, why have they not partaken of Berkeley’s many homeless services agencies to do so? Are they so helpless that they cannot do this unless the city sits them down and spoon feeds them?
All these things put together leave the distinct impression that Berkeley is not serious about limiting RV dwellers to 3 months’ transitional time while helping them seek viable housing elsewhere, and that RVers sense this and are geared up to capitalize on the city’s inability to draw firm boundaries and enforce basic quality of life laws. I can easily imagine that after creating a “safe parking [sic] site”, and stating that they will allow RVers to stay there for 3 months, they will then announce “oh my, oh dear, we have a homelessness crisis, so we have to allow people to live here longer until we can provide housing for….well…however many thousand want to show up in the city!”
People living in a vehicle, have something that people living in tents do not have…namely, the ability to move to a place where it’s appropriate to live in a vehicle. City leaders need to start having some spine and point this out.
Berkeley may have a “safe parking” site for 20 RVs up and running by Nov. 1, City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley said at a town hall meeting Sunday.
Berkeley is currently negotiating for more than one site and talks are advancing, she told a crowd of more than 100 people who gathered at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Harrison Street complex. City Councilwoman Rashi Kesarwani had convened the ‘Homelessness in West Berkeley’ gathering. City Councilwoman Cheryl Davila and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson were also there.
The city is not yet ready to announce the location or details of the sites, Mayor Jesse Arreguín told Berkeleyside in an email. He did say the safe sites will not be at the waterfront, however. In addition to these sites, owned by private property owners, the City Council will consider a proposal Tuesday to allow eight to 10 RVs to stay on a city-owned site at 1281 University Ave. (at Bonar)….
When Berkeley opens up its RV safe parking program, people will be allowed to stay for as long as three months. Other RVs will have to find somewhere other than city streets to park overnight. But enforcing that ban will not be a priority for police, Williams-Ridley said. Officers are more concerned about solving major crimes. So the city will mostly respond to complaints about RV overnight parking.
“We will not have a designated enforcement team driving around,” said Lt. Kevin Schofield
What do the RV dwellers and homeless campers think about Berkeley and other cities’ approaches to regulating camping in public places?
This post on the First They Came for the Homeless Facebook page gives a clue to the profoundly misguided viewpoints of some persons associated with FTCFTH. They consistently misinterpret Martin vs Boise case and believe they have a constitutional right to permanently camp anywhere on public land…essentially the upshot of the view presented here seems to be that any and all public land should be open for permanent homesteading. There seems little capacity, in ideas like those presented below by Mr. Martinot, to imagine the consequences of such views:
This post is just to highlight some vitally important news stories on the problems created in West Coast urban centers by homeless camps, drug addiction and the spread of infectious diseases at a level not seen since medieval ages in Europe. This is occurring in major cities on the West Coast but also, increasingly, throughout the US:
First, the excellent film “Seattle is Dying”
Then, a similar one called “Paradise Lost: Homeless in Los Angeles” created by the same Seattle Journalist, Eric Johnson of KOMO news:
“we have not seen conditions like this for humans since medieval times…tuberculosis is exploding…hepatitis….typhus..typhoid fever…bubonic plague is likely already present in LA…an army of rats millions strong has overthrown Los Angeles….they have infested city hall…the LAPD station in downtown LA was fined by the state for rodent infestation…two employees have been infected by typhus….cops have been diagnosed with typhoid fever, hepatitis A and staph….skid row has been in LA for a long time,but not like this, never like this…there are over 1000 registered sex offenders on the streets of skid row….one service worker, while delivering water to the people he serves on the street, contracted staph, e coli and strep…it cost him his leg. “
When there are not enough homeless shelters to house all the homeless in a given region, we’ve seen that they tend to spill out all over the sidewalks of cities, setting up tents wherever they can.
Another consequence of the lack of shelter space and adequate policy on homelessness, is that homeless people, drug addicts, and those with serious mental illness, tend to spend their days in libraries and on local subways. These places then become “de facto” homeless shelters and psych wards, due to the ever increasing number of homeless and mentally ill persons essentially “living” in libraries and trains.
There’s people in the Bay Area who don’t have any homes, so they just ride the trains,” said BART spokesman Jim Allison. “Are they living in the transit system? Well, that’s subjective.”
As homelessness surges across the Bay Area, signs of abject poverty are becoming visible on transit systems — especially BART, where commuters mingle uneasily with transients seeking shelter on the trains. The problem has flummoxed an agency, dominated by engineers who specialize in infrastructure, that now has to provide social services. The late-night sweeps that used to largely catch bleary-eyed partygoers and beer-sodden sports fans are now almost exclusively for the homeless.
After years of decline, New York’s subway is showing signs of improvement, with the percentage of trains running on time creeping upward.
But at least one area is getting worse: disruptions involving homeless people.
Trains were delayed 659 times last year by homeless people walking on tracks, blocking train doors and engaging in other unruly behavior — a 54 percent increase from the 428 such delays in 2014, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subway.
And the disruptions have continued to escalate this year, with 313 train delays in the first three months.
I try to avoid riding the BART subway whenever possible, in large part because BART has felt increasingly dangerous. Not only have numerous people been robbed while riding BART, but every time I ride the train, there is at least one homeless and/or crazy person aboard the car, if not more than one. Given the increased possibility of bed bugs, lice and other vermin among the homeless, as well as the spread of diseases like typhus and hepatitis A among the homeless, I prefer to avoid contacting areas — such as train seats — where homeless people have been sitting.
Los Angeles recently experienced an outbreak of typhus—a disease spread by infected fleas on rats and other animals—in downtown streets. Officials briefly closed part of City Hall after reporting that rodents had invaded the building.People in Washington State have been infected with Shigella bacteria, which is spread through feces and causes the diarrheal disease shigellosis, as well as Bartonella quintana, or trench fever, which spreads through body lice.*
Hepatitis A, also spread primarily through feces, infected more than 1,000 people in Southern California in the past two years. The disease also has erupted in New Mexico, Ohio, and Kentucky, primarily among people who are homeless or use drugs.
The last time I rode on BART, I went into the car and saw a crazy person talking to himself about 5 seats away. Then I turned and looked at the person sitting next to me, who I quickly realized, was also crazy. He began making bizarre sounds and engaging in erratic behavior which frightened me. At one point, he suddenly jumped up and ran to another seat to grab a soda bottle that someone else had just left behind. Score!
One of the two crazies on the BART car:
Like many people, I would like to be able to walk around and ride public transit in my city without being confronted with untreated mental illlness everywhere. I want the area where I live to feel safe, and this does not feel safe to me…nor does it feel safe or kind for these homeless individuals or people with mental illness. It is cruel to treat them this way — to in essence force them to use trains to find shelter all day long, because there is no safe secure place for them to go.
This Subway Employee said he’d like to be able to provide clean, safe subway cars for those who have paid to ride
A new article on this topic appearing Sept 5 2019:
“Homeless ridership on BART trains has surged in recent months, even as the transit agency has tried to keep its stations from turning into de facto shelters.
More than twice as many apparently homeless people are riding trains on weekends as in 2018, according to newly obtained agency records. The number of homeless people riding trains on weekdays is up nearly 50%.
“The data suggests we’re moving them out of stations and onto trains,” said Debora Allen, a member of BART’s Board of Directors.
On weekdays, longer and more crowded trains caused homeless people to scatter a bit more. Staffers counted an average of 64 transients in every 100 cars during the three-month period this year, compared with 45 last year.
During wet winter months, more homeless people sought refuge on trains. From January through March, 292 were counted for every 100 train cars on weekends, up from 125 last year.
The Chronicle obtained the numbers from BART through a public records request.
Some BART officials interpreted the numbers as evidence that the agency hasn’t reduced the number of transients on the system — it’s only shuffled people around. To others, the data show the magnitude of a crisis that is beyond BART’s ability to handle by itself.
This article also describes the negative impacts upon the BART system caused by homeless who use it as a shelter, as well as similar problems caused to the public library system not just in Berkeley but around the nation.
Many of us who’ve been observing the “homeless” situation in major West Coast cities, including Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle, have realized for quite some time, that the principal problem we are seeing with the tent camps on our streets, is NOT one of “homelessness” but rather one of drug addiction.
See this video for a graphic portrayalof the actual problem we see all over our streets…as contrasted to the fiction that too many government leaders are trying to con us all with, when they claim that these street scenes are caused by a housing issue.
That most of the “homeless” who we see living in tents on sidewalks, freeway offramps, under highways and in other niches around the city, are drug addicts, is indicated by several factors. It’s clear when homeless camps are cleaned up, and hundreds of syringes are found. It’s indicated by watching interviews (eg, as done by news media) of some of these homeless and observing their behavior. It’s clear when many of these individuals openly state they are drug addicts, or when those living in tents say things like “I haven’t met anyone living out on the streets here who is not a drug addict”. It’s clear when those providing services to the homeless, say things such as one Homeless Services worker in San Diego, “I would estimate that 90% of those we work with are drug addicts.” It’s suggested when individuals are unable to account for how they ended up homeless, and when they repeated reject services, and reject shelter that is offered to them. The more squalid and garbage-strewn and out of control their encampment, the less likely it appears to the observer that this is someone who is basically the same as you and I, but simply lost their apartment.
We also have to recognize that those providing services to the homeless and those involved in the “homeless industrial complex” as some like to term it, may be invested in hiding the truth. We have to ask how misrepresenting or even lying about what is going on, on our streets, might benefit some people, some agencies, or some causes. For instance, if we can pretend that everyone who is living in a tent on the sidewalk ended up there because of a “housing crisis” and rising rents, then we can dishonestly use that phenomenon of increasing numbers of homeless in order to put pressure on cities to build more subsidized housing, expand rent control, and campaign for ballot measures for “affordable housing”, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the issues that resulted in these drug addicts sprawled all over the sidewalk. So, telling lies about what is really going on, in our streets, can benefit some pet causes in several ways.
And it’s not only those at the grassroots level who are telling lies. Prominent city leaders are lying about the problem, for instance as Christopher Rufo states in his article on the topic:
In her #SeattleForAll public relations campaign, Mayor Jenny Durkan insists that only one in three homeless people struggle with substance abuse, understating the figures of her own police department as well as the city attorney, who has claimed that the real numbers, just for opioid addiction, rise to 80 percent of the unsheltered.
I submit that this “lying” has been going on for quite some time now, and that the lie is getting increasingly hard to pass as truth because of the increasingly brutal reality of what we see on our streets.
Homelessness is an addiction crisis disguised as a housing crisis. In Seattle, prosecutors and law enforcement recently estimated that the majority of the region’s homeless population is hooked on opioids, including heroin and fentanyl. This lawsuit
by King County Seattle, against several pharmaceutical companies, alleges that these companies “recklessly promoted prescription opioids” with the result that we see filling garbage strewn homeless camps in major cities and small ones, all along the West Coast from the Mexican border north to Canada, as well as in the Heartland and East Coast.
This lawsuit too contains some of the same allegations:
The fact that those we euphemistically term “homeless” are in fact drug addicts, who need large sums of money to buy these illegal drugs, is related to the large amount of crime that cities report is connected to homeless individuals and homeless camps. As stated in Rufo’s article:
West Coast cities are seeing a crime spike associated with homeless opioid addicts. In Seattle, police busted two sophisticated criminal rings engaged in “predatory drug dealing” in homeless encampments (they were found in possession of $20,000 in cash, heroin, firearms, knives, machetes, and a sword). Police believe that “apartments were serving as a base of operations that supplied drugs to the streets, and facilitated the collection and resale of stolen property.” In other words, drug dealers were exploiting homeless addicts and using the city’s maze of illegal encampments as distribution centers. In my own Fremont neighborhood, where property crime has surged 57 percent over the past two years, local business owners have formed a group to monitor a network of RVs that circulate around the area to deal heroin, fentanyl, and methamphetamines. Dealers have become brazen—one recently hung up a spray-painted sign on the side of his RV with the message: “Buy Drugs Here!”
In this Berkeleyside article by Emilie Raguso, Officer Greenwood of the Berkeley POlice Department reported that 28% of all Berkeley crimes were committed by persons designated as “homeless”:
Chief Greenwood, in response to community questions about the difference between Berkeley’s population and the hometowns of arrestees, said about 41% of people arrested in Berkeley, from 2012 through 2017, provided an address out of town. Another 28% were listed as homeless, and the other 30% had Berkeley addresses. For 1% of the 14,363 arrests the city of residence was unknown. Out-of-towners got an even larger percentage of BPD’s citations: 54% compared to 32% of Berkeley residents.
Consider, that the number of homeless in Berkeley is generally around 1000 or 1100 people, out of a total city population of 110,000. This means that 1% of the city population is “homeless”, and yet, 28% of all crime in Berkeley is perpetrated by “homeless” persons. Doing the statistics on that:
28% of crime perpetrated by 1% of the population:
0.28/0.01 = 28
Remaining 72% of crime perpetrated by remaining 99% of population:
0.72/0.99 = 0.7272
Thus the ratio of the rate at which homeless commit crime in Berkeley, compared to non-homeless, is:
28/0.7272 = 38.50
This means that homeless persons commit an astonishing 38.5 times or 3850% more crime than the general population. One can understand this better, if the connection is made that most of the “homeless” are drug addicts, who are compelled to commit crime to obtain things to sell to buy the drugs to feed their habit.
Not only are cities ignoring the problem of massive drug addiction in their midst, but by maintaining overly tolerant and permissive regulations about drug use, they are encouraging drug users to flock to their cities from other parts of the nation where penalties for illegal drug use are greater. For instance, as Rufo points out in his article:
Los Angeles has been cursed, in this sense, with temperate weather, compounded by permissive policies toward public camping and drug consumption that have attracted 20,687 homeless individuals from outside Los Angeles County.
Here’s an interview with a homeless methamphetamine user in Los Angeles:
He is “considering” going into a rehab program.
A Hollywood homeless heroin addict talks about his addiction:
“As long as you dont’ hang out with other homeless you’re okay…I”m addicted to heroin and that’s why I can’t get off the street. I was addicted to pain killers but when the pain killers got too expensive I got into heroin.”
Drug addict homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles talk about how the area is full of heroin:
A Los Angeles police officer talks about how everyone on Skid Row is a drug addict, that these people are not just “homeless”. He points out that several drug dealers “disguise” themselves as homeless and set up their drug dealing out of tents on Skid Row:
A story on drug addiction in Vancouver in the “down and out Eastside”…
A homeless heroin addict in Canada speaks to a YouTube channel journalist:
A woman on a Dr Phil show, “Due to my addiction, I’ve been homeless many times”
A woman goes from being an actress, to being a homeless drug addict:
Everett, WA police officers respond to a heroin overdose every single day.
“Heroin camps” are busted up regularly, but no one is arrested. So it’s a regular endless merry go round of simply moving people around on a chess board but never doing anything to solve the problem:
Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for people under 50:
Homeless camps full of meth addicts in Fresno:
A man points to the homeless camp and says “every one of those people are on heroin or meth, or both.” And he should know….because it turns out, he is the one who sells them their drugs. He actually shows his wares to the journalist. This goes to show the problem with overtolerance of these dangerous drugs. He’s not even afraid of stating right on camera and to the general public that his regular business is selling illegal drugs.
Journalist asks the city worker, “On a typical Saturday, how many syringes do you see?”
He replies, “Twenty to twenty-one thousand.”
At point 7:30 in this video a homeless woman says that “Honestly, after being out here for a long time, I really believe that like 80% of the people are out here because they want to be…either it’s their choice or because of drug abuse….”
Homeless opioid addicts in Philadelphia talk about how there are no services to help them get off the drugs.
A woman tells the story of her son who went from being a rock star to a homeless drug addict:
A young woman who is a heroin addict in Seattle speaks to a YouTube channel journalist. She died about 4 years after doing the interview, at age 27.
People like Sabrina don’t need to be left to be “free” to live on the streets, where they will slowly kill themselves. They deserve our help, and perhaps the best help they could be given is to tighten up our laws on illegal drug use, put them in prison, and save their lives by forcing them into treatment while they are incarcerated.
A film on the explosion of the heroin epidemic in Seattle, brought to us by the same journalist who created the film “Seattle is Dying;”
Photos of a homeless person living on a sidewalk at University and Ninth streets in Berkeley, with garbage and hypodermic needles right beside him — July 2019.
This study can reveal the life in the SROs in places like San Francisco and demonstrates how even those with substance abuse issues who are housed, continue to live a nightmare.
“Of the people in supportive housing in San Francisco, 93% have a major mental illness that we can name. That is very, very high. 80% use cocaine, speed, or heroin every thirty days, or get drunk to the point of unconsciousness.”
Dr. Drew Pinsky, interviewed on this segment, says that “This is a mental health catastrophe….I’ve been out on the streets…100% of people I’ve interacted with have either substance abuse or a major psychiatric disorder.”
A new analysis of homeless in Los Angeles, indicates that, as opposed to the study done by an LA nonprofit which suggested only 29% of homeless had a substance abuse problem, the actual numbers point to 75% of LA homeless having a substance abuse issue.
Whenever the issue of homelessness arises, there is talk of housing and shelter. How to get more of both. How to find/create more ways to shelter the homeless. How to find or create more housing and specifically more affordable housing.
One of the biggest dilemmas in this whole subject, is the fact that while many are hoping for or demanding more “affordable” housing, the cost of building housing is doing nothing but increasing, while the amount of available land to build new housing in the inner Bay Area, is shrinking. Much of the city of Berkeley, as well as Oakland, San Francisco and other cities of the greater Bay Area, is already built out. There is a lot more new housing being built on vacant land in the East Bay from Richmond to Hayward, but there’s a limit to how many units will thus be generated, and how “affordable” they will be. There is more plentiful land outside the Bay Area, but Bay Area homeless and their advocates dont’ want that people should have to move, so the pressure continues on cities to somehow find housing for them closer to where they currently are.
Within this broader issue of discussion of a “housing crisis” and need for more affordable housing, I am seeing more evidence of not only a certain dysfunctionality, but even an unmitigated hostility to ever “smaller” property owners in the East Bay. There are moves by cities in the East Bay and beyond (I’ll mention some issues in Seattle at the end of this article) whereby cities appear to be using illegal means to pass illegal laws. They are essentially bullying small property owners, who are those who have the least access to the legal system to defend themselves: they dont’ qualify for free legal aid as many tenants do, and they do not have the large capital that the larger real estate companies and large scale property owners do.
So even though this topic is not squarely on the topic of homelessness per se, I want to discuss it as it is all quite relevant to the whole housing issue. As well, I find that not enough people know about some of the disturbing trends in both Berkeley and Oakland regarding loss of rights by the smallest of property owners, trends which could in fact imperil some of these owners and make it more difficult for them to retain their own housing.
Some important recent court cases and developments
See these pdf documents for court case documents on recent court cases wherein the city of Oakland has sought to expand controls to single family homes, through the imposition of relocation fees and the claim that rental bedrooms in an owner occupied Single Family Home, are subject to rent control :
In Ballinger vs City of Oakland an Oakland couple sues the city over the unconstitutionality of “relocation payments” to tenants when they seek to move back into their own home. They are being represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, and there is an article about their case here: https://pacificlegal.org/case/ballinger-v-city-of-oakland/
In Owens vs City of Oakland, an Oakland homeowner sues the city over the claim of the RAP (Rent Adjustment Program) that his rental bedrooms are “rental units” and claim that his single family home is no longer a single family home, but in fact a type of apartment building or multifamily dwelling, so that they argue that rent control applies. Whereas Costa Hawkins state law makes it clear, rent control cannot apply to Single Family Homes.
Also in Oakland, the city supported a ballot measure, Measure Y in November 2018, which passed, and removed exemptions from the Just Cause initiative for owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes. This means that owner occupants of such properties can no longer evict problem tenants if none of the official “just causes” for eviction are found to apply. For instance, if the tenant simply bullies the property owner, this would not be sufficient cause to evict. As a result of the passage of Measure Y, predictably, many units were removed from the rental market: the city’s May 7 2019 report from the Finance Department indicates that 79 total owner occupied duplexes and triplexes have been removed from the market and there are indications this is only the beginning and many more of the total 814 owner occupied duplexes and triplexes in Oakland may end up no longer available to any renter as a result of this foolish measure. But this doesn’t stop the city…Oakland is now seeking to expand rent control to owner occupied duplexes and triplexes.
As well, those duplex and triplex owner occupants were voluntarily keeping their rents low…. quite low compared to market rates. Now the city is in effect punishing them for their charitable nature by trying to freeze these rents in place.
The May 7, 2019 agenda report by Katano Kasaine, director of finance, shows that the city can identify owner-occupied duplexes and that it knows the average rent the owners are charging: $2,089—which is between 20% and 40% below the median of $2,500 and $2,999 recently reported by the Bay Area News Group in their “Price We Pay” report.
Also, there are 529 owner-occupied duplexes in Oakland—not 4,000 falsely published in the Oakland City Measures in November 2018 and claimed repeatedly by Leah Simon-Weisberg, the Berkeley lobbyist who wrote Measure Y, which was written specifically to target these owners and take away their right to a time-limited lease. (Noel Gallo and Rebecca Kaplan subsequently forwarded Ms. Simon-Weisberg’s drafts to the City Attorney, though at the time Ms. Leah Simon-Weisberg was violating Oakland’s Lobbyist Registration Act, and should not have permitted to act as a lobbyist.)
These duplex owners are voluntarily holding rents down—and they continued to do so after Measure Y passed. These numbers show you that the local advocacy groups are not telling the truth about the rent increases they claim are happening in these buildings.
Meanwhile in Berkeley, the city of Berkeley is apparently helping the Rent Board in trying to remove the exemption from rent control for owner-occupied “Golden Duplexes”, and is arguing that if an owner of such a property has a Living Trust, they should no longer get the exemption from rent control because ” a corporation is not a person”. Never mind that most people with assets use Living Trusts to protect their assets for their relatives and heirs.
These moves by East Bay cities to try to expand rent control, may well fly in the face of the Costa Hawkins Housing Act which you can read about here:
Some local property owners are trying to fight back….there are plans to sue the city of Oakland.
One of the issues involved in rent control, is that without a procedure to guarantee landlords a “Fair Rate of Return”, rent control laws may be illegal. This was determined in the famous 1976 case Birkenfeld vs City of Berkeley, which is discussed here:
I see a concerning trend in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it’s a growing tendency to scapegoat property owners, including small property owners with only one property, for the housing problems and housing crisis in coastal California and beyond.
I am concerned about the amount of rhetoric which appears to demonize all property owners, and try to assign blame to them, when tenants have difficulty finding or affording housing. The housing crisis — which affects owners too — and makes it difficult to buy a home, and to continue to afford to live in an expensive home —- is a complex problem, with several causes – not the least of which, is government regulations, fees and policies — which has been decades in the making. Yet human beings pine for simple explanations, and simple answers.
In this article, I argue that the suggested “solution” of expansion of rent control and more restrictions on property owners, a “solution” that the cities of Berkeley and Oakland are attempting to railroad through and sell us a bill of goods, is an “answer” that does not fit the problem at hand. It’s an “answer” that has been politically brewing for quite some time, due to simplistic distortions in understanding the housing crisis and a concerning tendency to demonize property owners. As well, it’s an “answer” that is based on several fallacies or misunderstandings. Such as: (1) the fallacy that rent control is effective in bringing rents down, or that (2) expansion of rent control will help open up more units of affordable housing, (3) small property owners (eg those who own ONE property) are all or mostly “greedy landlords” who are gouging their tenants, (4) no significant problems will be created if no-fault evictions are prohibited and owner-occupants of duplexes and triplexes (who live on the same property as their tenant) end up with a problem tenant whom they can never ever evict.
I’ve noticed it’s a troubling theme, that too often, instead of attending to the root and real causes of problems, if those causes are too difficult to address, people will instead attend to things that are easier for them to control. So this becomes a tendency similar to the “Streetlight Effect”, where people will in the place where it’s easiest to look or assign blame where it’s easier to assign blame. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect
Eg, they look for lost keys under the streetlight, where they didn’t lose them, instead of several blocks away in the dark, where they DID lose them.
I believe that this is exactly the dynamic that we see occurring when, instead of attending to the real causes of the housing crisis, we find city leaders riding the momentum of scapegoating small property owners and the widespread delusion that rent control reduces housing costs, and trying to pin the housing crisis on the smallest of property owners, sacrificing or crucifying these small operators, because, well, when people are angry they want to see someone PAY. And it’s easier to pick on the small operators than figure out how to stop mega giant real estate companies from buying up lots of single family homes in a city (which SHOULD be going to families or collectives) , how to build a lot more housing, reduce government costs in housing by changing zoning, building codes, reducing permit fees, and coming up with ways for people to collectively buy properties for less and build smaller scale and more affordable homes.
First, let’s look at the housing crisis and some of its causes.
Building Costs Are Higher in California. Aside from the cost of land, three factors determine developers’ cost to build housing: labor, materials, and government fees. All three of these components are higher in California than in the rest of the country. Construction labor is about 20 percent more expensive in California metros than in the rest of the country. California’s building codes and standards also are considered more comprehensive and prescriptive, often requiring more expensive materials and labor. For example, the state requires builders to use higher quality building materials—such as windows, insulation, and heating and cooling systems—to achieve certain energy efficiency goals. Additionally, development fees—charges levied on builders as a condition of development—are higher in California than the rest of the country. A 2012 national survey found that the average development fee levied by California local governments (excluding water–related fees) was just over $22,000 per single–family home compared with about $6,000 per single–family home in the rest of the country. Altogether, the cost of building a typical single–family home in California’s metros likely is between $50,000 and $75,000 higher than in the rest of the country.
….our analysis suggests that the state probably would have to build as many as 100,000 additional units annually—almost exclusively in its coastal communities—to seriously mitigate the state’s problems with housing affordability. Adding this many new homes, however, could place strains on the state’s infrastructure and natural resources and could alter the longstanding and prized character of California’s coastal communities. Facilitating this housing construction also would require the state to make changes to a broad range of policies that affect housing supply directly or indirectly—including many policies that have been fundamental tenets of California government for many years.
Andre Shashaty indicates that it is government which is largely responsible for our failure to build adequate housing:
Governments at all levels have been complicit in allowing housing costs to rise year after year, making it impossible for builders to produce housing affordable to working people without government subsidies. There are lots of reasons for this, from building codes to land use regulations that limit density. Most local governments keep driving up the cost of housing and very few of them do anything to mitigate those increases, and even fewer work to reduce the cost burdens they impose.
on the effect of building regulations on affordable housing, Edward Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko indicate that
zoning [regulations] are responsible for high housing costs….the affordable housing debate should be broadened to encompass zoning reform, not just public or subsidized consruction programs.
In this article on SF housing crisis, the author clarifies that it’s the government policy which is the root cause of the high cost of housing.
Donald McDonald in his book “Democratic Architecture”, points out (pg 24) that
…the labyrinth of codes that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to build low-income housing. …For example, do we always have to have double walls with insulation, and double-glazed windows to save energy, even in a mild climate like California’s? Which is more important to health: a hallway between the kitchen and bathroom, or not having a kitchen and bathroom at all?
McDonald then asks a very pertinent question:
The objection often raised to code modifcations is that in paring the codes down, the poor receive inferior housing, that they are deprived of the comfort and safety enjoyed by the wealthy, and that injustice is perpetuated. But is that really the point of view of those who are homeless, of families who are forced to share apartments with relatives, or of young couples who cannot afford to buy a house?
In addition to the increase in housing costs when we insist on building everything to the specifications of upper middle class values, there have also been losses of entire styles of housing, based on changes in zoning laws and code provisions. In former times, as Andrew Heben points out (pg 17) in his book Tent City Urbanism: From Self-Organized Camps to Tiny House Villages:
An abundance of single room occupancy (SRO) hotels flourished in US cities of the early 20th century, ranging from rooming houses for the middle class to lodging houses for the lower class. Just within lodging houses, accomodations ranged from private rooms to large rooms broken into cubicles, to bunk rooms.
Ironically, at the beginning of the 20th century, we were better able to house the very poor, than we are now. As Heben points out, changes to the building codes made it impossible to continue to build the SRO housing which was one of the best options for the poor. The minimum square footage for habitable space was increased, and it was then required for each unit to have its own kitchen and bathroom. He writes,
This significantly drove the cost of development up, making it economically unviable to build very low-income housing on the private market.
Thus the theoretical improvement in the standard of living, as reflected in increased requirements in the building code and changes to the zoning code, actually has reducedthe standard of living for many, as they now live on sidewalks instead of in the now-prohibited bunk rooms in an SRO. Additionally, since it is impossible to build private housing that is affordable for the very low income, housing for these populations is now dependent on government subsidies, which are in ever shorter supply.
Heben summarizes (pg 20) by saying that
The building code has come to mandate middle class norms and eliminate simpler housing options that are perceived to negatively influence adjacent property values.
One alternative to the standard large middle class unaffordable single family home, is the tiny house.
The tiny house movement is producing zoning questions which cities need to explore. Tiny houses are simpler, tiny houses are more affordable. Tiny houses put the dream of home ownership within reach of many. Tiny houses blur the distinction between homes and RV’s. Some municipalities are leading the way in terms of openness to regulatory changes. In Spur, TX tiny houses are allowed as primary dwellings. In Quixote Village in Olympia, WA, a former homeless tent camp has become a tiny house village of 30 homes with a central kitchen and shower/laundry area. Emerald Village in Eugene OR and Community First Village in Austin Tx, as well as Om Village in Madison WI, SEcond Wind Cottages in Ithaca NY, and River Haven in Ventura CA and Dome Village in Los Angeles, offer residents a place to live with a buy-in cost of only $10-30k in many instances. These are experimental solutions which have yet to be applied on a large scale, and to more municipalities, but I think they are very important examples of what can be done to provide more affordable housing.
Other examples of ways that housing costs can be decreased by relaxing building codes and zoning requirements: eliminating the energy-savings requirements in building, such as use of double glazed windows and regulations on insulation. Reducing minimum room size and unit size. Reducing ceiling height requirements. Eliminating the requirement that many cities have that there must be on-site parking spot for each unit. Reducing permit fees and inspection requirements. Relaxing regulations on grey water systems, and electrical and plumbing hookups. Eliminating the regulations which require new housing in a residential neighborhood to be of a similar type to existing housing there. Allow residents to live in RV’s , treehouses, tents or yurts, or unheated cabins lacking electricity or plumbing, on their own properties, or rent out such space. Revise city zoning laws so that SRO’s/rooming houses/lodging houses can be again constructed to provide housing for the lower income individuals.
Minneapolis for instance is seeking to change single family zoning to address this issue:
One of the consequences of the housing crisis, has been an obsessive focus by some cities and some tenants, with rent control, as a means of providing affordable housing. When area median rents rise dramatically, tenants and city governments tend to try to impose more controls and more regulations on property owners, whom they believe will experience greater temptations to evict tenants, in order to raise their rents. Some cities attempt to expand rent control laws, or impose heavier fines for violating them, and other cities without rent control contemplate having rent control. In Oakland recently, the City Council, declaring a “housing emergency”, passed a 90 day moratorium on rent hikes and evictions…. in spite of the fact that Oakland has rent control, which already severely limits rent hikes and evictions. (No one bothered to explain how the “housing emergency” created by decades of failure to build adequate housing, might be solved in 90 days) .
San Francisco, taking a page I guess from Oakland’s playbook, then ruled in April 2016 that it was no longer permissible to evict schoolteachers or students during the school year. Also in San Francisco in 2015, A landlord was fined $276,000 for evicting a tenant via the Elllis Act and then turning around and offering the apartment as a short term rental. The city council in Alameda ( a city without rent control laws) passed a temporary moratorium on rent increases in that city in late 2015, during a heated city council meeting in which one person was assaulted. Tenants had become desperate when many were being given no-fault eviction papers, or were seeing their rents increase as much as $500/month.
Economists are nearly unanimous in agreeing that rent controls are destructive. In this article on rent control the following points were made by Walter Block:
In a 1990 poll of 464 economists published in the May 1992 issue of the American Economic Review, 93 percent of U.S. respondents agreed, either completely or with provisos, that “a ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.”1 Similarly, another study reported that more than 95 percent of the Canadian economists polled agreed with the statement.2 The agreement cuts across the usual political spectrum, ranging all the way from Nobel Prize winners milton friedman and friedrich hayek on the “right” to their fellow Nobel laureate gunnar myrdal, an important architect of the Swedish Labor Party’s welfare state, on the “left.” Myrdal stated, “Rent control has in certain Western countries constituted, maybe, the worst example of poor planning by governments lacking courage and vision.”3 His fellow Swedish economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck asserted, “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing.”4 That cities like New York have clearly not been destroyed by rent control is due to the fact that rent control has been relaxed over the years.5
Rent control is an odd type of law in several ways. First, in a free market economy where we have almost no other form of price controls, it imposes price controls, setting the maximum amount that individuals may charge for accomodations that they are offering. This amounts to forced charity, where private individuals are forced to provide charity to other individuals, who may have absolutely no need for such charity. in fact there are no need requirements or means tests for tenants to benefit from rent control, and many benefit who are actually wealthy individuals. We dont’ tell people that they have to sell their baked goods at such and such a price, and that they must give charity to everyone who buys them — we dont’ insist that people sell their clothing at set prices. And in fact, as Walter Block points out, it would make more sense to have price controls on all other products, except for housing. Rent control scares off investors, developers and it scares off potential buyers — thus reducing the likelihood of investment in or construction of the housing that is so badly needed. Thus Block writes:
The surest way to encourage private investment is to signal investors that housing will be safe from rent control. And the most effective way to do that is to eliminate the possibility of rent control with an amendment to the state constitution that forbids it. Paradoxically, one of the best ways to help tenants is to protect the economic freedom of landlords.
This article provides more info on the destructive aspects of rent control, and points out that rent control reduces the supply of housing:
When a community artificially restrains rents by adopting rent control, it sends the market what may be a false message. It tells builders not to make new investments and it tells current providers to reduce their investments in existing housing. Under such circumstances, rent control has the perverse consequence of reducing, rather than expanding, the supply of housing in time of shortage.
William Tucker in this report states that rents are uniformly higher in cities with rent control, because rent controlled tenants tend to hoard their apartments:
…data I have collected from eighteen North American cities show that the advertised rents of available apartments in rent-regulated cities are dramatically higher than they are in cities without rent control. In cities without rent control, the available units are almost evenly distributed above and below the census median. In rent-controlled cities most available units are priced well above the median. In other words, inhabitants in cities without rent control have a far easier time finding moderately priced rental units than do inhabitants in rent-controlled cities.
This is because tenants in the regulated sector tend to hoard their apartments, forcing everyone else to shop only in the shadow market. Thus, rent control is the cause of the widely perceived “housing crisis” in rent-controlled cities.
Even such a traditionally liberal -progressive paper as the SF Weekly ran an article entitled, “The Case For ending Rent Control” in August 2000. See that article here: The Case for Ending Rent Control . Did you know, for instance, (as stated in this article) that
“Before the late 1970s, rent controls had been enacted in the United States only during times of war and economic crisis. Policy-makers considered the controls to be of temporary use in damping inflation. With the exception of New York City, controls were lifted when the national emergencies receded.”
Rent control removes many units from the housing market, thousands more than do Ellis Act evictions, for instance. The Anti Eviction Mapping Project reports that there were 4014 Ellis act evictions between 1997 and 2014 in San Francisco, a period of 17 years. This averages to 236 per year, which they label the number of “San Francisco Families forced out of their homes.” Yet, since Ellis Act evictions are often done so that the property owner can move themselves or their family back into their property, Ellis Act evictions are just as likely to be oriented to a San Francisco family reclaiming their home. While 236 tenants are evicted each year by the Ellis act, it must be pointed out that in San Francisco it is nearly impossible to evict a tenant through any means other than the Ellis Act. Meaning that a property owner has to go to extraordinary lengths simply to have access to their own property. Some property owners such as the one in this story https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/us/01bcstevens.html never actually are able to move into their own home. This in my view is actually a more perverse situation than price controls on products. The fact that as a business person, one could be effectively imprisoned in a relationship with someone who one has long since lost interest in doing business with, is a feature unique to rent control, which makes the law particularly concerning. This is most notable and egregious in cases where we see the property owner living on the same property as the tenant they cannot evict, and who may be bullying them, as occurred in this case . A video about that latter situation can be seen here: https://abc7news.com/realestate/i-team-investigates-tenant-landlord-dispute/723260/
While Ellis act evictions removed 236 renters a year from other people’s properties, rent control laws themselves kept 31,000 units off the rental market in San Francisco, as reported in this article . This article states that 100,000 units are sitting vacant in the SF metro area: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/An-estimated-100-000-homes-are-sitting-empty-in-13692007.php As well, the recent news about the “Panama Papers” in April 2016, has revealed that money laundering could actually be a significant contributor to San Francisco’s housing crisis. THis article goes into that issue: How Money Laundering effects SF’s housing Crisis . We know as well that foreign investors, increasing those from China, are buying up apartments in US cities, and leaving them empty. This is happening in a significant degree in Vancouver, Canada, for instance — where the “vacancy rate” is reported to be 0.6%. In fact the vacancy rate is likely to be much higher if these investor properties are considered — but as these owners are not renting out their properties, but instead hoarding them off the rental market, they deplete the supply of long term permanent housing in a quite significant manner.
All concerns about rent control as law set aside, let us consider the practicality of rent control as a means to provide affordable housing. First, as we have seen, rent control actually decreases the available housing supply, due to the number of property owners who would rather keep their units permanently off the market, rather than have them filled with a rent controlled tenant. Rent control causes tenants to stay in place longer than they would otherwise, resulting in less turnover of units. While the tenants in a rent controlled unit do benefit from the artificially lower price they are paying (and what renter wouldnt’ want to pay the lowest price possible?) , the lower the rent they pay, the more the landlord has to increase other tenants’ rents to compensate for the loss involved in that low rent situation. As well, the less rent paid, the less the landlord can afford to maintain that property, so it is quite common that rent controlled properties become more run down and blighted than those not subject to rent control.
Also, because a landlord has to assume that any given tenant might stay in place a long time, when there is a vacancy, he must increase the rent as much as possible, so as not to lose out over time when the tenant remains and remains. Finally, those benefitting from rent control, can only benefit while remaining in the same place. They are trapped in place, and cannot move. This can cause stress and fear, if for instance the renter has needs arising which would make a move to a different apartment very desirable, but the tenant cannot afford to move because rents in the city have increased so much during the time she was in residence.
Rent control does nothing to make units affordable to newcomers to an area, but rather, for reasons explained above, tends to ensure that newcomers will see higher rents.
The solution to affordable housing cannot be that once you rent a place, you can never afford to move. Rental agreements in the USA are of two types — month to month, and a year lease. No one signs a rental agreement saying that they will be renting the premises for the rest of their natural life. That isn’t how we do business in the US, and yet, that is the implication of rent control — that what was intended to be a business arrangement that could be ended in either 30 days or 1 year by either side, now becomes a form of imprisonment, once for the tenant, who increasingly cannot afford to move out, and secondly for the property owner, forced into a potentially lifelong business relationship with someone they may very well not want to do business with for a lifetime.
The premise of rental housing contracts that are 1 month or 1 year, is that the renter can always find another place to live. In a housing market where it is more difficult to find another place to live, desperate and frightened tenants increasingly view their apartments as their own property, encouraged in this entitled attitude by the rent control laws. Often tenants and property owners alike will assert that “housing is a right” and that people have a right to their housing. I would agree that people have a right to housing, but they do not have a right to stake claims on other people’s property, and doing so on the property of an owner-occupant, who lives alongside the tenant in a small urban setting, cannot be a prescription for happiness. To deny the amount of stress that this can cause the owner, or to place the tenant on an equal footing with the property owner (ignoring the fact that one has set down a lifetime investment to buy this property) is to demonstrate significant disrespect for this small property owner. In essence, a small owner who is denied the right to evict a tenant he or she lives with, is, via eviction control and/or rent control, imprisoned in a lifelong business relationship with that person, and the only means of escape would be to sell their property. How can that be legal, fair, just or right?
De-Control instead of Rent Control
My argument through this article, is that more and more government control, rules, regulations, codes, is what is actually causing the crisis in affordable housing. The solution to affordable housing is therefore most certainly not going to come from still more control, more laws, more fines, more punishments, and more expropriation of private property. Rather the solution will come from de-control, and a relaxation of building requirements, a relaxation of zoning laws, a relaxation of lender requirements, and an abolishing of the discriminatory term “single family home”, which shows a clear bias towards nuclear families and against intentional families and communities.
In addition to the abolition of rent control, something else that would help provide more affordable housing, is to make the process of eviction one which no longer involved going to court, or at least eliminated the option of a jury trial. It should be very simple and reduce time and expense, to have tenant and landlord in an eviction case, simply meet with a judge, as in small claims court, and obtain a result in a few days or at most a couple weeks, instead of the 6 to 8 months it can now take to evict a tenant who fights the eviction or requests a jury trial. (In this case it took 274 days for the landlord to evict the tenant, who actually had never paid the landlord a dime since he first moved into the apartment)
Too many landlords have had to spend far too much money just to evict a tenant who isn’t paying rent, or who is vandalizing their unit, or harassing other tenants, or causing other problems. It is a grave concern to property owners, that someone could refuse to pay rent, vandalize your property, and then when you move to evict them, they could insist on a jury trial and delay the eviction and cause the property owner to have to pay thousands of dollars to wind their way through a long legal process.
Summary
First, the government creates obstacles to development in the form of the costs for studies, reports, planning and zoning meetings, permits and inspections, all of which add up to 25% of the cost of construction, and then it creates even greater obstacles in terms of severe restrictions on the type of housing that may be built, and where, and imposes upper middle class values and requirements on those who cannot afford such housing and may not even desire it.
Secondly, the government responds to the housing crisis its own bureaucracy has created, by passing rent control laws, which in effect constitute a partial seizure of private property, by the government, for its own purposes of housing people. Through rent control, government expropriates private property, imposes harsh and unrealistic limits on rent which do not keep up with increasing costs of property owners, and essentially imprisons property owners into business relationships with individuals they may have long since ceased to want to do business with, by prohibiting them from evicting tenants. In some cases, property owners are actually unable to move into their own home and live in their own home, or must pay enormous sums to do so, because the “right” of the tenant to housing is deemed greater than the owner’s rights to their own property. Facing such ominous and indeed sometimes terrifying restrictions, many property owners understandably seek ways to avoid being subject to rent control, being imprisoned in relationships with bad tenants, and being unable to move into their own property when they wish, and consider doing short term rentals instead.
Third, when a property owner does want to move into their own property, Oakland has joined Berkeley and San Francisco in the unreasonable requirement that the property owner pay many thousands of dollars to the departing tenant as “relocation fees.” This policy as well comes from a demonizing and punative approach to property owners, which seeks to shift some of the difficulties of the housing crisis, onto the backs of small property owners. It makes as much sense as requiring a landlord to pay for their tenant’s dental procedure, asserting (even without any evidence) that since the landlord is wealthier and has more stuff, they should be paying for living expenses for someone who has less. An Oakland couple who were thus billed many thousands of dollars for the audacity of wanting to move into their own home, are suing the city of Oakland over this:
Fourth, by increasing restrictions on the smallest of property owners in the city, Oakland and other cities working to apply eviction and rent control laws to owner occupied properties, are perversely making it more difficult for those with least means, to be able to afford to buy or cooperatively buy housing in the city. Such restrictions on the rights of owner-occupants, are much more of a problem for them than for large-scale real estate investment companies and corporations who have the finances and means to much more easily pay for legal expenses and evictions. Thus, by trying to impose eviction and rent control on small property owners, Oakland and other cities unwittingly are ensuring that more and more properties in the city will be owned by the large real estate investment companies, who will increasingly be the only ones capable of doing the property rental business. Oakland will thus make it more difficult for those of average middle class means to own property in the city. This is the opposite of what the city should be doing. As property ownership, perhaps collective ownership, is a better long term solution for people than perennial existence as a renter, the city should be doing all it can to support the smallest property owners, rather than passing laws which make their lives much more difficult, make their ability to pay for their housing more difficult, and which ultimately could lead them to lose their homes.
Fifth and finally — though the city of Oakland and many tenants who are pushing for more restrictions on owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes, believe they are helping tenants…the irony is that they are creating significant obstacles for those very tenants they believe they are helping, to eventually own property in the city. For those who are not super wealthy, owning a property which has space through which one can earn rental income, is perhaps the only way to afford property. By making it much more difficult to run such a rental property, such as by making it impossible to evict a tenant with whom relationship issues or other stresses have arisen, the city cuts off its nose to spite its face.
In response to this argument, I’ve heard some tenant activists say things such as “Well, people shouldn’t buy property if they can’t afford it without rental income” or “They shouldn’t buy if they can’t follow the laws.” These comments seem hypocritical, considering that these tenant activists would likely not agree with the assertion, which one can make in opposition to a demand for affordable housing, that “One should not live in a city where one can’t afford the high rent”, or “As a master tenant, if you end up with a problem roommate or sub-tenant, you should never be able to evict them, but should have to move out of your own apartment yourself and let them stay there. ” One assumes that most tenants have had the experience of a bad roommate. It happens. People sometimes turn out to be different than they appeared during an interview for roommates. To argue that one should just never make the mistake of renting to the wrong person is unrealistic, as well as in attributing sublime magical powers to a property owner that no one has, of having a secret way to predict how someone will behave for the rest of their life.
In the end, small property owners want the same thing, no less, than tenants want– which is to be permitted to live comfortably in their own homes, free of stress and harassment from problem occupants on their own property, and permitted to charge fair rents that allow them to not lose their homes in foreclosure. By allowing them this, and by ceasing to try to impose excessive controls on them, cities would actually make MORE housing available. Cities have not learned what is abundantly clear from many studies and from talking to most any property owner — people can only tolerate a certain amount of regulation and risk, and if the city tries to impose more on them than they can accept, they will go out of business, and this will be a loss both for them and for those they could have housed.
Similar problems in other cities
There are problems similar to what I’ve written about here, occurring in other cities. In some cases the problems are worse than what is occurring in the East Bay. For instance, Seattle recently passed a law, intended to prevent discrimination in rentals, which requires landlords to take the “first in time” ordinance, which requires landlords there to take the first financially qualified individual who applies. This law is now being fought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, the same group which is representing the Ballinger couple in Federal Court in Oakland. Read about their work on this case here:
Thus, this law would prohibit landlords from being able to choose their own tenants! This law also disregards the fact that financial qualifications are only part of what landlords look at when deciding to whom to rent. There are many other issues landlords consider and screen for, and the method by which a property owner chooses a tenant, so long as it does not run afoul of anti-discrimination laws, should not be regulated or limited by any government. If a property owner wants to use astrology charts to decide to whom to rent, that is their perogative. Government cannot impinge upon a landlord’s decision making process.
Having Won their fight on the illegality of the “First in Time” ordinance, Pacific Legal Foundation also had to fight another ordinance, the so called “Fair Chance” ordinance, which sought to prevent landlords from being able to perform criminal background checks on their applicants. Then too, the City of Seattle decided to appeal their loss in the Superior Court and took the case to the Washington Supreme Court. It is being heard there now. Here are some of those court documents:
In San Francisco, the Pacific Legal Foundation is fighting against the cities’ unconstitutional law that would require him, after converting a unit to a condominium, to offer it to a tenant for life, rather than being able to live in it himself.
An example of the problems created by rent control, when trying to buy or sell a small apartment building:
Traditionally, smaller apartment buildings of one to four units, have offered a way for small property owners to make rental income. However, when an owner wants to sell such a building, and rents are capped at well below market rate, because the existing tenants have been there a long time, it becomes difficult to impossible for any small property owner to buy such a building…unless they can make it an all cash purchase.
Let’s look at the numbers in one example:
This 4-unit building in a nice area of South Berkeley, was offered for sale in early August 2019, for $1,289,999.00.
The expenses associated with owning this building, if it was purchased with a standard down payment and carried a standard mortgage, would be $6944 per month, JUST with mortgage, taxes and homeowner’s insurance (commerical insurance). The details on the listing suggest the owner would also have to pay for water and garbage collection, as well as maintenance costs. Water and garbage would likely be at least $200 additional per month, and maintenance costs likely at least $100 a month. Thus monthly operating costs would be at least $7250 per month. And that without any earthquake insurance or additional costs.
Yet the income available from the 4 rental units, is capped, because of rent control. All four units are occupied, and 3 out of 4 are significantly below market rates. The total monthly income available from these 4 units is $5956, or at least $1300 a month LESS than bare minimum expenses for the building.
And this is likely why, in a “red-hot” property market, this building, more than 3 months after it was put up for sale, still has not sold. Here’s the building as it was seen on October 16 2019.
I have not yet analyzed this “1000 Person Plan” study for the city of Berkeley, so I don’t have much comment on it yet, but my initial response is, why create a “plan” around however many people decide to show up and start camping out in your city? What if it’s 1000 people this year, and 5000 people next year, and 10,000 people the year after that? In other words, it doesn’t seem reasonable or logical to simply feel compelled to serve and house everyone who decides to come and be homeless in Berkeley.
For instance, what if Berkeley has a 1000 person plan, while Walnut Creek has a 50 person plan? And Lafayette a 2 person plan? And what if Walnut Creek’s 50 person plan is to send all those 50 people to Berkeley?
These plans for helping the homeless do not make much sense when created myopically. The entire context in the region and state, and the nation, need to be considered.
For instance, some who actually have experience in the matter, say that
the services available for the homeless are much better in Minnesota and Arkansas. So, why create a plan for helping the homeless in Berkeley that costs more than we can afford, when people could be sent to Minnesota or Arkansas and fit right into the available budget and existing services?
More later as I read details of the 1000 Person plan.
People’s Park was founded in 1969, emerging from the Free Speech Movement and the colorful dreams and kaleidoscope of creativity and joy that were part of the 1960’s and 1970’s in San Francisco and Berkeley. It was originally hoped to be a”cultural, political, freak-out and rap center for the Western world”
where “artists should show up and make the park their magical possession…many colored towers of imagination will rise….”
This blurb by “Robin Hood’s Park Commissioner” was as found in this Berkeleyside article on the park, published at the time of the park’s 50th birthday:
However, as anyone who’s been paying attention to the news for the last 2 or 3 decades or so will realize, or really as anyone will realize if they try to walk through or near the park on most any day of the year, People’s Park is not what it once was. Gone are the magical hippie artists– wafted off into nearby $1.5 million dollar homes, or into other cities. Gone are the exciting ideals and visions. Gone is the joy. What remains are homeless, often mentally ill, vagrant drifters, often with pit bulls, drug addicts, and criminals. The amount of crime, some of it quite appalling, that has occurred in the park just within the last decade is disturbing. The atmosphere around the park most any time of day on any day of the year, is one that is tinged with a dark and scary element.
Berkeleyside has reported on much of the crime in the park over the last decade.
This video contains footage taken just minutes after the shooting on APril 26, and makes the point that it’s time to let go of memories and a park that has long since ceased to be what it once was. The creative magic and ideals and visions that helped found the park certainly still exist — but they are not to be found in People’s Park. Let’s look for them where they are, generally inside ourselves rather than fixed in a particular locale or place, and find new symbols and places to carry forward these beautiful parts of the human soul.
IN a Feb 28 2019 Berkeley City Council meeting, someone on the homeless task force stated that as of April 2019, the city will start enforcing its new sidewalk ordinance.
In October 2018, the Berkeley City Council passed a sidewalk ordinance that would limit people’s ability to create nuisance on the public sidewalks by spreading large amounts of belongings around, during the daytime. The ordinance would generally not be enforced during the night, 10pm to 7am, when homeless people are sleeping in public areas.
The policy would prohibit a serious nuisance that many city residents in numerous West Coast cities are experiencing as homeless encampments proliferate, which is that people are camping right next to residential buildings.
Berkeley’s ordinance states on page 8 that:
“Objects are prohibited on sidewalks in residential districts”
And page 9:
“Lying [down] is prohibited in all residential and mixed use areas.”
Proposed policy:
Proposed Encampment Policy
Draft 4/19/2018 1:00 am
D R A F T
CITY OF BERKELEY
ENCAMPMENT RESPONSE POLICY
Unfortunately, the City does not currently have the capacity to house all homeless
individuals in permanent housing or shelters. Encampments therefore will continue to
exist, born of the necessity to address basic human needs such as shelter, sleep and
community. This policy is designed to address health, safety and other conditions or
impacts of Encampments as humanely as possible.
1. Definitions
Objects: Objects include any item or thing, attended or unattended, but does not
include animals or persons. [Same as Sidewalks Policy]
Encampment:
One or more individuals or households:
1) Who have been inhabiting a public location for more than three consecutive days;
and
2) Who meet at least one of the following conditions:
a) Use temporary sheltering accommodations such as tents or improvised
structures that they leave at such public location;
b) Have accumulated Objects that they leave at such public location.
2. Encampment Response Options
Where an Encampment exists, the City Manager may respond by taking any of the
following actions:
1) If applicable, enforce the provisions of the City’s Regulations for Sitting, Lying,
Dogs and Objects on Sidewalks and in Parklets, pursuant to BMC Section X
2) Request Abatement of one or more conditions pursuant to this Section
3) Issue a Request to Move pursuant to this Section
4) Initiate Immediate Removal pursuant to this Section
Encampment Response shall not take the place of or in any way preclude normal
investigation and prosecution of suspected or actual unlawful activity. Such activity at
an Encampment shall be addressed through normal law enforcement procedures.
3. Proportionality of Response Actions
Response Actions shall be proportional to the totality of circumstances present at the
encampment, including the nature, severity, size, duration and other aspects of
encampment conditions or impacts.
2
Draft 4/19/2018 1:00 am
When determining the totality of circumstances at an Encampment, considerations may
include, but are not limited to:
1. The nature, duration and severity of health and safety concerns
2. Impacts or safety concerns related to the location, size or duration of the
Encampment
3. The quantity, nature and condition of accumulated objects and belongings
4. The number and nature of complaints received through the City’s 311 system, or
in writing by City Staff or Council and Mayoral Offices
5. Proximity to schools, senior centers and youth facilities including playgrounds,
parks and sports fields
6. Impacts on businesses and on encampment and other residents
7. Environmental concerns
8. Potential for or actual harm to public infrastructure or private property
9. Criminal or other activity which poses a general threat to the safety of the
Encampment or to the broader community
10.Location in an area from which a prior Encampment has been subject to a
Request to Move or to Immediate Removal.
While conditions or impacts at an Encampment are often multifaceted, a single
condition or impact may form the basis for a Response Action.
3. Abatement Request Protocols
In keeping with the goal of proportionality between conditions or impacts and Response
Actions, the City may request Abatement of specific conditions or impacts.
Notice shall be provided stating the applicable laws or regulations that have been
violated and the Abatement action(s) requested.
Taking into account the severity of conditions or impacts, notice shall state whether
Abatement must take place immediately, or may specify any time period for Abatement,
up to 72 hours.
Notice shall include information on shelters, storage, housing resources, and other
services available. In addition, if possible given staffing, homeless outreach workers
should visit the Encampment to provide additional information and invite individuals to
access services.
Failure to Abate as requested may result in issuance of a Request to Move, or
Immediate Removal.
3
Draft 4/19/2018 1:00 am
4. Request to Move Protocols
A. A Request to Move may be issued when:
a. Written notice of a request to Abate has been delivered and such
Abatement has not taken place within the time period specified.
b. At the conclusion of a period of Sustained Outreach.
c. Taking into account the Proportionality of Response Actions, conditions or
impacts are significant enough to warrant a Request to Move.
B. Notice shall be provided stating the laws or regulations that have been violated
and the Request to Move, and must provide adequate time to move, preferably at
least 8 hours. No Request to Move may be issued after 5 pm or before 8 am, and
any time period specified for removal, if not expired at 5 pm, shall be tolled until 8
am.
Notice shall include information on shelters, storage, housing resources, and other
services available. In addition, if possible given staffing, homeless outreach workers
should visit the Encampment to provide additional information and invite individuals to
access services.
Failure to Move within the specified timeframe may result in Immediate Removal.
5. Immediate Removal Protocols
Immediate Removal may be undertaken when:
1. The totality of health or safety conditions or other conditions and impacts are
severe enough to warrant Immediate Removal.
2. After a failure to Abate or Move in the manner or timeframe specified.
Immediate Removal requires no notice. Except in the case of extreme danger or
emergency, individuals shall be given a reasonable opportunity to remove their own
Objects during Immediate Removal, or such Objects may be removed and stored
according to Administrative Regulation 10.1. Copies of AR 10.1 shall be provided to
individuals present at the time of Removal and shall also be posted in the vicinity.
As stated in this article, Berkeley has begun enforcing the sidewalk ordinance and issuing warnings:
One has to wonder about some people’s level of intelligence. After getting a “notice of enforcement”, and presumably it’s not difficult to comprehend that the new sidewalk ordinance prohibits camping in residential areas, this homeless man moved his camp to a residential area. Well that’s not going to work out well and it doesn’t make sense to get upset if you keep doing what the city is making clear you are not allowed to do.
An observer notes that the city does appear to be enforcing the sidewalk ordinance…..
This is really good news that the city is finally taking back the streets and sidewalks and preventing public areas from being entirely appropriated as private zones, basically de facto bedrooms or living rooms. Important to note that people are not prohibited from sleeping in public areas at night, which is their legal right to do if they have no other place to sleep. What they are prohibited from doing is perennially occupying large areas of sidewalk with tents and huge piles of belongings. It will be interesting to see if the city allows some tents to remain standing. I think in the interest of avoiding lawsuits, they should take care to apply the law evenly and prohibiting anyone from leaving a tent up anywhere in a public area 24/7. Tents can go up at night….and then, take them down during the day.
SOme might wonder, how will this impact the Here There camp?
If they were smart, the city would apply the law equally and require Here/There camp members to de-camp during the day. They started out looking like they would do that. But then the mayor backed off, using the rationalization that their tents were “not on the sidewalk” so the law didn’t apply.
More news on the enforcement of the sidewalk ordinance:
It’s testament to the difficulty coming up with simple common sense proposals in the city, that both City Council members, and speakers (including children speakers) were heckled and booed for simply trying to set up the city with the very same practial rules that most other nearby cities have on RV parking.
It remains to be seen if passing this regulation will accomplish much in reducing the nuisance of the growing RV and vehicle dweller situation on public streets throughout the city. The Council stated that they will not enforce this ban until they get a permitting process in place, and they decided to allow permits for RVs to camp on public streets for up to 3 months (which is unheard of in the rest of the state…even 2 week permits go beyond what other cities allow for), and these permits would also be renewable.
Public comment on this item was quite long, and you can see the public comment here in these 3 videos.
The first video shows the first part of public comment.
The second video shows highlights from the first part of public comment, and then the second section of public comment.
The third video shows parts of the start of the council meeting, showing the unruliness of the crowd, as well as the conclusion of the meeting, after midnight. At the end of the meeting, a few of the councilmembers speak to this proposal as well as the vehicle dwelling issue as a whole.
Also, there’s a fourth video that shows the Berkeley City Council discussion on February 28th 2019, which goes into details about the RV situation in Berkeley, and takes the first part of public comment on the issue.
As the RV ban passed and the meeting adjourned, some yelled “shame” and “race traitor” at the Council members. As reported on Berkeleyside’s Twitter page:
Which goes to show the ridiculous politics in Berkeley, as this was certainly not an issue directly relating to ethnicity, and more, it is racist on its face to expect someone to vote a certain way simply due to their skin color. Every person has complete freedom to have their own views on things. Assuming that they have to see things a certain way because of their race is a form of liberal racism.
During the meeting, one speaker stated that Berkeley should not attempt to pass an RV ban because San Diego tried that and its attempt to do so was blocked in court by a judge allowing an injunction against the ban. However if you read about the situation in San Diego, you can easily see that what they tried to do was nothing at all like what has been proposed and now passed here: https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-blocks-san-diego-rv-parking-restriction/
San Diego did not just try to ban RVs from parking on the streets. They tried to prohibit all sleeping in vehicles, which anyone who’s studied the issue knows that courts will not allow. The judge blocked the attempt to ban all living in vehicles, but did NOT block the RV ban:
The judge also found the class members failed to show the nighttime RV ordinance was being applied discriminatorily against homeless San Diegans, and declined to block that law.
VIDEO ONE:
VIDEO TWO:
VIDEO THREE:
VIDEO FOUR:
This article covers the life situation of one of the speakers at the city council meeting who lives in a vehicle:
Also, as pointed out in the Op-Ed on supporting this RV proposal, there are several YouTube videos out there that basically encourage people to come to Berkeley to enjoy the free street camping.
And
Other cities are also having problems with too many RV dwellers and are moving to pass restrictions, eg Mountain View:
For quite some time now, the city of Berkeley has allowed people to live in vehicles on city streets pretty much anywhere in the city, without restriction. As I summed up in this article, https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/the-sudden-neighbor-the-problem-of-vehicle-dwellers-on-residential-streets/ , the city has taken a “hands-off” approach to vehicle camping in city streets in part because of the court decision in Los Angeles regarding vehicle dwelling in that city. Also, Berkeley has taken this hands-off approach out of the misguided idea that this is an appropriate response to the “homeless crisis.”
The result is as predicted — though the goal was to provide services and space to homeless people in order to decrease homelessness in the city, in reality, the more services and space Berkeley provides to the homeless, the more homeless are likely to be drawn to Berkeley to take advantage of what is offered.
So at some point, common sense has to enter in and dictate the need for regulations — regulations on tent camping, regulations on camping in vehicles, and regulations on living in RVs on city streets.
It took the ballooning of RV camping to a quite sizeable problem in West Berkeley, before the city began to act to create some regulations on RV parking/camping in the city. We’ve seen how a large number of RVs first set up an impromptu campground across from Doubletree Hotel at the Marina, making park users uncomfortable as they had to deal with aggressive campers, and threatening the viability of that business, one of the few businesses bringing significant income and traffic to the Marina. THen, we saw the city remove the RVers from Marina Blvd, only to see them drive over to the old Hs Lordships parking lot and set up camp for some 200 RVs there in the parking lot, taking one of the most scenic and magnificent areas of the Berkeley shoreline and turning it into a giant illegal homeless camp with blighted RVs and drug addicts now taking over the space.
When the city then closed down the Hs Lordships parking lot to these RVers, they moved into West Berkeley, where they line many of the streets, creating long RV corridors, in places where there are often tents on the sidewalk as well. The problems with garbage and drug addicts and needles have moved along with them.
So the city finally paid attention to the years of complaints by city residents and park users, and others who need to do business in these areas, and is now trying to craft RV regulations for the city. This is what they have come up with as a couple options:
Option Awould entail amending existing codes to prohibit RVs parking in the City of
Berkeley for extended periods of time and developing an online RV Permitting system
that limits the total amount of time any RV or registered owner of an RV parks their
vehicle on the City’s right-of-way or City-owned off-street parking lots in a calendar year. Option B would revise existing codes to prohibit parking oversize vehicles, including
campers and RVs, in the City of Berkeley from the hours of 2 a.m. to 5 a.m. on any
public right-of-way, as well as update existing BMC 12.76 which prohibits sleeping in
house cars, and provide alternate resources for those living in RVs.
Kudos to the city for finally owning up to the fact that the state’s 72 hr parking law essentially accomplishes nothing in terms of addressing serial nuisance caused by people engaged in long-term (eg permanent) vehicle camping on city streets:
Currently, depending on the size, Recreational Vehicles (RVs) can park for three days
at a time anywhere there is room and move continuously throughout the City. In
practice, RVs often comply with the 72-hour rule by moving a very short distance –
sometimes as little as three feet, to the opposite side of the street or around a corner –
which results in the vehicles essentially occupying the same general area indefinitely.
The magnitude of the problem has been studied and this is what was found:
The increase in the number of RVs parking in the City of Berkeley, and the subsequent impacts, may be quantified in multiple ways. In December 2018, Berkeley Police staff conducted a thorough citywide count of Recreational Vehicles on the City right-of-way.
They counted 193 RVs, campers, converted busses, and vehicles that have been set up and/or designed for human habitation within the City’s borders. Of that number, over 100 were located west of San Pablo Avenue. These figures are consistent with a similar assessment which was conducted in November 2018.
Community residents contacted the City more than 1,500 times with requests to
address the presence of and/or impacts from extended RV parking in 2018. These
requests come via Berkeley Police Dispatch, the City’s BPD Direct Parking line, 311 service requests, and through emails directly to staff and council.
The types of issues raised through these calls for service include the loss of residential and customer parking for commercial businesses, and the illegal dumping of trash, debris, and human waste onto City streets, sidewalks, and waterways.
Among the options mentioned in the city’s report, is the option of basically allowing the status quo, and using only the 72 hr parking law to address the problem of people living in vehicles on city streets. That is completely unacceptable — not only because the city itself has recognized that this law is easily flouted, such that people can continue to live in virtually the same spot or the same block indefinitely — eg for their entire lives — if nothing changed — but also because it’s not acceptable to address camping issues with parking laws. Camping is not the same thing as parking and we need laws which incorporate this basic fact.
Finally, a regulation pertaining only to RVs does not go nearly far enough. There are many people living in vans, buses, converted trucks, and standard cars throughout the city, and these all cause problems of some sort if they are basically camping indefinitely on city streets.
In their proposal, the city mentions reaching out to these people living in vehicles and helping them find permanent housing. It needs to be understood, that a great many of these people, even possibly all of them, have no interest in obtaining city services, no interest in living in a homeless shelter, and virtually no interest in getting help finding housing unless someone is going to hand them the keys to their own private apartment in Berkeley. This was what the city of San Francisco discovered, when they went to talk to people living in RVs in that city. Most wanted no help. They just wanted the city to f off and let them make streets into campgrounds. https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Curbside-campers-to-San-Francisco-thanks-but-13611748.php?t=862cab8e1e
Many of those living on the streets of Berkeley in vehicles are there because the city is too permissive and has been allowing this, and they would live for the rest of their lives on city streets in Berkeley if the city allowed them to do so…along with hundreds more who have the same goal.
Sometimes to help people, you have to learn to say NO.
UPDATE Feb 28 2019
The Berkeley City Council passed the law to prohibit RVs from parking overnight from 2am to 5am, and will set up a program to allow 14 day permits for RV parking on city streets.
One assessment suggests that within this proposal, Berkeley City leaders also sought to ban all vehicle dwelling within the city.
Note the last part, “No house car or camper for human habitation will be allowed within the City Limits” That’s interesting…I had not realized that was going on as part of this proposal. Though it’s true that living in a vehicle is a better option for the homeless than living in a tent on the sidewalk — a better option by far — I would approve of banning all vehicle dwelling on public streets in the city, because it’s never acceptable to allow city streets to be turned into campgrounds. And it’s not acceptable for cities to “warehouse” poor people on city streets, sidewalks, parks or highway underpasses.
I strongly support the creation of sanctioned low-cost RV parks, vehicle parks, sanctioned homeless camps, but as I’ve said many times, these camps and parks need to be created in places where land is less expensive than the Bay Area.
Slowly, gradually, cities around the state and nation are starting to show some “smarts” about the homeless issue. After decades of doing virtually nothing but running small indoor homeless shelters that (a) could house only a few of the many homeless, (b) were rejected as an option by many of the homeless, and standing passively by as all the other homeless camped all over town, cities are starting to step up and finally start actually doing something — trying to find workable ways of providing relatively inexpensive shelter for the homeless.
What works is generally not spending huge amounts of money to build yet more shelters of the type the homeless dont’ like to stay in. What works is also not to allow the homeless to just set up tents on sidewalks all over the city, in parks and downtown, wherever they please, spreading out garbage all over the commons. More cities are moving to set up what amounts to sanctioned, city-run shed or tent encampments on small plots of city owned land or CalTrans land. This is a good start to a real thought-out program of organized, inexpensive housing for those in need. Oakland has begun doing this with its Tuff-Shed camps at a few locations around the city. After years of sitting by passively and allowing homeless to set up tent camps at Lake Merritt, the “Jewel of the City” of Oakland, the city of Oakland finally took a very long overdue action and evicted the tent campers from Lake Merritt, and put up signs indicating that camping there is not allowed. The camping and filthy accumulations surrounding mentally ill individuals lying on the sidewalk or lawn at Lake Merritt had gone on for quite a long time, and the city was direlect in its responsibility to preserve this park as a recreational park for the public to use. Area residents and park users had complained for years about tents pitched right next to the water, in the bushes, on the sidewalk, in the middle of picnic areas, and really all over the park. The city had ignored these complaints for many years and allowed the problem to fester, which made many residents and park users absolutely furious.
The city FINALLY evicted tent campers and removed the blight and garbage dumps they had created on many beautiful open grassy areas around the lake, within the last month.
Notice the ordered, organized and clean, neat appearance of the new sanctioned camp in Modesto. Notice the LARGE tents they have set up there…each one is 10 ft by 10 ft in size. THis is the size of a standard bedroom. These are spacious tents suitable for 2 people in each, plenty of space for two cots and people’s belongings. This is about the size of the Tuff Sheds that are being used for the Oakland Tuff Shed camps. These tent camps, like the Oakland Tuff Shed camps, will not be permitted to become garbage dumps, because they are being run by the city, with city staff there during the day and a security guard at night. People will have to follow rules in order to stay there. Massed piles of stolen bikes and bike parts will not be appearing there. And no, you dont’ allow homeless people to run the camp by themselves, so that it turns into an open-air drug den. The camp is provided by the government, and should be run by the government or by personnel from an agency providing services to the homeless. These things are just common sense, but common sense has been quite a long time coming.
The next step in providing shelter to the homeless, will be to recognize that there is not enough space within city limits of many a city, to create sufficiently large tent camps or Tuff-Shed camps, to house all the homeless who are present in that city, and thus to commence the organizing of shelter for the homeless on a county level, or the state level, or even better, at the national level.
Doubtless we are all familiar with the phrase, “criminalizing the homeless“, a phrase often mis-used to suggest that any attempt by cities to regulate their public spaces is “criminalizing the homeless.” While it is true, as indicated in court cases, that cities may not impose criminal penalties on those actions which are directly related to the status of being homeless, it’s not true that cities have to stand passively by and watch vagrants, many of whom are in fact criminals, take over their public spaces.
I think it’s time for the introduction of a new phrase, which seeks to clarify a point of confusion. As a corollary to “criminalizing the homeless”, let’s talk about “homeless-izing the criminals“, whereby “homeless advocates” attempt to blur the distinction between people who are homeless because they’ve lost their job or housing, and those who are homeless as a result of their criminal behavior….or indeed, who may be pretending to be homeless in order to exploit the opportunity to set up a sidewalk tent and use that to deal drugs or run a chop shop for stolen bikes.
It’s time to stop with the lie that what we see all over our streets is caused by lack of affordable housing. Everyone knows this is not true….the amount of crime perpetrated by the “homeless” is highly disproportionate to their numbers, as discussed here: https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2019/12/08/homeless-crime-and-its-criminals/
It’s often said by liberals that “poverty causes crime.” Again, there’s a corollary to that, which is “crime causes poverty.” When people set out to live a criminal life, it’s quite likely that this very bad choice will result in their poverty and quite possibly as well in their being homeless. And, in contrast to the condescending, racist assertion by many liberals that some people have no choice in life “because racism”, the choice to commit crime is a choice, since people are not automatons, but have agency and can make choices.
Given the absolutely enormousamount of crime perpetrated by those designated “homeless” or “transient”, it stands to reason that a large number of them would be more accurately referred to as “criminals” who live, not in “homeless camps” but in “criminal camps.” And while many “homeless advocates” are urging us all to “have compassion for the homeless”, I don’t think it’s useful to “have compassion for the criminals” who are often preying on the businesses and homes they camp next door to. As with those camping right next to the Home Depot in Oakland, (see this article for the video which carries that story: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/a-visual-tour-homeless-camps-in-the-east-bay-berkeley-emeryville-and-oakland/ ) and very regularly stealing from that store and the customers’ cars in its parking lot. I think we need to see through the misguided advocacy for these people, and recognize it for what it is: not “homeless advocacy” but advocacy for criminals, advocacy for drug addicts.
While studies on homeless populations generally seek to learn what percentage of the homeless in a given city have difficulties with substance abuse, or serious mental illness, one statistic does not seem to be tracked — and this is a very important one. What percentage of the homeless are criminals? By “criminal”, I do not mean misdemeanor crimes or citations for neighborhood quality-of-life issues such as illegal dumping, urinating or defectating in public places, illegal camping or other minor crimes directly associated with the state of being homeless. Rather, I am talking about more serious crimes such as petty theft (theft of bicycles), grand theft, robbery, burglary, felony assault, or other crimes which if dealt with properly by authorities, would result in a jail or prison term on conviction, not just a citation.
In this Berkeleyside article by Emilie Raguso, Officer Greenwood of the Berkeley POlice Department reported that 28% of all Berkeley crimes were committed by persons designated as “homeless”:
Chief Greenwood, in response to community questions about the difference between Berkeley’s population and the hometowns of arrestees, said about 41% of people arrested in Berkeley, from 2012 through 2017, provided an address out of town. Another 28% were listed as homeless, and the other 30% had Berkeley addresses. For 1% of the 14,363 arrests the city of residence was unknown. Out-of-towners got an even larger percentage of BPD’s citations: 54% compared to 32% of Berkeley residents.
Consider, that the number of homeless in Berkeley is generally around 1000 or 1100 people, out of a total city population of 110,000. This means that 1% of the city population is “homeless”, and yet, 28% of all crime in Berkeley is perpetrated by “homeless” persons. Doing the statistics on that:
28% of crime perpetrated by 1% of the population:
0.28/0.01 = 28
Remaining 72% of crime perpetrated by remaining 99% of population:
0.72/0.99 = 0.7272
Thus the ratio of the rate at which homeless commit crime in Berkeley, compared to non-homeless, is:
28/0.7272 = 38.50
This means that homeless persons commit an astonishing 38.5 times or 3850% more crime than the general population.
It does make a difference what types of “crimes” these individuals are being charged with, but since in Berkeley, overtolerant as the city is, people are generally not being charged with crimes/infractions directly related to the state of being homeless (such as trespassing, illegal camping, defectation in public places) then one can’t make the argument that all these crimes perpetrated by the homeless are “minor” , an argument that is sometimes made:
For instance, there’s a good argument that could be made, that there are so many drug addicts in San Francisco, compared to the number of homeless persons, that it is quite possible that every single homeless person in San Francisco is a drug addict.
There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools and illustrates the scope of the problem on the city’s streets.
It’s also an increase of about 2,000 serious drug users since 2012, the last time a study was done.
Unfortunately, San Francisco enables its drug addicts by handing out free syringes, which results in a massive threat to public safety as discarded needles show up everywhere on public streets and sidewalks:
And in an effort to reduce infections and disease transmission among injection drug users, the city also handed out a record 5.8 million free syringes last year — about 500,000 more than in 2017.
“The drugs of choice among the homeless appear to be heroin during the day, and methamphetamine at night — to stay up,” said Eileen Loughran, who heads the city’s syringe access and recovery program. Loughran said on average an addict shoots up three times a day, “but some people do more.”
While City Hall solidly supports the free syringe program, the proliferation of needles on city sidewalks and parks was a major issue in Mayor London Breed’s mayoral election last year — one she promised to clean up.
So that:
…. the city’s 311 call center received 9,659 calls complaining about needles citywide in 2018 — up about a third from 2017.
Meanwhile, some cities finding themselves with troublesome homeless criminals, are trying to bus them out of town, back to where they came from.
PORTLAND, Ore. – A homeless Portland man with a lengthy criminal record moved to Denver and racked up even more charges there. Then, he received a one-way bus ticket back to Portland.
He’s still homeless, police say.
The news reveals that while Portland is giving hundreds of homeless people one-way tickets out of town, other cities are doing the same and sending homeless people to Portland. Some remain homeless once they get here.
It should be no surprise that a large number of criminals end up homeless. Again, we often hear it argued, in liberal circles, that “poverty causes crime”, but I don’t think liberals are as open to the important corollary to that, namely that crime causes poverty. People who decide (and it is a decision, for no one is compelled to be a criminal) to commit crime are likely to end up poor, and then, perhaps homeless as well. So, I don’t think it’s as simple as asserting that we have crime because we have poverty, income inequality, lack of opportunity, etc. Sure those things play a part, but we also have poverty because people have made bad choices and they end up experiencing the consequences of those choices.
So,obviously, “housing the homeless” is not going to be much of a solution if the people you’re housing are criminals and will continue to prey on the surrounding neighborhood.
Given the absolutely huge amount of crime perpetrated by the “homeless”, it is really an irresponsible misnomer to continue to refer to all illegal campers as “homeless”, as if they were all just people who fell upon some difficult circumstances and couldn’t pay their rent. Certainly this applies to some, but a very large number are much more accurately described as criminals, or drug addicts, and/or profoundly mentally ill people, whose state of homelessness is one of the less of our concerns, in terms of their impact on society and the crime and nuisance they are causing.
I mean, for instance, — come on— how empathetic would most city residents be, if the mayor and other city leaders said, “We have a crisis in our city. Many of our criminals and drug addicts have no place to go. They’ve been booted out of apartments, because they were dealing drugs there, or committing violence and mayhem, or vandalizing/destroying the premises. So naturally, being as compassionate as we are, we want to help them. We’d like to allow them to set up an illegal, squalid tent camp in YOUR neighborhood, until such time as we find someone foolish and/or desperate enough to be willing to rent an apartment to them. (Such a choice of a tenant would be all the more foolish in areas with rent control laws, which make it nearly impossible to evict someone, once you’ve rented a space to them). We’d also like to create “Tuff Shed” camps for them, paid for with your tax dollars — the same dollars that these criminals are stealing from you when they break into your garage or shed or car in the dark of night and haul off your belongings. Naturally, you shouldn’t mind those crimes– because you have more stuff than they do, so it’s only just that they take some of it. Likewise, you have more housing than they do, so we’ll make you pay for these miscreants, who we have to protect from the consequences of their actions…because let’s face it, anything less would be unkind.
Though that seems ridiculous when put this way, in fact this is what cities are doing in several instances. For example, the Home Depot store in Oakland has been threatening to pull out of that city for some time, because Oakland will not remove the big homeless camp that’s set up right in front of it. Those living in this camp, according to council member Noel Gallo, constantly steal from both the store and customer’s cars, and he says he picks up a couple hundred needles in that camp every weekend. See here: https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/07/20/a-visual-tour-homeless-camps-in-the-east-bay-berkeley-emeryville-and-oakland/
So in essence, the city of Oakland has given official sanction to a camp of criminals to set up right next to a business that they are preying upon. And to date, they have been quite reluctant to listen to Home Depot represenatives’ ‘complaints about this. This is the height of insanity in terms of city tolerating enormous nuisance. The city to Home Depot: “we are going to corral a pack of criminals, allow them to set up a semi permanent home on your doorstep, and do nothing while they regularly steal from you and your customers”
We have a dilemma. People commit crimes and then go to prison, and when they get out — surprise — they find it hard to find a job and a place to live. Particularly given the growing population and the insufficient supply of housing to meet the needs of all, why would property owners rent to people with a criminal history, if they had other choices? Which is not to say that everyone doesn’t need and deserve a place to live. But I think we will have to come up with better ways of sheltering those with a criminal history, than allowing them to set up tent camps in public parks or on the sidewalks downtown. Given the degree of housing shortage, not only in the Bay Area but increasingly across the nation, (see https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/u-s-housing-shortage-drives-prices-up-in-midwest-105901 ) we cannot continue to rely on the “status quo” in how we develop housing. In another article I will address the need to offer different housing options — such as a return to rooming/boarding houses and SROs— to provide for the destitute of a variety of backgrounds.
This is something that is happening in several cities — sometimes in small ways, sometimes in larger more coordinated ways. When city governments and/or police fail to protect neighborhoods from problems created by illegal homeless camps, including garbage and blight, drug dealing, crime, — sometimes neighbors will step up and try to solve some problems on their own. This is certainly not ideal, and could be dangerous, as it puts both sides at risk — homeless are at risk from overreaching vigilante type actions, and neighbors are at risk from violent or criminal or mentally ill homeless.
However, given the amount of catastrophic failure by some cities to prevent serious problems caused by illegal homeless camps from eroding quality of life in many neighborhoods, it should come as no surprise that fed-up communities are organizing to try to attend to some of the problems themselves.
Two examples of this happening are in New Orleans, in the French Quarter area, where “gutter punks” are creating a great nuisance in commercial districts, as well as in Portland, in the Montavilla Park neighborhood.
In New Orleans,
Sidney Torres IV is a property developer and reality television star with a fondness for making deals. But unlike a similar figure in the White House, Torres is not elected to any political office.
Instead, Torres, who was a millionaire by age 23, has used his money to start his own private police force in the historic French Quarter in New Orleans — one of several such “vigilante” groups bankrolled by businessmen to spring up in US cities in recent years.
The French Quarter Task Force uses off-duty uniformed police employed at premium wages. Residents and visitors report crime via an app.
“I started this out of need,” the 43-year-old says from his New Orleans office, where walls are adorned with framed newspaper clippings of his exploits.
In 2015, Torres — who is known for his real estate advice in the reality show The Deed — says his home in the French Quarter was robbed, and a friend of his mother’s was assaulted on the street. When the mayor did not return his call, he decided to take action.
“I did a commercial to put residents on air who were robbed and beat up to let people see them visually. I knew [the mayor] would see these and pick up the phone and call me.” The French Quarter Task Force says it is a neighbourhood watch program, not a vigilante group. But its emergence speaks to a wider trend of private police forces maintained by wealthy individuals in cities across America, existing in grey areas of the law.
“Private police forces aren’t governed by the constitution — and that makes them in my opinion quite dangerous,” says constitutional lawyer and Rutherford Institute president John Whitehead.
“They get a free pass, and that’s a scary thing. The law is lagging far behind.”
The American Council for Civil Liberties says that private forces are not subject to Freedom of Information laws, meaning that they are not required to disclose information about their operations.
In Portland:
Police statistics show property crime has risen in the neighborhood in the last three years. In July, Portland Police Assn. President Daryl Turner called Portland a “cesspool” and criticized elected officials for their response to homelessness. Turner said Portland police are “catastrophically” understaffed.
Users write of taking justice in their own hands, or using drones with video capability to observe local camps — something two homeless interviewees said does occur.
As the first article indicates, other “private security forces” are set up in Detroit and around the Facebook campus.
In 2010, businessman Dan Gilbert moved his company Quicken Loans to Detroit, where 80 per cent of the residents are black and 35 per cent live in poverty. As the city was sliding into bankruptcy as a result of the 2007 financial crisis, Mr Gilbert was installing his own security apparatus to protect his substantial investments in the city.
A man point at a red dot on a map of New Orleans.
PHOTO French Quarter Task Force operations manager Robert Simms points out crime locations on a map
In the 20-square-kilometre downtown area surrounding his company’s headquarters, Mr Gilbert has erected 500 high-powered telescopic cameras, employing private security contractors to monitor the streets and cross-coordinate with Detroit’s police databases.
Other cities around the country are following suit. Facebook recently paid for a police substation near its business campus in San Francisco, while one 2016 report said that in Washington DC, 120 private companies employed 16,580 law enforcement agents.
Other private security forces exist around the nation to deter crime, often crime related to the homeless and their camps. In Denver, this article indicated that for the private security force there, they estimated 60 to 70% of their work involved homeless related issues.
In Seattle too, as stated in this article, homeowners were fed up with “blatant lawlessness”, have hired their own security force.
For Angie Gerrald, crime in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood has reached a new low. From illegally parked RVs to open drug deals, the longtime resident sees piles of used needles on her routine runs, she said, and other problems she says police sometimes ignore.
“The blatant lawlessness has been a whole new era” this past year, Gerrald said. “There is so little response — so little they [police] can and will do about it.”
More than one SEattle neighborhood has organized a security patrol:
Magnolia launched its own patrol program in December, the latest Seattle neighborhood to organize and pay for extra security, and now some Queen Anne residents are making plans to start a program.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray unveiled a plan on Tuesday to dedicate two parking areas for dozens of people living in RVs and other vehicles, a move that follows outcry from some Ballard residents over crime around the vehicles near their homes.
The problem often comes down to lack of police resources to keep up with all the service calls:
Brad Renton, president of the Whittier Heights Patrol Association, started his surveillance service about a year ago after repeatedly “hearing the same old lies” about the police department’s plans to boost manpower, he said.
“SPD is a wonderful group of guys. They’re just getting overwhelmed,” he said. “You’d like them to be there for you, and they are there, but they have to be there for the important stuff,” not necessarily nonviolent crimes.
The patrol project came into motion after Renton heard residents’ complaints over poor police-response times to nonviolent crimes — symptoms of an overworked department and lack of resources to keep pace with demand, Renton said.
Similarly in Longmont Colorado, concerns about nuisance and crime associated with homelessness led to a private security force put into action there.
I view all of this as tied to the political trends which, on the one hand, have led to de-valuation of the police, and on the other, have led to an increasing tolerance for serious blight and nuisance in neighborhoods caused by illegal homeless camps.
A few incidents of police brutality that have been heavily overemphasized, and the misguided perception that there is more police misconduct in relation to black and minority populations) has led to suspicions of the police, the desire to restrict police powers, and even the loss of understanding that police are simply community representatives, there to protect the safety and security of the community as a whole.
The way police are referred to in some quarters shows a growing seriously distorted and utlimately anti-social perception that police are more of a problem to communities than criminals are, or that police, rather than doing the will of the people as expressed in laws passed by the whole society, are more of a racist vigilante force in themselves, not interested in enforcing laws or keeping peace but in harassing and brutalizing black and Hispanic males.
When views of the police become so distorted, and when these distortions begin to make their way into city government and result in city leaders hamstringing their police force and preventing them from adequately enforcing the law, I think it should come as no surprise when citizens start taking it upon themselves to protect their own communities.
As well, a large number of cities have utterly failed to curb or even come up with any plan to reduce the nuisance and crime that stem from illegal homeless camps, and this is totally unacceptable to many communities, who not surprisingly, will start looking around for ways to solve the problem themselves if their city leaders fail to do so.
And again, because of the dangers involved both for the homeless and for the residents of communities, it’s imperative that city leaders take this problem seriously and do much better at protecting communities from the problems and crime invariably associated with illegal homeless camps.
Recently in Washington, a group formed in a small town in Washington because they felt that not enough was being done about the problem, read about this matter here:
Unfortunately as one will find in most any community, opinions about how to address homelessness and the issues related to it, are quite divided, and as a result there can be tension in the city. This is all an obvious result of city, state and national governments failing to adequately address a very serious and growing national problem.
One of the arguments I continually make in numerous articles, is that I believe the problem of homelessness must be solved at a state and/or national level, not city by city or even county by county. To be sure, working on it county-wide is better than working on it at even smaller scale, but because the problem is in essence a national one — our country lacks a meaningful safety net for those who lose a job or an apartment, or become disabled or elderly and have insufficient income to make ends meet — it really should be solved at the national level.
Here’s an example of the difficulty of taking this on, at a county level. A study was recently done, to determine how much it would cost to end homelessness in Alameda County, the East Bay area including cities of Berkeley, Oakland (which have the most homeless) and San Leandro and Hayward and a few other cities which have far fewer homeless.
This study says that the price tag for ending homelessness in ALameda County is $334 million a year, or triple what is currently being spent. “More than 12,000 people are homeless at some point each year in Alameda County. On any given night, the figure is 5,600.” To begin with, the cost of housing these people is inappropriately high. $334 million divided by 12,000 people comes to $27,833.00 per person. Even if we allowed for 2 dozen homeless service workers in the county, to carry out the work, paid $100k each, and an additional approximately $2 million in administrative costs, that would still leave $300 million…which divided among 12,000 people would come to $27,500 each per year. That is enough to pay a rent of nearly $2300 per person, which is far more than would be needed to house these people in areas of the nation where housing is least expensive. (An entire apartment can be had for $500 a month in some cities…the image at the top of this article shows a 3-bedroom apartment in Memphis TN available for $375 a month..that comes to less than $150 per person per month to house people). As well, if these people live as roommates together in apartments, and particularly if they can be doubled up 2 to a bedroom, the cost to house them even in the Bay Area would only be $600 to $1100 a month, as this is what it costs to rent either a bedroom or shared bedroom.
Given that each homeless person could be housed elsewhere in the nation for 25% of the $2300 per person that the $334 million cost represents, not only do we not need to spend that much to house people, this indicates that our present spending on homelessness is already too high, as it is currently 30% of the $334 million, rather than the 25% of that which is all that’s needed to house all these people in places like Detroit, Memphis, Tucson, Las Vegas, or a hundred other cities with lower monthly rents than are found in the Bay Area.
Of course, this doesn’t account for paying for substance abuse treatment facilities or stays in such, or for psychiatric facilities and stays in those for the seriously mentally ill. But counties should not be footing the bill for all substance abusers or seriously mentally ill who happen to end up in their region, often migrating from elsewhere. This does need to be state funded or federally funded.
Some of those interviewed for the study, said that they felt jobs were more important than housing for the homeless:
Jose Ramirez, who has been homeless for three years. He and his dog, Judah, were sitting near Jack London Square and the Interstate 880 overpass in Oakland, right across the street from a shuttered store where he used to work.
Ramirez, 50, agreed that East Bay agencies need to be putting far more funding into homelessness but disagreed with the “housing-first” goal, in which local governments put getting people housed over services. He said finding a job is more important to him than getting shelter.
Some of the homeless have been offered shelter, but reject it, as they view it as coming with “too many rules.” One wonders if they’d have the same objections to life in a standard apartment, where you have to follow rules, or can be evicted. At some point, people unable to follow basic rules, are just not going to be able to retain any housing that is given to them.
Many people living in encampments, including 55-year-old William Ewing, criticized Mayor Libby Schaaf’s Tuff Sheds — one of the most visible city programs seeking to address homelessness. The sheds are not close to meeting the scale of the problem, and come with too many rules, said Ewing, who has been homeless for five years.
We hear a lot of stories about alleged “police brutality’ throughout the nation, including in Berkeley, which is often viewed as the most progressive, liberal city in the nation. Of course, police brutality does sometimes occur, but too many people are unaware of the other side of the problem — the abuse and harassment of police by people who it sometimes seems have made it almost their primary purpose in life to provoke police officers.
The videos I’m sharing here demonstrate that rather than abusive police in the city of Berkeley, what we often have are abusive “homeless” persons, who scream at, berate, lecture, insult and abuse police officers who are doing something as simple as politely responding to a service call. Seeing this kind of behavior can help people understand what police have to put up with in the daily course of doing their job with “poor, vulnerable, homeless people.”
In this first video, you’ll see some shockingly belligerent and abusive behavior directed towards police who do nothing but ask one man for his name and birthdate, and then simply stand passively by while being yelled at. Including yelled at through a megaphone. I’ve observed a number of interactions of this particular homeless individual with police, and it’s become clear that in order to maximize his obnoxiousness and escalate his ability to harass police, he frequently yells at police through a megaphone or bullhorn when they come to speak to him when they’ve received a complaint about him. As you’ll see in this video, his language is foul and highly provocational.
One of these homeless men tells the officer that he should shoot and kill himself.
As is stated in the description accompanying this video:
On December 11 2018, police responded to a service call and approached individuals illegally camped on a street median at Ashby and Adeline streets in Berkeley.
This video points to much that is wrong with the interactions between police and the homeless in some Left Coast cities such as Berkeley.
Notice how the police in this video are the ones being berated, insulted, lectured to and told what they may or may not do. While the individuals who are illegally camped in a street median, a spot which the city of Berkeley has made very clear is not an acceptable place to camp (they’ve repeatedly evicted people camped on street medians) are insisting on their right to be there, telling the police to go away, and using foul and abusive language in reference to other individuals in the vincinity.
As the officer simply responds to a service call, he’s lectured to by one man, having to listen to foul language from two of them, one of whom has a megaphone, circling around in the background is Osha Neumann, the enabling attorney for the homeless, as well as Barbara Brust, the woman who parks in the car in a throughway and initially refuses to move when police direct her to move her car.
Notice how the homeless individuals camping right in front of a business, ceaselessly mock and insult the business owner, repeatedly calling her “dumb bitch” yelling right over the head of the police officer, and yelling that it’s their “first amendment right” to ceaselessly scream at someone like this.
. If this is how these men behave when a police officer is right there, imagine how things will go badly south between these aggressive individuals and the business owner after the police depart. No good comes from cities or police allowing people who imagine they have a constitutional right to camp on a street median in front of commerical businesses, to linger there, taunting, provoking and abusing those all around them. This appalling nuisance needs to be ended and fast.
“We’re anarchists….” the homeless man says, “And you’re overseers“, he says to the police officer, “And your badge used to say ‘slave patrol‘. ….”and you’re not going to patrol me.” The two homeless men call the police officer a “bitch” and taunt him to pull his gun out and shoot them, joking about suicide by cop. This extremely provocational and highly disrespectful behavior, in is a result of political shifts that have enabled people to engage in harassment of police with impunity.
At one point the most belligerent homeless character in this video says this to the police officer, “Pull your gun out, put it to your head, and pull the trigger.” Yes, that is right. He actually says this to a police officer. This is what respect for the law has devolved into, in liberal Berkeley, among some of the “poor homeless.”
At one point, one of the men speaks to the police using the megaphone. saying things like “fuck the cops.” The other says, “we will kick back and we bite too.” He accuses the police officer of “carrying weapons of mass destruction.”
Consider how upside down, abusive and toxic this situation is. It demonstrates why the city of Berkeley is experiencing attrition from its police department, as well as an increase in problems with homeless camping. Berkeley has been struggling to attract officers to hire.
As well, this video demonstrates clearly the fiction of “police brutality” in Berkeley, and shows who it is who’s really abusing who — the aggressive homeless activists abusing police.
POlice officers in the City of Berkeley have stated that they spend 75% of their time responding to service calls related to homelessness. Considering the homeless population is less than 1% of the population in the city, 1000 people out of a total population of 110,000, this implies that some homeless individuals are engaging in an absolutely astronomical sized disruption to the city.
In this next video, these same two belligerent homeless individuals are taunting and provoking the police in another city in the area, Walnut Creek. It seems that they have a mission in life to travel from one city to another harassing the police.
In this next one the same two men argue with Albany Police, claiming a right to stand in the middle of the street and panhandle. One of the men refuses to acknowledge city laws which prohibit standing in the middle of the street. Other videos show him being cited for the same offense in other cities.
Note that the photo at the top of this article shows Berkeley police officers at the Old City Hall in Berkeley, after tne 2nd fire at a homeless camp which had been formed on the lawn of City Hall. This 2nd fire was started by someone allegedly dealing methamphetamine out of the camp. The homeless camp had been there for some months. It’s appalling that a city would allow a homeless camp to exist right on the lawn of city hall, when it had created two fires, and there was illegal drug activity at the camp.
Oakland is doing quite a lot — more than Berkeley— to set up shelters for its homeless, including setting up more Tuff-Shed sites. These Tuff-Shed villages use small sheds, originally designed as garden sheds, which are outfitted with electrical power, and have doors that lock, in order to house homeless until more permanent housing can be found for them. Two cots are placed in each shed and each thus houses two people.
Some homeless advocates are arguing that these dont’ work for everyone, and so some people should be permitted to stay in their tent camps and not be forced to move into the tuff sheds. Thus far, the city has not forced anyone to stay in a Tuff Shed village, and I doubt they could do that. They invite people to stay there. But the city does also shut down tent camps, and this gives homeless campers more incentive to accept a spot in the Tuff Shed villages.
A rare few tent camps are given sanction by the city, and provided with portapotties and handwashing stations, like this one at 77th Street in an industrial area. It’s well located, as it’s not near residential housing. https://invisiblepeople.tv/city-sanctioned-homeless-camp/
The city of Oakland is looking to do as Berkeley did much earlier, and declare a homeless crisis in the city:
Oakland City Council Member Nikki Fortunato Bas announced that because the problem has grown so large so quickly, the city council will be voting on naming homelessness a city crisis within the next couple of weeks.
“What we are still looking to get is housing, permanent housing,” Derrick explained outside of his tent. He added that we could be building container homes like they do in Europe and house thousands of people immediately. Even using steel hulled barges to create floating homes is an option in unused parts of the Oakland waterfront.
The movement from shutting down illegal camping to making shelter available in Tuff Shed or other official shelter, definitely is the way to go. As I see it, this is really the direction every city or government agency should be going, large-scale. You open up more and more shelters and shelter-villages offering temporary housing, an array of types of shelter which can accomodate people with different needs, for instance, some for individuals, some for couples, some for people with pets, some for people with substance abuse, some for people with serious mental illness, some for people with disabilities. And then you gradually shut down ALL illegal homeless camps in the city.
Oakland is also planning to set up “RV Parks”, by which I believe it means, RV parking areas where those living in vehicles can stay. Hopefully — if the city councilmembers have any common sense — these places will allow temporary parking, rather than the option of lifelong parking. All shelters and parking areas should allow temporary stays only, to emphasize the point that we are absolutely not going to support those who are choosing homelessness or living in a vehicle within the city, as a permanent lifestyle — because there are other places more appropriate for that, such as an RV park, or Quartzsite Arizona, which is the RV Boondocking capital of the world:
An article in the East Bay Times indicates that the number of homeless in the Bay Area and in the nation as a whole, is much higher than originally was thought.
This parking lot area is in East Oakland. It is near the Coliseum BART station, it has
space for 30 RVs, security, a full-time site manager, portable toilets and wash stations with mobile shower trucks to begin making weekly visits soon. Startup costs were about $150,000 for the new site and it will cost $600,000 a year to maintain. RVs must be operable and running, and RVers can stay up to 6 months at the site. Mayor Schaaf said it was for “Oakland residents only”, which suggests that Oakland doesn’t use the city of Berkeley’s definition of a city resident, namely anyone who drives into town.
Side note, but an important one: Berkeley allows anyone who drives into town and plops themselves down on the grass or in an RV to call themselves a city resident, vote in city elections, and send their children to Berkeley schools. Which begs the question as to whether the way to get rid of its spineless council members might be to bus in 5000 retiree-RV dweller Republicans from Arizona and have them vote out the “lily-livered” city council members who, I discovered, were too fearful to use the city’s own police force last year to evict the 100 RV dwellers illegally camping at the Marina in the hold HS Lordships parking lot. Instead of using police to enforce the law there (which clearly prohibits the overnight parking which had been going on for well over a year) they leaned on a private citizen to evict the RV dwellers during the weekend when she had her annual festival at the Marina. This private citizen reported that the city council members were “lily-livered” and unable to enforce the law in their own city, more fearful of doing this than anything else she’d ever seen in her decades of working with the city.
Anyhow, other area cities have similar programs: Mountain View and Santa Clara, Union City and Palo Alto. Berkeley does not, primarily because Berkeley is one of the most densely built cities in the region and has very little open space. Also, earlier this year, four Oakland churches opened their parking lots overnight to vehicle dwellers.
“….the city’s own numbers show the total success rate is no greater than 59%. More importantly, the records show that the most recent Tuff Shed camp at Miller Avenue in East Oakland has an abysmal 23% re-housing rate. While Devries boasted to City Council of the Tuff Shed’s re-housing success, 77% of homeless people in the city’s most recent Tuff Shed camp were returning to the streets.”
In North Vancouver, an independent filmmaker came upon an intriguing street culture — a group of homeless recycling scavengers who do shopping cart racing, flying down steep Vancouver streets, with shopping carts full of cans, bottles and perhaps also a 60 lb rock to keep the cart stable during the ride which can get up to 60 or 70km/hr.
The filmmaker, Murray Siple, is a man who used to be a snowboarder, until a car accident injury put him into a wheelchair. He found himself excited by the outlaw culture of the shopping cart racers, which rekindled the excitement he’d felt while snowboarding, and immersed himself in their community in order to make the film. He met intriguing characters, each with life challenges that had led to homelessness.
Al, in downhill shopping cart slalom:
I found this story funny and intriguing, as well as sad at times.
As winter approaches here in California, and I think of homeless people living in tents in cold, rainy weather in this state of relatively mild weather, my thoughts go towards those living outdoors in a much more hostile environment, such as the Northern states, or Canada or Alaska.
I found this YouTube video about people who are homeless in Anchorage, Alaska, and who live outdoors in tents, in weather that goes at times to 40 degrees below zero.
Many of those interviewed for this film, have been homeless for several years. Several got into the situation they are in now because of drug convictions. Some experienced having their tents and camps wrecked or burned, apparently by someone who didn’t want them there.
As is described by one outreach worker in the film, those who are down and out in Anchorage, have no place else to go. There aren’t any other cities close by. Many homeless die of exposure each year. One woman says that the homeless population in Anchorage is alarmingly high — between 6000 and 10,000, out of a total city population of 300,000. Compared to Berkeley, which has about 1000 homeless out of a total population of 110,000, the homeless population in Anchorage is twice to three times as high as that in Berkeley.
Anchorage has 223 parks, covering 10,000 acres, which ends up being space for dozens of homeless camps.
The police in Anchorage do not evict campers in the winter, they are more concerned with people being safe from the weather.
The police point out that the homeless camps are full of discarded cans and bottles of alcohol, and that the homeless tend to mostly be chronic inebriates who camp within a few minute’s walk of a liquor store. The police point out that camps are never located miles away in the woods far from liquor stores.
This film makes it clear that in Anchorage at least, the homeless issue is very heavily connected to substance abuse.
New Orleans is proving itself an admirable model for Left Coast cities who haven’t yet figured out how to do this simple thing: distinguish between “legitimate” homeless persons, who are sincerely in search of shelter and/or housing, and “gutter punks” or “travelers” who are too often found plopped down –with their pitbulls — in front of storefronts and spare-changing in commerical districts, creating nuisance for everyone.
It should not be difficult for cities to learn to make such distinctions and enact laws/policies which, while allowing space for and providing services for the homeless who truly seek help, do not support the ability of gutter punks to ruin public places.
I mean all it would really take is just asking people if they want help, services, shelter, or assistance finding housing, and if they say “no”, then you get on their behind and stay on their heinie until you get them in jail or out of town, or at least to a part of town where their ability to cause nuisance and engage in crime is minimized. As I wrote in another article on the history of homelessness, there have always been “travelers” and vagrants in the US, but historically, (before city leadership grew spineless) they have understood that they would not just be permitted to “hang out” in the center of a city and cause nuisance. So they stayed in “hobo jungles” or other areas where police didn’t hassle them.
The actions taken by New Orleans to keep their French Quarter free of those who could cause a lot of nuisance and trouble for visitors as well as ordinary residents, should be imitated by Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland, Portland and Seattle, all of which are experiencing serious problems with “gutter punks” taking over downtown areas, even to the point where people are afraid to shop in these areas in their own city.
Before this month’s fires in California, there were 134,000 homeless in this state, about 25% of the total number of homeless in the entire nation. Now that the town of Paradise has been destroyed and left 27,000 former residents of that town newly homeless, California’s total number of homeless increases by 20% to 161,000.
While it’s true that many of those who lost homes in Paradise have resources, money, insurance, and jobs, and will be able to move or rebuild, many were also poor people living in one of the few places in California where it was still inexpensive to live. It’s not clear where many will go, in a state where the housing crisis was already acute before this historically devastating fire in Paradise. As reported in the New York Times, —-
In a state already suffering an acute housing shortage, the fire that swept through the town of Paradise and neighboring hamlets has once again laid bare one of California’s biggest vulnerabilities: With each disaster — wildfire, mudslide or earthquake — there are thousands of people who cannot find homes in a market that for years has had very little vacancy.
There have been 81,000 people evacuated from the fire zones, all in need of temporary housing. About 14,000 homes have been destroyed in Paradise, and 430 in the Southern California fires, and those homes will take a while to replace — and some will not be rebuilt. Where will the newly homeless live? Some say that FEMA should provide trailers for people to live in until their homes are rebuilt:
“There is no way that the current housing stock can accommodate the people displaced by the fire,” Casey Hatcher, the spokeswoman for Butte County, where Paradise and surrounding towns ravaged by the fire are located. “We recognize that it’s going to be some time before people rebuild, and there is an extremely large housing need.”
One possible solution, she said, would be for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to provide trailers that people could live in while their homes were being rebuilt.
Many fire evacuees and those who’ve lost homes in Paradise, have set up tents at the Walmart in Chico, but this tent city is being closed down, as reported in this East Bay Times article, where it’s stated that:
Hundreds of people displaced by the Camp Fire camping outside of the Chico Walmart are being asked to leave by Sunday — and many of them are unsure of where they will go next.
There are now problems occuring in the Walmart camp, that bear resemblance to some of the problems that plague homeless camps generally, such as people finding it difficult to find alternate shelter because they have a pet, or not wanting to stay in standard shelters because of health concerns, or problems with criminals in the camp stealing from some of the homeless:
After hearing in the early afternoon about the coming closure, Magalia resident Michael Crowder said he would probably find another parking lot to stay in. Crowder explained that he didn’t know of an evacuation center that would accept his 10-year-old pitbull. He added that he was worried about catching an illness like the norovirus which is going around some of the local shelters. Crowder was sitting outside of a tent with fellow Magalia resident Terry Gardey, a friend from church…’s gotten super bad the past two nights,” Whitehurst said, while keeping an eye on a neighbor’s tent. “There’s tons and tons of people now. Now things are getting stolen out of tents. People are stealing, looting out of the tents.”.
Some say that the refugees from the Paradise Fire will set off a migrant crisis similar to that which occurred during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930’s:
Local officials warned the destruction from the Camp Fire could set off a wave of refugee migration akin to a smaller version of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
“Big picture, we have 6,000, possibly 7,000 households who have been displaced and who realistically don’t stand a chance of finding housing again in Butte County,” Mayer said. “I don’t even know if these households can be absorbed in California.”
The fire-propelled increase in the number of homeless in Butte County in particular, is leading to tensions between those who were already homeless, and the newly homeless, as described in this New York Times article.
But one of the biggest barriers to ending homelessness in Butte County is a dire shortage of available, affordable rental housing……Before the Camp Fire, the county had a housing vacancy rate of just 1 to 2 percent, much lower than the 2 to 5 percent needed in most healthy housing markets, according to Jennifer Griggs, the Continuum of Care coordinator. After the fire, “not only did all of that vacancy rate get swooped up right away, but now it’s even more of a challenge to find any type of housing for anybody, regardless of their housing status prior,” she said. ….
We know we’re already short shelter beds, but shelter beds are a vehicle through which you get people into permanent housing,” Ms. Cootsona added. “You can build more shelter beds, but if there’s no path out, then that is just a Band-Aid.”
One man named Jaime who lost his home in the Camp Fire, said that the experience of losing his home gave him more empathy for and understanding of the plight of the homeless, as described in this article in the LA Times. One would expect this, however Jaime’s assertion that “no one ends up sleeping under an overpass by choice” is not really true. Anyone who’s followed the issues about homelessness, and read their share of articles on the matter, has certainly read many articles which state that upon being offered shelter, many homeless people prefer to stay in their tents, on a sidewalk or under an overpass. When they’ve made such a decision, then their living under an overpass is clearly a choice. Whitewashing the entire phenomenon of homelessness and trying to pretend that people dont’ end up in this situation due to a number of factors, many of these being a result of their bad decisions, is not helpful in terms of coming up with viable solutions.
One resident says that there was always a “hardcore group of homeless” in Chico, but that the size of this group increased after the Paradise Fire, and that they are all coming for freebie handouts:
For many of the visible changes, Nava blames a hardcore group of homeless people that gathers in the city’s many parks and around City Hall, a challenge that existed before the fire, but one she says has grown significantly since then.
Many, she said, have arrived for the post-fire charity – the gift cards, gas cards and donated food meant for Paradise refugees. She calls it a “free giveaway show that has never ended.”
This article is a part of a longer article about Court Cases on Homeless Issues. I wanted to highlight the court case Martin vs Boise, because it’s drawing great attention at this point in time, and unfortunately, many homeless, homeless advocates, as well as attorneys for the homeless, are using (or rather, abusing) this case in order to try to bully cities and prevent them from being able to remove problematic illegal camps in a timely way.
Attorneys in particular should know very well that this case is unlikely to apply to many cities, particularly not cities in the Bay Area which have many homeless, and where city leaders have had to become well informed on legal issues pertaining to homelessness for some time now.
Yet in spite of the fact that attorneys should easily be able to understand the narrow scope of this case and know that it’s unlikely to apply to a city such as Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley or Oakland, attorneys for the homeless are nevertheless trying to sue cities in cases without merit, and claim that this case prohibits cities from removing a problematic illegal camp, or perhaps, any illegal camp at all.
Let’s take a closer look and see what this case is really about, and why it is very unlikely to apply to most cities which have a significant homeless issue.
Civil Right to Sleep in Public Places
A recent decision in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as described in this New York Times article, has underscored the legal finding I mention in my longer article on Court Cases relating to homelessness, where it is considered unconstitutional to prohibit people sleeping outdoors if there is no indoors shelter available for them:
In their summary of the opinion, the judges wrote,
“As long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.”
The full opinion can be seen in the court document here:
A judge in the Cinncinnati area has used precisely the consequences of this law — that sleeping in public places CAN be prohibited if there is adequate shelter space available — to prohibit all homeless camps in Hamilton County Ohio, as described in this article.
Cities like Seattle which do not have an outright ban on sleeping in public places (to my knowledge, very few cities actually have such a prohibition, because prior to this ruling, such a stance was generally known by city governments to be unconstitutional) are apparently unaffected by this ruling, as stated in this article in the SEattle Times.
The city of Seattle will continue to enforce laws that prohibit people from camping or sleeping outdoors under certain circumstances. City officials say that because Seattle does not have an outright ban on these activities, Seattle is not affected by the court’s decision.
A clear description of the significance of Martin vs Boise can be found on the website of the Phillips Burgess Law firm, here — and their elaboration as follows helps clarify:
The City of Boise, ID had a total and complete prohibition on camping anywhere in public places. Relevantly, the “Camping Ordinance” (Boise City Code § 9-10-02)makes it a misdemeanor to use “any of the streets, sidewalks, parks, or public places as a camping place at any time.” (Emphasis added)
Essentially, the government is prohibited from imposing criminal penalties on people for “being in a condition [they] are powerless to change.” For example, it would be unconstitutional for someone to be incarcerated or fined for having a common cold. As a result, the court found that the City’s unconditional ban on people sleeping on public property unconstitutionally penalized people for being in a situation they could not immediately control.
The court is clear that its opinion is narrow; it is not intended to command cities to provide sufficient shelter or allow people to occupy public spaces whenever they please. In a footnote, the court explains that an ordinance prohibiting sitting, lying, or sleeping outside at specific times or locations might be constitutional. However, a violation of someone’s Eight Amendment rights occurs when, as with the City ordinances at issue here, the government creates an unlimited prohibition against sleeping on public property. When there is no option for sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize people for sleeping outdoors on public property without exception.
From this description it should be clearthat Martin vs Boise will not apply in any situation where there is not a complete prohibition on camping in any public place — something which is not found in any California city that I know of, and certainly not in Oakland, Berkeley or San Francisco.
Boise v. Martin was a patent case of judicial activism in the pursuit of a favored policy agenda. The decision discounted facts that stood in the way of its desired conclusion. But the ruling’s most serious problem was the declaration that homelessness is an involuntary condition that the sufferer has no capacity to control or change. Numerous personal decisions go into being homeless, such as not moving to a cheaper housing market, refusing offered services, or breaking ties with friends or family members who might be able to provide accommodation. The concept of agency is already under assault in the legal academy; should more courts pick up on this trend, much of the criminal law would have to be discarded. A dissenting Ninth Circuit judge in a subsequent appeal of the case noted that if cities cannot ban sleeping in public, because sleeping is an inevitable concomitant of being human, they also cannot ban defecating in public. The majority chose not to respond to this logical inference.
In July 2019, Theodore Olson, a Washington lawyer best known for his work on the 2000 electoral case of Bush v. Gore, announced that his firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, was seeking Supreme Court review of Boise v. Martin. If the Court grants review, Olson should challenge not just the specific holding banning encampment ordinances but the constitutional jurisprudence underlying the decision as well. The Eighth Amendment speaks only of punishment; it is a mistake to use it as a restriction on the substantive criminal law. Moreover, the conduct versus status distinction that grew out of that mistake is, in many instances, philosophically incoherent.
Many advocates of the homeless are eager to test the consequences of Martin Vs Boise in their local courts, to see if they can use this case to stop cities from removing homeless camps. And many of their attempts to sue cities for trying to clear out nuisance camps, will be disingenuous and amount to bullying the city, because attorneys should fully well understand why, as described above by the Phillips Burgess Law Firm, Martin vs Boise does not apply to the situations they are suing over. For instance, in this article, the city attorney in Puyallup WA said:
City attorney Joseph Beck said the Martin v. Boise ruling has no direct impact on the city of Puyallup, which does not have a “no-camping” ordinance like the city of Boise.
“We don’t have the same kind of facts. We don’t have the same kind of codes, the same kind of enforcement policies,” Beck said. “They’re factually distinguishable.”
Beck added that the city is already in compliance with the ruling.
“The Ninth Circuit decision was not a surprise, and we have been operating and advising the city in compliance with that decision for the last two years,” he said.
Nevertheless, the bullying of cities by homeless advocates, attempting to use Martin vs Boise as a club, will likely increase. For instance, this week attorneys representing homeless in Oakland have sued the city to try to keep it from removing a problematic homeless camp, as described in this article. The case is summed up this way:
The case is one of the first legal tests to see just how far judges might go in interpreting the recent Martin v. Boise decision in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that laws criminalizing homelessness are unconstitutional if a city isn’t offering adequate shelter.
“The main thrust is under the Martin v. Boise case,” Joshua Piovia-Scott told Judge Gilliam during today’s hearing. He said there are currently about 300 to 350 shelter beds available in Oakland while there are about 1,902 unhoused people.
Though it’s possible some judges may use Martin vs Boise to temporarily stop cities from clearing out homeless camps, the facts of that case really dont’ apply to situations like that in Oakland or most other cities which have no blanket prohibition on camping in public places, but which seek to remove specific camps. I doubt very much that most courts would interpret Martin vs Boise in this way, as this reading would leave cities with no power to abate large scale nuisance in their cities. To use the case to prohibit camp removals would also show a lack of ability to distinguish between sleeping overnight in public areas, versus setting up long term permanent camps on public property.
UPDATE November 29 2018
As I expected, the judge in the Oakland case where homeless advocates were trying to block the city from evicting a homeless camp on city property, ruled in favor of the city.
Judge Gilliam ruled that the city can in fact remove the camp, provided that they provide shelter for those people in the camp. This is an important ruling because it finally makes it clear that homeless people will not be allowed to refuse city shelter and camp wherever they like. Many homeless have been making the entitled argument for some time now that they have this right — to just camp wherever — because they prefer their tent to city shelters, because as homeless they have “rights” to public spaces. This ruling makes it very clear that they have no such fundamental rights to remain (essentially permanently, 24/7/365) in public spaces, and that the claims of the homeless in this regard are completely illegitimate.
Significantly, Judge Gilliam stated that:
“Martin does not establish a constitutional right to occupy public property indefinitely,” Gilliam wrote in his decision.
Further aspects of the ruling:
Gilliam also accepted the city’s argument that by shuttering the camp, it isn’t imposing any criminal penalties on the homeless residents. The campers argued the opposite, saying that the order to leave the property would ultimately be enforced with the threat of arrest and citation for trespassing, therefore they were being criminalized due to their homeless condition.
Plaintiffs further argued that the city-owned lot they occupied has been vacant for over ten years and is akin to a public park. Gilliam rejected the notion, saying in court that the city’s intended use of the lot is irrelevant.
As to why they believed their eviction would also be a violation of the 14th Amendment, the camp residents argued that the city has sometimes confiscated and thrown away people’s property when closing camps.
But Gilliam found that Oakland’s existing policies and procedures are fair. The city notifies homeless camp residents at least 72 hours in advance of closing a site, and any belongings left behind that are not obviously trash or hazards are stored by the city so owners can recover them.
Judge Gilliam, in distinguishing this case from Martin vs Boise, made the obvious point that “Plaintiffs are not faced with punishment for acts inherent to their unhoused status that they cannot control. Nor are Plaintiffs unable to obtain shelter outside of Dignity Village, based on the City’s commitments in its papers and at the hearing”
He also recognized that allowing the camp to remain in place, would create “serious liability exposure for the city”, something many of us can easily see. I mean this is just a common sense matter.
Many of us realized this was the only logical possibility, because any other ruling/decision would essentially take away a city’s ability to control its own public spaces, and leave cities helpless as public areas were commandeered and expropriated by homeless people setting up camps in them.
Judge Gilliam favored the homeless and their advocates in his ruling a little more than I would have expected, though, in that rather than ruling that there is a distinction between the right to sleep in public spaces, and the setting up of permanent camps, he ruled that the city can remove this camp if it provides alternate shelter for these individuals. Such a ruling is overly burdensome on cities which have many more homeless than they can shelter. However, particularly given that many shelters are set up to operate night by night, it should not be difficult to provide one night of shelter for those at camps the city seeks to remove, and then to leave them to put in some effort to make repeat applications to stay at that shelter for subsequent nights…or simply sleep in public spaces, as the constitution permits them to do, without setting up a permanent camp.
Homeless advocates in Oakland are saying they will continue fighting against the city’s evictions of homeless camps. They claim in this video that there are 14,000 homeless people in Oakland (far more than the official count ), and claim that the city doesn’t really intend to provide shelter for the residents of camps they evict, so that they believe the court should not allow the city to evict the camps. They say they will continue to litigate their case in court and force the city to follow required policy, and to offer shelter to all evictees. If the city is smart and offers evictees one night of shelter only, and gives them the burden of making effort to show up early and stand in line and apply for shelter on subsequent nights, then this will not be overly burdensome, but it’s still not a burden I believe is fair to put on the city.
I think at some point, perhaps not in Oakland but in some city where this same issue arises in court, cities need to make the valid point that the responsibility for housing the homeless, cannot be imposed on individual cities, as seems to be the current de facto policy. Just as we would not insist that any one city provide health insurance or health care to thousands of people who decided to pour into that city and demand it, shelter for the homeless is really a state and federal issue, not a municipal one, and this should be seen clearly when we realize that some cities are far more burdened by homelessness than others, as are some states. California has over 25% of all the homeless in the entire nation. Particularly given the fact that housing in coastal California tends to be twice as expensive as in most other areas of the US, it makes no sense for the state of California, or coastal cities, to be forced to shelter or house individuals who could be sheltered or housed for much less in other parts of the nation.
UPDATE December 6 2018
The city of Oakland removed the encampment, as reported in this article. The city offered shelter to all those who would be evicted, and it’s possible that some of the shelter they offered to the homeless there, was in another city, Alameda, as the attorney for the homeless stated:
The city offered people in the encampment shelter beds, and to take them to the shelters and store their belongings. Joshua Piovia-Scott, their attorney, said the shelter the city offered was in Alameda, and not adequate for the residents.
This is interesting, and brings up the question that many of us have had about how the courts will view any one city’s obligation to itself provide all the services and shelter needed by anyone who happens to show up homeless within the perimeters of that city and demand housing or shelter there. As many observers of the homeless crisis have pointed out many times, it does not make sense to try to solve this issue city by city, and therefore, we would hope that courts, understanding this, would not require cities to shelter all homeless who arrive at their city, within that city, but could direct them to shelters wherever they were available in that region. Or even, possibly, beyond the immediate region, and in other states, which would really be the best way to work on this issue at a federal level.
In Berkeley, again demonstrating that Martin vs City of Boise does not prohibit cities from making laws about use of sidewalks, the city is beginning to enforce its sidewalk ordinance, as passed in October 2018. See this article about that:
The ordinance bans camping or sleeping on sidewalks in residentialareas, and though it protects people’s constitutional rights to sleep in (non-residential) public areas at night, perhaps in tents, it prohibits them from leaving their tents up 24/7. They are going to be required to pack uptheir things in the morning and keep them in an area no larger than 3 ft by 3 ft. This ordinance was passed in response to the problem of homeless individuals setting up very large campsites with belongings spread over a massive area of sidewalk or public space, such as areas 8 to 10 ft wide and 30 feet long, and essentially permanently appropriating this public space for their own private use. Such large-scale appropriation of sidewalk space was being done in Berkeley not just by a few people but by a significant number, all over the city.
This sidewalk ordinance does not violate the decision in Martin vs Boise, because it preserves people’s right to sleep in public areas at night. Martin vs Boise did not lay out a right to permanently homestead on public land. It narrowly dealt with sleeping overnight, not activities on or obstructions or property left on the sidewalk during the day. If you examine the opinion in Martin vs Boise, you’ll see that the center of the entire decision hinges on ensuring that people are not criminalized or penalized for anything pertaining to the stateof being homeless, the basic necessities of existence such as sleeping. However, keeping a tent set up 24/7 is not a necessity of being homeless, when the tent could be taken down during the day when one is not sleeping. Nor is having a huge pile of belongings that takes up an area of space 10 ft wide by 30 ft long, inextricably part of the state of being homeless. Having such a large mass of things when homeless is a choice, and for someone who is homeless, it’s a bad choice and an irresponsible one.
It’s along this line of thought that one can distinguish what is related to the state of being homeless and what is not.
The Misunderstandings Continue
In the December 2018 issue of “Street Spirit”, the newspaper that homeless individuals sell on East Bay streets, there’s an article pertaining to Caltrans and the Martin vs Boise decision, in which the author describes Caltrans as “the largest and most high-profile evictor of homeless encampments in California”, and asks Caltrans how their evictions of camps will be effected by Martin vs Boise.
Caltrans replies that they are aware of the Martin case, but that their focus is safety, and that “homeless encampments in the state right of way have the potential to pose a public health and safety risk for the homeless, our workers and the public.” Though homeless have a “right to sleep in public places”, when there is no other shelter available, the Martin case’s narrow ruling did not investigate a related issue, which is — that some public spaces are likely much more appropriate for “sleeping” (as opposed to 24/7 expropriation as a campground) than others — some will be inherently more dangerous to human safety. Some spaces will in and of themselves pose dangers, for instance a homeless person trying to set up a tent mere feet away from a highway, or near a steep drop. As well, what campers do in their campsites, where they do or don’t put their garbage, food, and human waste — can create dangers, which the city or government agency must abate.
Martin vs Boise likely to be appealed to US Supreme Court
“But even some homeless people in Austin question whether the rules are too lenient.
“Everyone now has a sense of entitlement, and now things are beyond out of control,” said Ambra Hall, 38, a homeless woman who was sitting in a camp while five men were passed out at her feet after smoking synthetic cannabinoids. “It went from one extreme to another, from criminalizing people for not having a home, to this.”
Drug use and crime in some homeless camps has become fodder for Republican politicians in Texas and nationally. In Washington, state Sen. Phil Fortunato announced that he will run for governor next year on a platform that includes removing the “criminal homeless” from the streets by incarcerating them for even minor crimes.”
Cities like Seattle which do not have an outright ban on sleeping in public places (to my knowledge, very few cities actually have such a prohibition, because prior to this ruling, such a stance was generally known by city governments to be unconstitutional) are apparently unaffected by this ruling, as stated in this article in the SEattle Times.
We should all be paying for homeless services, homeless housing, and affordable housing. But instead, what I see happening in our nation, is that due in part to the fact that some areas have many more homeless than others, and also because many municipalities are trying to solve this problem at the local level, we aren’t all paying equally for helping the homeless. Some of us are ending up paying much more than others.
One of the ways I read Measure O and Measure P, (which were 2 measures on the November 2018 ballot in Berkeley ) as well as many other efforts by the City of Berkeley to provide more services and opportunities for homeless and low income persons, is that the City of Berkeley is trying to do and pay for things that really should be done and paid for by the county, state, or federal government. So, to oversimplify it, when “mean Republicans” take things away from people and/or refuse to provide/pay for help for those who do need help and should be provided shelter or housing subsidies, or other services, at the federal level, Berkeley and like cities step in and try to get their residents to pay for this stuff instead, at the municipal level.
So, when federal Republican lawmakers taketh away, behold, Berkeley taxeth and giveth back.
This formula is problematic in many ways.
Many of us feel angered at the way we’re preyed upon as “piggy banks”. Estimates vary on how much each homeowner household will pay for Measures O and P…some have estimated $100 a year, others say $600 a year.
There are many things wrong with the system of people paying for city services with property taxes. One of the biggest problems with this, is that people are paying very different and unequal amounts, for the very same services. Someone who bought their home 30 or 40 years ago in Berkeley, might be paying as little as $600 a year total in property taxes. Others, who bought recently, might be paying $15,000 a year, for the very same services. Yet they are not receiving over 10 times the value in city services. They are just paying more because their home cost more when they bought. So in addition to paying more in mortgage expense, they have higher property taxes. Then also, renters, particularly those renting in single family homes or small buildings, are generally not paying a similar rate towards property tax, as are owners. An average couple living in a 2-bedroom house in Berkeley may be paying $1000 a month in property tax, meaning about $500 each per month. So this comes to $500 in property tax cost per bedroom. Yet if one of those rooms goes to a renter, renting out a bedroom in such a home, that person is unlikely to be paying (out of their total rent) $500 a month towards property tax. (If you thought your rent was high now, wait until you are actually paying your fair portion of the owners’ property tax….)
Nor are any other renters in any other type of building likely to pay a proportionately similar amount to the city, as owners pay in property tax. So there’s a basic unfairness built into this system, whereby there are widely unequal payments being made for essentially the same city services. You could argue actually that those who use services more, often pay less, since the city of Berkeley pays for legal aid for tenants (but not for property owners) and pays for help for homeless, programs for low-income people, and more — lots of programs that an average homeowner is not going to benefit from.
If you’re upset at having to pay this extra amount in taxes, short of moving out of the city, there are not many things that can be done to save you this extra tax cost. However, a friend reminds me that sometimes there are creative ways to transfer the cost back to the city. He lives in a different city and also ended up with extra taxes based on an election measure he’d voted against. He set things right via the garbage. Eg, “garbage activism”.
Take a look at City of Berkeley monthly refuse collection rates.
If you have any size trash container bigger than 13 gallons, you qualify for his method of returning costs to the city. Say your garbage can is 20 gallons in size, and you calculate you’ll be paying $400 a year more for property taxes based on Measure O and P. You have the option of “garbage activism” .
If you reduce your garbage container size from 20 gallons, to a 13 gallon can, then this would reduce your garbage collection costs by $26.25 – $17.09 = $9.16/month, or $109 a year.
If you reduce your garbage container size from 32 gallon to 13 gallon size, then you can reduce your monthly costs by $42.98 – $17.09 = $25.89, for an annual savings of $310.
And similarly if you scale down from larger cans.
You then fill up your own 13 gallon can with your garbage, and any extra garbage that doesn’t fit in your 13 gallon can, you place inside city garbage cans such as those found along commerical districts, so that the city, rather than you, are paying for the cost of the additional garbage pickup.
In some locales, placing “household garbage” in a city garbage can isn’t allowed. However, the city garbage cans in Berkeley dont’ have such a statement on them, and if they did, homeless persons who regularly place their “household garbage” in them would be constantly in violation of the law.
As well, one might point out that (1) camping on a sidewalk isn’t legal, particularly doing this for over a year, (2) people camping on sidewalks are receiving quite a number of city services at no cost at all, including garbage pickup, because no homeless camp in this area charges its residents for garbage collection. Members just put their trash in the nearest city trash cans. By putting your own garbage in the city garbage cans instead of paying to dispose of it in your own garbage can, you’d simply be following this fine example.
Though some might not realize it, there have been “homeless” people in America since before the founding of the nation. As Kenneth Kusmer writes in his book, “Down and Out, On the Road: The Homeless in American History”,
As early as 1640, “vagrant persons” were listed among the social outcasts that peace officers in Boston were charged with apprehending.
Around the time of the American Revolution, the number of homeless dramatically increased, and “By the time of the depression in 1857, every substantial urban center was grappling with throngs of homeless persons.” Though there were certainly also wandering beggars in Europe, the predominance of Protestantism in the colonies, and its emphasis on the importance of work, led to a less tolerant view of vagrants in the colonies. For instance, as Kusmer writes,
“The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay drew sharp distinctions among different types of destitute persons…the poor, sick, those unable to care for themselves due to age or debility were considered part of the community…the wandering poor, however, were different. They had broken the bonds of community and rejected the idea of diligently working in a calling. As Governor John Endicott said to the Massachusetts Bay Company, “Noe idle drone bee permitted to live amongst us.”
In fact, as Todd DePastino wrote in his history of homelessness in the nation, “Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America“, British America was in a sense founded as a refuge from and solution to the homeless crisis of Tudor and Stuart England (pg 6). So America was predisposed from the get-go to be hostile to vagrants and homeless tramps.
Ultimately, it would be just this wandering nature and/or rejection of the value of consistent, diligent work, as well as rejection of standard family life, which would set apart the culture of the hobo and tramp from that of mainstream America, and ultimately lead Americans to view the hobo culture as a threat that must be suppressed. Early vagrancy statutes functioned as a way of punishing behavior viewed as deviant, and the Calvinistic values of early colonies implied that no behavior was considered more alien to a well-ordered community than idleness.
It was the Civil War that really changed the phenomenon of vagrancy and homelessness, as the war gave large numbers of men their first chance to use the railroad. The war also introduced the practice of small groups of men going on foraging expeditions, a practice that would also become part of tramping. The words “tramp” and “bum” can be traced to the Civil War era. Then as now, a number of those who served in the war came out with more than physical scars, and Kusmer writes that a considerable number of former soldiers descended into vagrancy or a life of petty crime. As well, the male cameraderie of the tramp life was viewed as a mass rebellion against domestic life. By 1870, a vertiable “tramp crisis” existed, which was widely despised. As Kusmer writes, (pg 43), “It was impossible to overstate the hostility of the educated public to the tramps in the 1870’s and 1880’s.” However, there was also a growing romance to the hobo culture, which in the view of some, was most eloquently represented by the person and poetry of Walt Whitman, particularly in his poem, “Open Road”:
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of myself of the holds that would hold me.
There was indeed a “romance” of the hobo and tramp, which was so strong that it really has continued to be felt even long after the demise of the hobo. It continued on with the Beat poets, in Kerouac’s “On the Road” and “Dharma Bums“, and continues still to appeal to youthful wanderers…something about America’s vastness and the landscapes of open roads, which call our hearts to the song of the wanderer and adventurer.
Bill Aspinwall, tramp
Bill Aspinwall, a tramp of the late 19th century, represented himself as Whitmanesque, and stated that “I often think that God intended man to live as the Indians used to.” He saw the tramp life as a healthy alternative to industrial civilization.
Another phenomenon contributed to the “tramp army” that grew as of the mid-19th century, and this was the beginning of “unemployment” in the nation. Prior to the mid 19th century, unemployment as such was a much rarer phenomenon, since prior to that time, most heads of household were self-employed, for instance as farmers or tradesmen. There was also a greater intimacy between employer and employee prior to the mid 19th century, before widespread industrialization, so that workers protected employees. This changed with the growth of industry as places of employment became depersonalized. In fact, as DePastino writes (pg 66) the late 19th century labor markets were considered “extraordinarily volatile”, full of boom-and-bust cycles, that virtually compelled workers to be unemployed and then, to have to travel for employment.
The rise of hoboes and tramping was tied to the need to travel to find work, often seasonal. The author Jack London was one of those who traveled to find work, and may have been one of those who sang the song, “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum“, written by Harry McClintock in 1928.
Rejoice and be glad for the Springtime has come We can throw down our shovels and go on the bum Hallelujah, I’m a bum, Hallelujah, bum again Hallelujah, give us a handout to revive us again The Springtime has come and I’m just out of jail Without any money, without any bail Hallelujah, I’m a bum, Hallelujah, bum again Hallelujah, give us a handout to revive us again
London too saw romance in the hobo culture, writing that hoboes were “primordial noble men…lustfully roving and conquering through sheer superiority and strength.”
McClintock also wrote the song “Big Rock Candy Mountain“, which was another expression of the “romance” of the hobo and tramp.
One evening as the sun went down And the jungle fires were burning, Down the track came a hobo hiking, And he said, “Boys, I’m not turning I’m headed for a land that’s far away Besides the crystal fountains So come with me, we’ll go and see The Big Rock Candy Mountains
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, There’s a land that’s fair and bright, Where the handouts grow on bushes And you sleep out every night. Where the boxcars all are empty And the sun shines every day And the birds and the bees And the cigarette trees The lemonade springs Where the bluebird sings In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.
In his book Citizen Hobo, DePastino repeatedly comments about the racial aspects of early homelessness, pointing out that the hobo culture was primarily a culture of white men. He describes it as an arena of “white male privilege“, but I think this is a mischaracterization, typical of the superficiality of identity politics, that misses a deeper point. Namely that the world of the hobo was the expression of a particular ethnic cultural group, and, for good or ill, this happened to be males of Western European origin. Individuals from other ethnic or national origins, (even those from Southern or Eastern Europe) would not be likely to have the same feelings, attitudes, and cultural viewpoints, indeed the same kind of song and “romance” about the vagrant life, as did males of West European origin, who were formed by these cultural elements expressed by Whitman, and McClintock, as well as other poets of the future, like the Beats and Woody Guthrie.
To be sure, there was racial and gender prejudice involved in the hobo and tramp community. However, it’s unlikely that immigrants from Mexico, China or the Phillipines, or women, or blacks recently freed from slavery, would have had just the same kind of viewpoint and cultural expressions (songs, poetry, romanticization) of the tramp life, as did males of European origin. For instance, we would not expect that a Filipino, Japanese or Mexican immigrant, would have created a song like “Big Rock Candy Mountain”, nor would we expect that individuals from very different cultural backgrounds would have drawn the same inspiration from Walt Whitman’s poetry or the idea of the “romance of the open road” as did men who came from that same European (Western European ) cultural formation. We would well expect that different ethnic groups would have their own unique songs of the road and ways of experiencing being migrant workers or vagrants in America. So I think rather than critiquing the hobo culture as an arena of “white male privilege”, which is (eg, see Jordan Peterson) arguably a racist phrase, it makes sense to honor the particular cultural expression that it gave rise to — which has since expanded and become informed by different cultural streams and ethnicities.
One of the differences between “native” hoboes and other European immigrant migrant workers, was that the immigrants were more tightly connected to job and family, something which drew scorn from the hoboes, who called them “scissorbills” (pg 125 DePastino) and considered them as “owned by their jobs”. The hobo subculture was one that highly valued freedom from the servitude to employers and work.
There was doubtless more ethnic variation among hoboes, than gender diversity. The world of the hobo was overwhelmingly a man’s world, and the very few women present in the hobo world were generally not traveling alone, but with a family, as in this photo of a hobo family taken in 1939.
The world of homelessness in all its forms, has doubtless always been more difficult and more dangerous for women. Though some modern women like to go adventuring on “road trips”, that is generally done from the safety of one’s own vehicle, not as someone without any belongings but a backpack, mercilessly exposed to the elements and possible predation or crimes by other hoboes, tramps, or bums — among whom there have always been a number of criminals. As well, women just don’t seem to experience domestic life and routine employment as oppressing, much less emasculating, in the way that many men do. In his book American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers, and Bullriders, author Richard Grant talks about the strong pull he felt towards becoming a lifelong nomad, giving up most all possessions and sleeping in cheap hotels or most any vehicle he found himself traveling in. He felt he had “unlocked the secret of human freedom”, as had others who had “abandoned sedentary civilization for the nomadic life”, and these were most all men. He also discovered that this type of person was more prevalent in the American West than anywhere else, and indeed this connects to the mythos of this land, as well as the vast, open landscape of the West.
The hobo was also a relic of the frontiersman, the native American pioneer adventurer, drawn westward for bold adventure. DePastino (pg 128) writes that he was a “belated frontiersman, a frontiersman at a time and in a place where the frontier is passing or no longer exists…a relic from a world that had once rewarded freewheeling masculinity.” We can see something of the same out-of-place lifestyle, when we see and hear the expressions of modern-day homeless persons, who set up often elaborate tent camps or even elaborate plywood shelters in the middle of cities, or in forests adjacent to cities, clearly engaging in nothing less than an elaborate homesteading attempt, in areas which for well over a hundred years, have been privately or corporately owned and not permitted homesteading.
Time for some terminology. There were 3 terms that referred to homeless in these early years of this phenomenon: hobo, tramp, and bum. This is the way these were defined (pg 87, Nels Anderson book) :
(1) A hobo is a migratory worker. (2) A tramp is a migratory non-worker. (3) A bum is a stationary non-worker.
The “hobo” was considered the top of the hierarchy, and hoboes looked down on those who did not work, and those who did not move. In fact, hoboes, in a sense the “original” homeless, had great contempt for a number of things that we would nowadays consider almost ubiquitous in the “culture” of homelessness: things such as lack of interest in work, willingness to beg for support, tendency to stay in one place rather than travel, inability to keep oneself clean and to keep one’s camp clean. As Nels Anderson wrote in his book “The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless man“, (pg 18) ” The hobo has established the habit of keeping his clothes and his person clean.”
These things were in direct contrast to the values of the original hobo culture. In fact, there were few things that a hobo found as contemptible as begging, as ANderson says on pg 42: “An able-bodied man who begs when broke is beneath contempt…this is considered despicable.” I find this ironic, given that many prominent voices in the “homeless community” today, have essentially taken begging to a large scale, and are not only begging from various city governments, but demanding to be given a great deal, including expensive forms of housing, without doing any work.
Things that the hoboes did value, included storytelling. “The art of telling a story is diligently cultivated by the hobo…many of them develop into fascinating raconteurs…” (pg 19 Anderson) . Hoboes had “rules” for their jungles, including these as related by ANderson:
(1) Do not make fire at night in jungles subject to raids
(2) Do not rob men in jungles, or continually scavenge from other’s meals
(3) Do not waste food or destroy it after eating
(4) Do not leave pots or utensils dirty after using
(5) Do not cook without first hustling fuel
(6) Do not destroy hobo jungle equipment
(7) Keep the camp clean
The hobo phenomenon became so large, that many elements of society began to form around it. Hoboes congregated in what was termed the “main stem” of cities, a downtown area close to the railroad yard, that began to develop around the hobo’s needs. Here there were saloons, brothels, lodging houses, flophouses, and employment agencies catering to traveling or seasonal workers. Also, many early vagrants would be lodged in police stations. There were also “hobo jungles”, the early version of a “homeless camp”, usually near the rail line and near running water, but not too close to local residents. The hobo town had elements that connected with radical politics and countercultural views, and had its own countercultural term: “hobohemia“, which connects this culture with the artistic bohemian cultures of the Left Bank in Paris, Greenwich Village and elsewhere.
San Francisco, Minneapolis and Chicago were centers for hobo life. Minneapolis had 105 lodging houses and about 6000 hoboes living in them. San Francisco’s South of Market district (still considered one of the “grittier” areas of the city) had lodging houses accomodating 40,000 men per night just before WWI. Chicago, which earned the name “Hobo Capital of America”, was bigger than either of these, housing 40,000 to 60,000 hoboes and tramps in 200 to 300 lodging houses or cheap hotels around 1908. Nels Anderson, in his early study of hobos called “The Hobo: The Sociology of the Homeless Man“, stated that Chicago’s employment agencies placed 250,000 migratory workers (hobos) per year.
In fact, the IWW or Industrial Workers of the World, was heavily centered on the hobo army as their central work force, and the song “Hallelujah I’m a Bum” became the IWW anthem.
So there are three important points to draw from this: (1) one is that the “homeless” in early America, were primarily working people, hoboes, not non-working “bums”. (2) the early “homeless” were not actually always without shelter. Those staying in lodging houses, flophouses (where they could “rent” space on the floor to sleep), cheap hotels or private boardinghouses, were termed “homeless”, in that the meaning of the term “homeless” in those days was not “without shelter” but rather implied a disaffiliation from the normative American life, eg, life in a domestic family. (3) the work that is nowadays overwhelmingly done by “illegal immigrants” (primarily from Mexico and Central America) which we tend now to insist that “Americans will not do”, was in the past work that was done largely by hoboes, white males of European descent. Agricultural work, harvesting, construction, logging — these kinds of work were all originally the province of hoboes, who were the original migratory workers in this nation. Certainly, there were also many people of other nationalities and ethnicities who were migratory laborers, and their numbers increased over time, but the “native” hoboes were the original traveling workers. This history of western harvest workers is described by Mark Wyman in his book, “Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West.”
Significant changes began to occur in the phenomenon of hobo culture, after the “hobo army” of itinerant workers began to get too large and threatening. The mass of hoboes in “main stems” was of concern to many. Hence, building codes began to be introduced, around 1909, which doomed many lodging houses. The least expensive sort of lodgings were gradually reduced and ultimately eliminated, thus making it harder for “homeless” of any sort to find affordable shelter. This trend has increased in the last hundred years, to where building codes have become more and more strict and onerous, resulting in greater expense for all construction. As well, zoning laws have emerged which have made it more difficult to operate any type of boarding house or lodging house, and which have threatened the existence of the SRO or single room occupancy type hotel.
Employers also gradually began to prefer to hire migrant families, and then Mexicans, rather than “single drifter” hoboes. (pg 178 DePastino) They had this preference in part because they felt that the families and Mexican workers were more vulnerable and tractable, and thus easier to exploit, or less likely to demand their rights and fight the employer.
The areas of the city which had once been hobo centers, the “main stems”, began to be torn down. These areas were increasingly seen as promoting a culture that was a threat to the prevailing family ideals. Lodging houses and saloons were destroyed and replaced with expensive hotels or office towers. (pg 234 DePastino) . In Chicago, 30,000 cheap hotel rooms were replaced with office buildings. Later on, between 1970 and 1980, 1 million residential hotel rooms were destroyed (pg 243 DePastino). It seems to me that as we struggle with the “homeless crisis” of our time, we need to recognize what has actually contributed to the loss of inexpensive housing — how we intentionally destroyed so much inexpensive housing — this loss has a great deal to do with our collective destruction of lodging houses, boarding houses, and cheap residential hotels and SROs. There’s a lot of talk about “affordable housing” but most of it seems to aim to build expensive housing and then somehow, through the violence of law, force the owners or builders to rent out expensive units for unreasonably low amounts. Rather than using violence to force people to rent units for far below market rate, we should be focused on building actual inexpensive housing, which likely means, lodging houses and SROs.
In recent times, other social trends have altered the face of homelessness in our nation. The “hobo” has all but died out, since riding the rails has become much more complicated in modern times. As is described by Ted Conover in his book, “Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes“, railroads now use fewer boxcars and more closed shipping containers, making it harder to catch a ride on a freight train. There are other changes too to the railroads that make illicit free travel more difficult.
The Beats revived the romance of the road, and the image of “hitting the road” to journey to freedom turns out to be a long-lived archetype. So though we have fewer “real” hoboes, we may have “recreational hoboes” now. There is still an annual Hobo Convention in Britt Iowa, though how many real hoboes attend is open to question.
Loss of manufacturing and industrial jobs have also led to large scale unemployment and homelessness. Another disturbing trend has been the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill, such that at present, at least 25% of homeless have serious mental illness. (pg 256, DePastino).
In his book American Nomads, Richard Grant states (pg 274) that
The big change in hobo society…began in the 1960’s …with the advent of welfare, social security and food stamps, hoboes no longer had to work or steal to stay alive. “All the pride and self-respect went out the window” [we could say much the same for millions of others who have been negatively effected by what Larry Elder calls the “neutron bomb” dropped on America, in the form of welfare which created generations of dependency on government handouts.]. It became possible to get blind drunk or drugged on a daily basis, rather than on payday….the old code of the rails, the system of mutual reliance, started to break down, because it was no longer necessary for survival. ….There was a steady increase in violence, as more “crazies and troublemakers” rode the rails, and during the 1980s a proliferation of gangs affected the rail life.
Ironically (particularly ironic given that we’re taught that more diversity in any community is always a good thing), Richard also says that very diversity now found in rail life, has contributed to the violence and destruction of hobo society there:
Another factor in the violence has been the diversification of the American rails. The unified hobo society that Pappy knew has balkanized into mutually suspicious groups: anarchist punks, skinheads, crackheads, biker types, smugglers of illegal Mexican immigrants, Mexican migrant workers, eco-saboteurs, college kids, and, strangest of all, yuppie hoboes.
Apparently there are now “hoboes” with GPS devices, $300 tents, down jackets, and laptops to journal about their adventures on.
In conclusion, I can see these trends in homelessness in America over time:
(1) The “original” homeless in the nation, the hoboes, were travelers and worked for their living. This in contrast to the situation today, where most of the homeless do not travel, and are not working.
(2) The “original” homeless, the hoboes, did agricultural and harvesting work, work that now people say “will not be done by Americans” and is generally done by illegal immigrants or guest workers from Mexico and Central America.
(3) In early America, communities took care of the elderly and disabled, including, ostensibly, the mentally ill, as part of their community. Now, resources and supports for these populations is less available, and too many of them are ending up on the streets to fend for themselves.
(4) In the early homeless communities, begging by the able-bodied was viewed as despicable, and there were certain “clean” values and a romantic culture framing the hobo life. Now, many able-bodied people are unashamed to beg, and in fact many feel entitled to handouts and support, without working.
(5) The amount of inexpensive lodging has dramatically decreased, as lodging house and SRO rooms by the millions have been lost. Hence, it is now much more difficult for the indigent wanderer to find shelter. Nor do police stations or saloons still allow vagrants to sleep for the night on their floors.
(6) Additionally, the spread of the so-called “victim culture” or the glorification of victimization under identity politics, has changed the character of the homeless in a negative way. Whereas the hobo and tramp of the past often had a sort of noble, heroic renegade character, the modern-day “homeless” seem to have lost the desire to aspire to any nobility or pride in their own efforts. Rather, particularly in city council meetings or on Facebook pages (such as this one: https://www.facebook.com/firsttheycameforthehomeless/ ) , many of their number will be heard to tiresomely depict themselves as complete helpless victims, who ought to be given all manner of handouts because of their impotent, helpless status and their complete failure to be able to attain anything out of their own efforts. I tend to think the hoboes of yore would have found this appalling, despicable and quite unmanly.
I am still doing research on this subject and will add more to this article as time permits….
This article is quite good, and asks whether homeless camps actually have a legitimate place in American society. The author looks skeptically at city governments’ efforts to transfer homeless from these illegal encampments, to city-run sanctioned camps, eg those created with tuff shed homes or modern “conestoga” huts. However, the author does not address the impact upon such legitimization of homeless camps, these issues:
I find it particularly tragic when someone dies on the sidewalk, or while living in a tent or a vehicle, or in a camp in the woods. Particularly if they die young — which most all of these deaths have been:– I have been trying to keep track of those homeless who have tragically passed away or been seriously hurt in this local area in recent times. This article also lists criminal incidents related to homeless camps, which either effect homeless persons, or others.
(4) A fire occurred at a homeless camp in West Oakland on February 12 2018, killing one person there.Apparently this fire began in a plywood structure that someone had built as a makeshift house — which goes to demonstrate the danger of these wood structures, which many prefer to tents. https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/02/12/one-dead-in-blaze-at-west-oakland-homeless-encampment/
(5)A stabbing occurred at the Aquatic Park encampment on February 15 2018.
In this article, one homeless woman names 5 other homeless she knew in her area, who had died in just the last year:
“Tamoo, Kilo, Chocolate, Spicey Mike, Ebo,” she said, just counting those she said died in the past year. Two were hit by cars, one was stabbed, another shot in the head. The latest perished in a fire. Their names were memorialized with sidewalk chalk until the rain came. It’s unclear whether they were marked as homeless in county death records.”
(12) On September 10 2018, there was a large fire at the “Village” homeless camp in East Oakland, which destroyed the makeshift homes of about 37 people. Authorities also discovered a deceased man in a tent at the location, who was not killed by the fire, so apparently a man had been lying dead and rotting in his tent for days at this site without anyone to care or attend to the corpse. https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2018/09/11/fire-at-the-village-homeless-camp-in-east-oakland-displaces-37
(36) 3 people sent to hospital in People’s Park crimes. In July 2017, a “spate of crimes” at People’s Park sent 3 people to the hospital. The place is exceptionally crime-ridden and is anything but a park for the people. It’s long been a park that attracts homeless and criminals.
Many residents of Berkeley are fed up with how passive has been the response of Berkeley City Council members to nuisance caused by homeless camps or vehicle dwellers, and by the problem caused by all the RVs on the city streets, and one has come up with a creative response to this problem, as shown in this GoFundMe project:
I am a concerned Berkeley resident that is growing tired of the surrender of our city to homeless encampments and makeshift RV parks. There is an RV in my neighborhood now and when I called the police they said that they are no longer responding to these calls, even though it is illegal to sleep in a vehicle on our streets. So, I am going to buy an RV and park it in 3 day increments in front of our city council members homes in an attempt to influence their position on this topic. Sadly I lack the resources to acquire this RV on my own, so am asking the community for assistance. When it is all over I will sell the RV and donate 100% of the sale proceeds to the BUSD cooking and gardening program.
I find this a delightful creative idea. Better yet might be to buy or rent a really battered up true zombie RV, one leaking various liquids onto the pavement, and set that in front of the council person’s home. That would be more realistic, and in line with the “3 or 4 daily horrors” which Linda Maio says Berkeley residents have been calling with, in regard to RVs in West Berkeley.
PHotos from the RV in the Face project:
RV in front of Kate Harrison’s house on Lincoln at Shattuck:
RV in front of Sophie Hahn’s house at 1130 Shattuck:
People in Portland have this problem too, a real Zombie RV problem in that city: see the news story below.
Note that the news story indicates that one of the people associated with the trailer blight was a wanted felon, who was arrested, but a couple others associated with it still remain on site.
I’d like to reiterate an idea for what residents can do to prevent RVs or other vehicle dwellers from parking on the street in front of your home.
Some version of this parklet could be constructed on the street in front of your home.
It’s far more attractive to use the street for a parklet, than to have homeless vehicle dwellers living inappropriately on residential streets. Other options perhaps less costly or involved than the parklet include the “garden-let” which could easily be built by buying some large heavy planter pots and extending your garden into the street. One could of course use orange cones or construction signage to block the space in front of your home, but ideally you want something that can’t be moved by any random person. Another option would just be to have a big wedge of concrete plopped down on the street in front of your house, blocking anyone from parking there. Or construct a gated space, that allows only those who have a key for the gate to open it to park there.
None of these are exactly legal, but then, neither is camping on public streets. All these creative uses would make a comment to the city council about neighbors who’ve had quite enough nonsense. And uses which add to the neighborhood charm and keep out nuisance may be preferable for many than those which introduce nuisance and blight.
Seattle also has an ongoing problem with RVs on its streets which cycle off, through fines and towing, and then back onto the streets, as the towed vehicles are bought in auctions by others using them for the same purpose: as shown here:
This woman has the misguided view that she should be allowed to live for months on the street in the same spot, without moving. Anyone familiar with California parking laws knows that simply at the level of parking laws, this would not be permitted. And when you’re camping in a vehicle you’re doing more than parking.
She keeps asserting that police are asking for a bribe to prevent the tow, but this is quite unlikely. Rather, what she fails to consider is that once the police call the tow company to come out, that tow company has to get paid, because they’ve spent time coming out. So the $250 the police are asking for is to cover the cost of the tow company coming out on a call.
Who’s camping in RVs on Wood Street? As this article suggests, some of them are people from San Leandro and those getting out of Santa Rita jail.
At the same time, it’s true that for many people living in RVs in Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco or elsewhere really dont’ have many options. Some do, and they could park their RV in a place where it’s legal to camp. Others may not be able to get far out of the city, for instance if the RV is in bad shape. This article tells the story of one such man: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/otisrtaylorjr/article/Towing-worsens-hardships-of-Oakland-s-homeless-13402546.phpA
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I believe that cities should work together with the county and/or state, to set up legal camping areas, the equivalent of refugee camps, around the state, where people with no other options could at least live in peace. Such sites will be harder to find in urban areas though as stated in the article, Oakland is planning to set up 3 RV camps, for a total of 150 people to live in, set to open in spring 2019. This will be quite helpful, but I’ll predict that all 3 camps will be full within a few days of opening up.
Meanwhile…an RV parked on a Berkeley street, burns up in a fire…
The problem of nuisance caused by vagrants, homeless persons (often drug addicts), and homeless camps in San Francisco has been very bad for many years. In fact it’s been so bad that together with Skid Row in Los Angeles, San Francisco has been long showcased as a glaring example of how NOT to deal with the homeless problem — year after year of the same non-solutions, the same overtolerance and dopey enabling of homeless persons, vagrants and drug addicts, who often have no interest in receiving services or accepting offers of shelter, but just want to camp on sidewalks, cause nuisance and engage in drug use and crime. The resulting blight and filth has at times been spectacularly appalling.
One news story about the problem of homeless drug addicts at the Civic Center BART station showed scenes that looked straight out of a zombie apocalypse movie. Other stories counted in the hundreds the piles of human feces a pedestrian would encounter on a routine walk through downtown. This New York Times story describes the “dirtiest block in San Francisco”, and explores how intractable the problem is in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco in particular.
The city has installed five portable bathrooms for the hundreds of unsheltered people in the Tenderloin, but that has not stopped people from urinating and defecating in the streets.
“There are way too many people out here that don’t have homes,” Ms. Warren said.
Over the past five years the number of homeless people in San Francisco has remained relatively steady — around 4,400 — and the sidewalks of the Tenderloin have come to resemble a refugee camp.
The city has replaced more than 300 lampposts corroded by dog and human urine over the past three years, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Replacing the poles became more urgent after a lamppost collapsed in 2015, crushing a car.
…
Disputes among the street population are common and sometimes result in violence. At night bodies line the sidewalks.
“It’s like the land of the living dead,” said Adam Leising, a resident of Hyde Street.
In this video, it’s reported that the city spends $30 million a year JUST to clean up needles and human waste. Most cities’ “poop patrols” deal with dog poop, but in San Francisco, the poop patrol scoops human poo daily. New mayor London Breed declared, “I will say there is more feces on the sidewalks than I’ve ever seen growing up here.”
Some conservative YouTubers have made videos mocking San Francisco over what a shithole it’s become, as in this video by Matt Christiansen, or this one by Paul Joseph Watson or this one, particularly the story about the legendary “twenty pound bag of shit” that was found on a street corner in San Francisco. These are not emblems of the city by which to draw tourists and celebrate diversity and a colorful history.
So, it’s been long overdue to finally get around to taking an effective approach to this profound nuisance, and it appears that after many dilettantes, London Breed is finally the mayor who’s able to get tough and get smart. As reported in this article, Ms Breed has taken the common sense approach of cracking down on the sidewalk camps all over the city, sending out city workers to move these camps every single day. In the past, camps would be left for weeks or months, and once moved, would come right back and set up the very next day, such that the city’s intervention was pointless.
London said:
“Because someone refuses services doesn’t mean that we leave things the way they are,” she said in a recent interview with The Seattle Times. “Yes, we’re going to be compassionate and we’re going to offer support and help. But no, we’re not going to let you erect a tent on the sidewalk and keep it there. We’re going to ask you to take it down and, if you refuse, then we’re going to take it down.”
Homeless and their advocates will argue that this is cruel. Some of the poorly informed will even argue that it’s unconstitutional — as did Steve in this post on the FTCFTH Facebook page. I dont’ know why it’s so hard for homeless advocates to understand the court’s ruling, as they so often misconstrue it. The court most definitely has not ruled that it’s unconstitutional to remove a homeless camp. Just consider for a moment what would be the consequences if any court in the nation actually made that ruling. You’d have to be a real idiot to not see the problems that would imply, and the total breakdown of law and zoning, health and safety in any city. No, the court’s ruling does not say that homeless camps cannot be removed, it says that people have a right to sleep in public places if there is no other shelter available. And the right to sleep overnight in a public place is most definitely not the same thing as the right to set up a permanent camp and appropriate public space on a permanent basis. At most, the right to sleep overnight would entail the right to occupy a space of the size needed to sleep, for 8 to 12 hours. But not 24 hrs, and certainly not for weeks and months at a time. As I’ve argued in many articles, limiting the homeless to what the courts have declared as their constitutional rights, instead of allowing them more space and time beyond that, would go a long way to reducing the nuisance we see in so many cities. And it appears that London Breed is finally a city leader who understands that. This may be because more of the homeless in San Francisco were drug addicts or criminals who refused help, than is the case in other cities…or maybe because the problem had just become too utterly disgusting. Or perhaps both.
Continually moving people along is the necessary “stick” to encourage the less cooperative to accept the “carrot” of offered services and/or shelter or permanent housing, something too many of the homeless and vagrants have no interest in. By making it much less pleasant to live on sidewalks, people are encouraged to get the message that they either need to accept help that’s offered, or get the hell out of the city and quit being an antisocial nuisance. More cities (like Berkeley, Oakland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland) would do well to follow the tough love model being taken up by London Breed in San Francisco.
Some homeless advocates and those stymied by the neurosis (it ought to be a DSM category) of enabling nuisance, will sometimes argue that it is pointless to chase people around from one spot to another — the nuisance will just move from one place to another. Such arguments fail to recognize that the very process of frequent abating of nuisance is a deterrent, and that sometimes people become motivated to climb out of the toilet when, in addition to extending them a helping hand out, we make it more difficult for them to stay living in the toilet. People sometimes argue that there have always been “free spirits” and those living on the margins, outside of social norms, and we should all accept this. Yes, but those living “outside social norms” have not historically sat on the sidewalk in the middle of the city with their hand out, expecting to be compensated for causing nuisance. In the past, they lived outside of cities, in forests and hinterlands — and it’s still a much more suitable place for drug addicts to live in Slab City or some out of the way location, than on the sidewalk in a tent. It seems to me that compared to times past, “free independent spirits” have in modern times become more lame and dependent on the government and those they are literally shitting on, to support them. I say, if you want to be a free independent spirit and do whatever drugs you want, go do that in some remote place where you’re not causing someone to trip over you on their way to work when you pass out on the sidewalk again.
In a forthcoming article, I’ll explore how I believe many who we could call “homeless by choice” are talking out two sides of their mouth. While they on the one hand invoke the free spirits, hoboes, renegade tribes, “outsiders” and independent vagabonds of times past as the romantic overlay to their layabout urban lives, on the other hand they refuse to “man up” to the true demands of such an outsider existence.
Hoboes rode and wrote songs, they didn’t leave 20 pound bags of shit around.
The talk about getting rid of police and the value of challenging the staus quo, but they run to their attorneys every time the city tries to clean up the mess they’ve made on the sidewalk or park. They are all for being “free spirits” and off the grid, but they are afraid to live in true off the grid, extra-legal places such as Slab City, where arguments with other free spirits can result in a burned out motor home, or Cuidad Juarez where the police really are pretty impotent. They want to be free to break laws, but at the same time they want to be protected from other people breaking laws and setting fire to their direlict vans and zombie RVs, as might occur in a true outlaw realm. In sum, I’ll argue that all the chatter about being “free spirits” is often a veil of nonsense, and what these homeless-by-choice who settle in urban areas more often are is parasites, spongers who are incapable of creating their own way in the world and are dependent on handouts, freebies, and the charity of those afflicted with enabling neuroses.
This touches on another theme — which is, that many in Left Coast cities have lost the sense of what actually has made cities like San Francisco, Berkeley and Eureka colorful cities. The color and vibrance comes from the arts, culture, eccentricity, new ideas, originality, vision, architecture, design, variety, diversity — not from dirty bums on the sidewalks, drug addicts in the bushes, criminals stripping stolen bikes in a homeless camp under the freeway, people without a single useful skill living in a tent in the industrial district, insane people wandering around screaming on the sidewalks. There are some artists among the homeless, but being homeless or a bum is not in and of itself of any value to society. Not having any job skills or really anything at all useful to contribute, is also of no value to society, and is not something to celebrate or support in any way.
By all means, let’s help those who are suffering and need food, clothing, shelter — we can and should provide these things to all in need. And we can do this in an organized, systematic way, coordinated at the state and national level, whereby we help lawful citizens first, and a limited number of refugees and asylum seekers with whatever resources remain, next.
But for those who don’t want help, and just want to cause nuisance, we should have very little tolerance. So, in that respect, good on London Breed, who’s begun the long overdue process of cleaning up the city of San Francisco, so that it hopefully can welcome tourists again without great embarassment.
Let it be your heart you leave in San Francisco. Not a twenty pound bag of poo.
This premise is one that will strike most as common sense, and yet it’s a premise that many cities are having difficulty working into law: camping is not the same as parking. These are two different things.
If you’re in doubt about this, try driving into a National Park in the US, any National Park, and sleeping in your car or van or RV in a parking lot in that park, on any night of the year. You’re likely to be in for a rude awakening, oh, around midnight or so, when the park rangers come and shine a flashlight into your car, and wake you, and tell you that you’re camping, not parking, so you have to go. That’s what happened to this couple in the Grand Canyon Park.
In many cities, though, this distinction between camping and parking has been lost. In part this is owing to the fact that the courts have clarified that people have to have a right to rest or even sleep in their vehicle, while traveling — (except, it would appear, not when in National Parks)— and so cities in California, at least cannot completely prohibit sleeping in vehicles, which for the homeless, is pretty much the same as “living in vehicles”. As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, however, this does not imply that cities cannot regulate sleeping/living in vehicles, limit it to certain areas, prohibit it in others, set up lots just for vehicle dwellers, or restrict the period of time for which persons could live in a vehicle in that city, absent special dispensation such as a permit. After its ban on living in vehicles was struck down by the court, this is what the city of Los Angeles did, it regulated living in vehicles, so that this activity could not be done just anywhere, but only within designated zones.
Many cities, however, including Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco, have simply stopped enforcing laws prohibiting vehicle dwelling, and not created any regulations on vehicle dwelling. The result is that in effect they have turned camping into parking, and if you talk to police or city leaders in these cities, what you’ll hear is that they are unable to address vehicle dwelling with any enforcement tools other than parking laws. And what this generally means, is just one law — the 72 hr parking rule, which prohibits parking in one spot for more than 72 hrs. So people can live indefinitely in vehicles on public streets, as long as they move every 3 days. Even if they just move back and forth across the same street.
Try that in a national park, and you’re likely to have the rangers tow your vehicle and find yourself in jail.
Now I’m not saying living in a vehicle should be prohibited, since it’s clearly a good way to go for those who are homeless, in fact probably the best way. But having no regulation at all on this matter is a problem. Consider:
(1) No regulation on which streets or areas a person could live in their vehicle — they could do this in residential as well as commercial areas, in front of your home as well as under the freeway overpass.
(2) No regulation on how long they can park in basicallly the same spot, as long as they move back and forth every 3 days.
(3) No regulation on how many people can live in their vehicles on any one street or in any one area, which leads to some of the scenes we’ve witnessed of entire city blocks and streets filled with RVs and vehicle dwellers.
(4) No regulation on how many people can live in the RV or on their life activities associated with this — eg, setting up a grill or sofa on the sidewalk next to it, washing their laundry on the street, dumping garbage or sewage on the street.
Even though many cities now have only parking laws to apply to mitigate the nuisance caused by people living in their vehicles in cities, applying parking laws to such people can cause other sorts of problems. Those bothered by the nuisance caused by vehicle dwellers may be angry that parking laws are too weak to deal effectively with this problem, but for the vehicle dwellers themselves, keeping up with the parking laws could be beyond their means to contend with. If they accumulate many parking tickets that they are unable to pay, they are at risk of having their vehicle towed. If their vehicle breaks down and they can’t afford to get it fixed, they can’t move it every 3 days, and are at risk of having it towed. It’s one thing for an ordinary citizen to have our vehicle towed — likely costs a minimum of $1500 to get it back — but for a poor person living in their car, this barrier could be too high, and the loss of their vehicle is not just the loss of their car, but the loss of their home.
In fact, for a homeless person living in their vehicle to have that vehicle towed away by the city, is so onerous a problem, that this issue has been brought to court at least twice. In one case in Washington, a man living in an truck fought back when it was towed, and the court ruled that his vehicle was a “homestead”. In a San Francisco case, a man named Sean Kayode living in his car found it was towed, could not afford the fees to reclaim it, and is suing to get it back. His attorney declares the towing and seizure of his vehicle to be unconstitutional.
These cases reveal a problematic catch-22 type situation for cities, and demonstrate the need to cope with homelessness in a more thoughtful and pro-active way that by merely passively tolerating camping all over the city street, contenting themselves that excesses and problem situations will be abated by parking law enforcement.
For if Sean Kayode succeeds in court, this could set a precedent which demonstrates something that cities are disingenuously failing to concede, namely that camping is not the same as parking, that people who use their vehicle as a residence should not and cannot simply be regulated by parking laws. For on the one hand, as I’ve pointed out in other articles, camping in the streets creates problems that mere parking does not. But on the other hand, as these court cases show, if it can be demonstrated that even mere enforcement of parking laws (and the towing of vehicles that is associated with such enforcement) is excessively punitive or harsh for the vehicle dwellers, or “unconstitutional” in any way, with regard to the homeless, then this would weaken even further cities’ already diminished ability to have any means of curtailing nuisance or problems caused by vehicle dwellers in public streets. It would mean that cities could no longer rely on parking laws to abate nuisance caused by vehicle dwellers, because those vehicle dwellers could shout “I’m poor, the court says I dont’ have to follow parking laws becuase I can’t afford to pay the fines for violations.”
In essence, all these things bring us back to the point of this article: which is that camping in the street is not the same as parking in the street, and you will get into various kinds of trouble if you pretend these things are the same. Cities need to stop dealing with this matter passively by turning to parking laws to regulate large-scale camping in the streets. Instead they need to be pro-active and find ways to regulate vehicle dwelling in public places, so as to succeed both in mitigation of nuisance in neighborhoods and city streets, as well as in creating options for the homeless and places for people to rest or stay for a temporary period of time.
Many have noted that there is a correlation between homeless camps and bike theft. Not that all homeless or all homeless camps are involved with bike theft — but that a significant proportion of homeless camps contain what may be euphemistically described as “bike carcasses”, and function as “chop shops”.
I want to present some case stories and evidence about this problem, which, along with other problems associated with homeless camps, is too often swept under the rug both by city governments and homeless advocates, who want to portray the homeless as nothing but “economic victims” of gentrification and the economy, or as elderly or disabled or otherwise in need of nothing but compassion and help. The truth is more complicated — and there’s a need for a study about the amount of crime associated with homeless and homeless camps, as the degree of crime related to homeless camps is quite large.
Here are some stories about bike theft and homeless camps.
Let’s begin with one of the most compelling stories, a recent one (update on this article) — CBS news in LA found through their investigation that a whopping 32% of all Go Bikes in that city have been stolen, and it appears that “homeless people” (read, criminals) are often behind these thefts. The CBS team found several of these bikes in homeless camps, often spray painted to try to conceal their identity as belonging to the Go Bike program. https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2019/11/07/goldstein-investigation-taxpayer-funded-metro-bikes-stolen-stripped/
where a man living not too far from a homeless camp, had 3 of his bikes stolen. It outraged him that he could easily see dozens of “bike carcasses” at the nearby homeless camp, but though he called the city multiple times to have them check it out, they essentially refused to do so, citing procedural obstacles.
In Orange County in 2017, as reported in this blog and this article, and this one, over 1000 bicycles were found in a tunnel in the Santa Ana Homeless camp, a huge camp over a mile long that was finally cleared out in 2018.
The blog article on this matter points out that another homeless camp is being “given sanctuary” from searches, which may well support criminal activity. Really BAD idea to keep law enforcement out of homeless camps!
OC Public Works crew members were performing clean-up maintenance on the flood control property (removing debris and trash). A crew member saw a pile of dirt and observed a small section of carpet on the ground. When the carpet was removed, the crew member discovered a small wood cover and, upon lifting the wood, discovered it led to wood steps to the underground compartment. Whomever built the compartment used wood for the steps and for support beams in the underground compartment. It’s approximately a 5-10 ft square area and about 6 ft high. It was discovered on flood control property on the back-side of the levee (opposite side from the cement channel).”
The discovery of the bunker and enormous cache of stolen bikes raises the question of what might be found in the much larger homeless encampment by Angel Stadium, which stretches for approximately two miles from Ball Road south to the I-5 freeway. Inhabitants of that encampment currently enjoy the sanctuary from enforcement actions thanks to the settlement agreement imposed by federal District Court Judge David O. Carter.
The discovery of this cache also, as stated, give the lie to the claim that the criminals are only a small number of the homeless: “the discovieries at the Fountain Valley encampment further erode claims by homeless advocates that criminals are only a small portion of the population of the SART homeless encampments. ”
Meanwhile, in Portland Oregon, as stated in this article, a drug arrest at a homeless camp led to the discovery of more than $5000 in stolen bike parts.
And in Olympia, WA, as stated in this article, stolen bikes and parts were found at a homeless camp.
Detectives said they recovered numerous stolen bicycles and bike parts at one of the homeless encampments in the city – marking one of the latest trends in this crime spree.
This article explains that stolen bikes have been found in homeless camps on a consistent basis, meaning, it’s a regular feature of homeless camps. In that sense, many “homeless individuals” (who are more accurately described as criminals who happen to be homeless) should be viewed as a blight on a community and indeed as social/criminal predators, not as vulnerable people in need of community services and support. See my other article here https://homelessquandary.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/the-homeless-criminals/ where I argue that, in contrast to the mantra we often hear from some about “criminalizing the homeless”, I believe the reverse is actually more of a problem: we are “homeless-izing the criminals” or depicting criminals as homeless, and calling “homeless camps” what are really criminal camps.
This sense of the inevitability of a connection between homeless camps and stolen bikes is also expressed in this article, where a Long Beach Councilwoman said that ““Every time you go to an encampment, or a place where homeless gather, you are just inundated with bike parts,” she said. “It’s clear that the bike parts are being used as currency to purchase drugs.” This councilwoman was smarter than most, and actually sought to create laws that would make it more difficult to engage in sales of stolen bikes:
Price’s proposal offers a possible method of getting around that problem by prohibiting activities that may go along with a bicycle theft. It may not be immediately provable that someone selling a cache of bicycles on a Long Beach sidewalk is trying to make a profit off of stolen goods, but Price’s request would make it illegal for someone to sell bicycles or bike parts—stolen or not—on publicgrounds.
“It deters bike theft for sure, because in order to have a chop shop, you need to steal bikes,” Price said.
Price is asking the City Attorney’s office to draft an ordinance that may eventually be voted into law.
Here’s what she would like to see the city’s legal team incorporate into a new law:
A ban on selling five or more bicycles on public property. Additional prohibitions would apply to such actions as putting together, taking apart, distributing or storing more than five bicycles in this manner.
Extending the above-prohibited activities to any bicycle frame missing its gears or cables, or with its brake cables cut. The ban would also apply to anyone with three or more bicycles that have missing parts, as well as anyone trying to deal, store or distribute five or more bicycle parts.
City support for legal bicycle repair spots.
Exemptions for people working for a bona fide business or who repairing a single bicycle while its owner is present.
In the Portland area, the Springwater Corridor in particular is reknowned for bike thefts and chop shops in homeless camps, as described here. On one random day, police took a ride along the 21 mile bike path, and found multiple stolen bikes and bike stashes during their ride.
In Honolulu Hawaii, police seized many stolen bikes from homeless camps, as reported here.
IN Fairview near Anchorage, homeless camps are typically full of bike parts, as reported here.
IN San Diego, CA, a major cleanup of a homeless camp led to the discovery of bike thieves stripping bicycles, as reported here.
A major cleanup of a trash-filled, one-acre homeless encampment began Wednesday morning along the San Diego River, where thieves were stripping hundreds of stolen bicycles for recycling…..Police estimated there were parts to 500 bicycles stacked and strewn throughout the site.
, irate residents had had quite enough when they discovered their own stolen bikes in a nearby homeless camp, and when police would not respond to their calls for enforcement on this issue. SO they took matters into their own hands and went and retrieved their own property which had been stolen by the homeless campers.
Journalists in San Francisco went to investigate about where stolen bikes end up. They discovered multiple homeless camps under freeways that were processing these stolen bikes, as reported here. See the video about it here: https://abc7news.com/video/embed/?pid=731968
Under the freeway, there are dozens of chop shops and homeless encampments where bikes and parts are piled up….During the investigation, the I-Team watched people rifle through bags, fumble with piles of cellphones and witnessed people buying, selling and doing drugs right out in the open.
To see how easy it is to get a bike from one of these camps, the I-Team took hidden cameras to the scene to buy a bike at a good deal. Within minutes the I-Team got an offer.
One of the men at the chop shop told us we could take the bike for a ride. After we returned, the man tried to close the deal by asking how much we felt like paying. We offered the man $60 and walked away with a bike worth nearly $500….one homeless man said, “We’re hustling to survive out there because obviously we’re homeless and we try to make it on the streets.”
Pulouoleola told the I-Team he turns 15 bikes a day and will sell a $200 wheel for $40. He knows most of the bikes he buys and sells are stolen.
Another article reported a bike thief living at a homeless camp in Northampton MA.
Back across the country again, police in Venice Beach CA continually find homeless camps full of stolen bikes and bike parts, as reported here. You can see some of the stolen bikes in this photo:
And Police in Petaluma, CA are overwhelmed by the homeless camps full of stolen bikes in that city, as reported here.
Petaluma police say homeless encampments have become a bigger problem in the small city than they have been in 20 years.
In a recent police survey, officers found 34 active illegal encampments in the city, and police said these encampments pose a threat to public health and safety and the environment.
Police said the encampments are a haven for illegal activity, including violations related to narcotics, alcohol, weapons, stolen property, sexual assault, theft and vandalism.Officers arrested 28-year-old Ervin Osman from Spokane, Washington, on active warrants and found him to be in the possession of a stolen bicycle.
The $1,300 Cannondale bike had been stolen from a store on English Street in Petaluma. Police reunited the bike with its owner and Osman was booked into the county jail.
In Oakland, CA, a bike theft was the motive in a homeless camp killing, as described here.
A bike chop shop was discovered at a Culver City homeless camp, as described here.
IN another story, a stolen bike was located at a SEattle area homeless camp.
This article describes how Santa Cruz officials recovered stolen bikes at homeless camps in that city.
Unsanctioned camps are often dangerous places, quite full of crime, even dangerous for area residents to bicycle through, as one Santa Rosa resident discovered, when he was beat up by homeless campers as he tried to bike along a city bike path. In the article about this, it’s stated that police made 15 to 20 arrests at that camp in a period of just 1.5 weeks. This makes it abundantly clear that this camp, and doubtless many like it, are more accurately described as camps of criminals, rather than as camps of “homeless” persons.
In this article about homeless people in Anchorage, which pointedly questions whether these people are homeless or homesteaders, it’s pointed out that these homeless/homesteaders tend to consider the public property where they are located as their private property, and make a living from theft:
There is a belligerence in the folks that are living here. If you walk into a camp, the general response is ‘What are you doing on my property?'” Rhoades said.
In addition to living in the park illegally, “they steal bikes from surrounding areas and chop them up or sell the components, or they make one bike that’s resalable for a good amount. Clothing, coffee makers, computers – there’s just an endless supply of things people have gotten from other people’s homes,” Rhoades said.
Note in that video, that the men processing the stolen bikes demand that the man making the video go away, and they say “we do not want to be recorded.” In other words, they are basically saying, “Just let us commit crimes here and do our illegal stuff and go away and leave us alone.” Well if you don’t want to be recorded, then quit engaging in criminal activities and stealing bikes! My only regret is that it wasn’t an undercover police officer recording them, but only an ordinary citizen.
Here’s a blog about where stolen bikes go…conclusion…they go to homeless camps, like one at 7th and Market, or one in the bushes at Golden Gate Park.
After striking out at Seventh and Market, I figured it was time to investigate the chop shops Veysey mentioned. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (SFBC) reports bicycle chop shops operate all over the city. Thieves strip bikes because the parts (unlike the frames) don’t have serial numbers and can’t be traced as stolen once they are removed from a bike. The parts can be sold individually or put on another stolen bike to disguise it, hence the Frankenstein bikes that show up at the Bike Hut.
When Veysey told me about bicycle chop shops, I pictured something from a ’70s cop movie — a warehouse in an industrial district populated with burly men wielding blowtorches. But the trail led me somewhere else entirely: Golden Gate Park.
SFBC officials said they had received reports from a gardener about chop shops in the park. When I called Maggie Cleveland, a Recreation and Park Department employee responsible for cleaning up the park, she said they do exist and would show me what she thought was one if I threw on a pair of gloves, grabbed a trash bag, and joined one of her cleanup crews. I agreed.
Shortly before 8 a.m. on a foggy, chilly morning, the crew and I picked up mechanical grabbers and industrial-size trash bags and then climbed a steep hill near 25th Avenue and Fulton Street on the Richmond District side of the park. We plunged into a large camp in the middle of a hollowed-out grove of acacia bushes.
The camp looked like a sidewalk after an eviction. Books and papers vomited from the mouth of a tent. Rain-soaked junk littered the camp, including a golf bag filled with oars, an algebra textbook, a telescope, and a portable toilet. A hypodermic needle stuck in a stump like a dart and a gaudy brass chandelier swung from a branch. Amid the clutter was one constant: bicycles and their parts.
A half dozen bikes leaned against bushes in various states of repair. There were piles of tires and gears scattered around. The noise of the crew had awoken the residents of the camp. A man and two women sprung up and immediately tried to grab things as the crew stuffed the contents of the camp into trash bags. They grew more and more agitated as two dozen bags were filled.
The former GIlman St Underpass homeless camp in Berkeley was full of bike parts, likely stolen….as reported here.
Sometimes it’s even possible to see the bike chop shops just by sitting at your home computer, driving along on Google Earth,as I did when I found this bike chop shop homeless camp at 6th and Alice streets in downtown Oakland. The evidence had been preserved by the Google Earth drive by!
Summary
In conclusion, instead of blindly lumping all those who happen to be homeless into the same category of people who we view as “economic refugees” from a heartless campitalist system, I think a much better and more accurate way of looking at homelessness involves recognizing the sharp differences between types of homeless people and reasons why people end up in this circumstance.
We also should begin being more outspoken about the fact that a significant number of those we call “homeless” are simply criminals, who are quite likely homeless as a result of their criminal activity, and/or have become criminals to support a serious substance abuse problem. To refer to these as “homeless” is really missing the point — it would be like referring to those engaging in child sex abuse as part of the group of “people with unusual hobbies.” That people are criminals is a far more pertinent issue and concern than the fact that they dont’ have a standard residence, and in fact having criminals living in the bushes in the local city park is quite possibly a much bigger problem than if those same criminals lived in a house in that city.
Even RVs and other vehicles can be used as “chop shops”
Videos on bike chop shops and undercover stings on bike theft:
As well, often it seems that we collectively have forgotten that criminals often tend to live on the outskirts of society, as individuals or in roaming bands.
This YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2HE3TxJ79M makes the excellent point that quite a number of people living in RVs and “off the grid” around the nation, are doing that mainly because they are criminals and have been rejected by mainstream society. These people make life dangerous for the ordinary folk (like the creator of this video) who are wanting to go nomadic and live an RV life to experience the freedom associated with that lifestyle. The woman who made this video had such serious problems with criminals and people harassing her and making her feel unsafe when she “went nomadic”, that she gave up the RV life because of this, and made this video to articulate just this point and these dangers.
More videos on homeless camps and bike theft in Austin, where there is quite a problem with this:
I thought it would be helpful to compile videos that others have done of homeless people and homeless camps in the East Bay, primarily Berkeley and Oakland. Many of these include interviews with homeless persons.
I would like to see us collectively get to the point where no one need be homeless, except by choice. I would like to see us get to a point where everyone who needs shelter, is given shelter. This shelter that homeless individuals are offered need not be elaborate, it could be rudimentary. But this is something that we CAN do collectively — if not in buildings, we can set up large circus tents with cots. We can create the equivalent of migrant or refugee camps that existed during the Depression Era in the United States. We CAN do something.
But at the same time as I believe that we can and should provide basic shelter for everyone who needs it, I also believe that this must be done at a state or national level, preferably national. I would like to see a federally organized network of homeless shelters set up across the country, and anyone who becomes homeless at any time, could sign up online or at the nearest homeless services office, and be directed immediately to the shelter nearest their location which had space.
As well, I believe that there is a problem with over-dependency on government in our nation, and this needs to be considered in connection with the providing of shelter, and certainly in terms of providing housing or housing subsidies. One way of addressing the level of entitlement and over-dependency in our nation, while simultaneously attempting to help people, is to help them without making them too comfortable with the free help they are receiving. Being kept from dire suffering is important, but being given too much is a problem. Homeless services and advocates often do not have this ethical issue in their mindset. This is a problem. Ways to provide help to the homeless or poor, without making them overly dependent, could include providing shelter, but only rudimentary shelter. Providing shelter, or housing, but not in the place the individual prefers to live. Providing shelter, but requiring that individuals receiving this give back for what they have received, by doing some type of work, to the extent they are able, in exchange for what they have been given. Providing subsidized housing, but only for a limited duration of time, after which point, if the individual hasn’t been able to get a job and provide for themselves, they will be returned to much less comfortable rudimentary shelter, and thus taught that if you dont’t start making efforts to stand on your own two feet, you won’t get much support from government. All these kinds of things can build dignity and help mitigate against excessive dependency.
Currently, most all homeless services and shelter services in the nation are organized and provided by individual cities, or counties, and this can easily lead to problems when one city or county takes a more generous approach, offers better or more services, or more shelter, than neighboring cities/counties, or even states.
Portland is a case in point. In this article in the Seattle Times, the author demonstrates how Portland, intending to solve the problem of homelessness in its city by offering shelter for all homeless, ended up trying “something that had never been tried”, and ended up making a big mistake, one that may plague that city for some time to come. As a result of this very generous offer to shelter anyone in need, what Portland got was:
More people needed shelter than they expected, in part because data show that Portland’s no-turn-away shelters drew people from other counties, and even other states. Less than half the families who checked into the shelter said their last address was in Portland or Multnomah County. The policy ended in October with a blown budget, overflowing family shelters and nearly 100 families staying in motels, with the county footing the bill.
Washington D.C. and New York City also offer shelter to nearly all comers, though they were a bit more restrictive, and this helped prevent a flood of homeless from other areas pouring in.
Washington, D.C., has the closest thing to what Portland tried. The district has promised shelter during the winter for decades. But starting around the same time as Multnomah County, the district began sheltering families year-round.
District officials quickly recognized a problem, however. The surrounding suburbs didn’t have a right to shelter, and were only a quick subway ride away. From October 2016 to September 2017, 174 families came in from outside the district asking for assistance, so officials started requiring families to provide documentation showing they were district residents before becoming homeless.
Unlike D.C., Kafoury refused to turn anyone away in Portland.
New York City also houses all its homeless — now numbering over 60,000 — at great expense. This program has its critics, such as the author of this article in the New York Post. He points out that the city is spending enormous amounts of money, and handing over easy profits to developers, in an eagerness to plop down new, expensive homeless shelters and homeless housing in random areas of the city. He points out that at least 10% of those being given not only free shelter, but free housing, are from out of town:
Lax admissions opened the floodgates to “homeless” families from far beyond the city itself. As Nicole Gelinas wrote in The Post, “New York is one of the only places in the country, by inclination and court order, that will give a free apartment to any family from anywhere in the world” if they try hard enough.
Of the 60,000 people in the homeless system, more than 6,600 are from out of town. That figure is certain to swell as word spreads that jobless, unstable drifters might luck into a room at a nice hotel or new apartment building.
As well, a great many — more than 10% of New York’s homeless — are being put up in hotels, at great expense to the city and its taxpayers.
Meanwhile, Homeless Services has made an incredible 425,000 hotel bookings for homeless families costing taxpayers $72.9 million in a single year, city Comptroller Scott Stringer reported. Nearly 8,000 homeless now stay in hotels.
Not all seem grateful for it. Homeless residents at a DoubleTree in the Financial District had the chutzpah to complain that the neighborhood where they’re living for free is too expensive. “We live out of Burger King,” one told The Post.
I agree with the author, this approach seems too expensive and too simplistic. The assumption is being made that all these people, who happen to be present in New York City, should be sheltered there, even though it’s far more expensive to live in New York City than many other places. It makes more sense to build shelters — or indeed elaborate camps, serving as shelters — in places where land is more abundant and/or rent is less expensive. I would like to see a program that moved homeless people out of areas where housing is expensive and sheltered them in places where they can be sheltered at lower cost, preferably in areas like the Central Valley in California where agricultural jobs are available so that they can find work on farms.
Another problem in New York City is that it’s difficult for those being housed in shelters to find standard housing, because landlords (no surprise) prefer not to rent to people with poor credit scores, or who have no job, or who have been homeless or perhaps were evicted from their last apartment for nonpayment of rent. This article presents this issue as “landlord discrimination” which is a prejudicial and unfair way of discussing an issue which is better described as “reasonable business practice.” Given the costs and indeed serious problems which can be associated with bad tenants, landlords need to screen tenants and select carefully.
As housing for the homeless becomes a huge industry, corruption can occur. Some companies are moving in to create cozy relationships with the city to win lucrative contracts, and there may not be enough oversight about where the money is going, as this article suggests:
At the unit along Decatur Avenue owned by Eisenstein, for example, Apex and Childrens Community Services failed to pay more than $15,000 in rent, even though case files show the city issued thousands of dollars’ worth of checks to cover the cost. In another instance on East 190th Street, court documents indicate Childrens Community Services cashed $20,000 in city checks, but tenant attorneys say the money was not used to pay the landlord. At an apartment on Grand Avenue in the Bronx, another owner said it was owed $15,000 for nearly a year’s worth of back rent….”Essentially, the city will end up paying double,” said Lucy Newman, an attorney with Legal Aid who has been involved in several cases.
Another problem is where New York City puts its shelters….some neighborhoods like Blissville feel they are unfairly burdened with homeless shelters, and fear a transformation of their whole community with the influx of too many homeless.
Gavin Newsom, former mayor of San Francisco, who knows something about trying to work on the homeless problem, stated recently in a San Francisco Chronicle article that the solution to the homeless problem will not come from pouring more money into it.
His experience has demonstrated to him that, in fact, putting more money into the problem will make it worse, because the more you do for the homeless in any one particular city (above what is being done in neighboring cities) the more you attract homeless to that city to take advantage of those services and programs, shelter, etc:
Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom told Bay Area business leaders on Tuesday that boosting the amount of money San Francisco spends on homeless programs by hundreds of millions of dollars would only exacerbate the problem.
“Put another $400 million into the homeless problem and I promise you this: Your problem is going to get a lot worse,” the Democratic candidate for governor said.
Newsom later explained that he was making a pitch for a regional approach to solving problems.
“You’re not going to solve this homeless problem in San Francisco,” he said. “It’s not a San Francisco issue; it’s a regional issue.” He said Tuesday that the “Care Not Cash” program that he sponsored while on the Board of Supervisors, which substituted housing and services for monthly case payments, provided “very relevant” examples of homeless people being lured to San Francisco “because San Francisco was doing something no one else was.”
There’s a profound need for a “big picture” look at the homeless problem in the nation, and a plan for providing shelter to those in need, without creating new problems for neighborhoods and cities. I think that in order to be successful in addressing the need for shelter, those working on this problem need to be realistic about the consequences of setting up shelters in places where those living in them too often cannot hope to be able to afford to live on their own, such as expensive New York City or the San Francisco Bay Area. The problem of providing something too nice, too easily to those in need, must be recognized as a way to create a dysfunctional dependency, a dependency of the kind that has been crippling our nation for several decades, since the start of the welfare program which rewarded women for having more children and no husband.
We’re quite comfortable in this nation doing “social engineering” in order to try to increase shallow forms of diversity in places of employment, for instance, (and we fixate quite pointlessly and even destructively on identity politics, as explored in this video ) but we can’t seem to engineer structures of service for the poor and homeless which place value on taking responsibility for one’s own life and moving away from government dependency.
Creating programs that aid the homeless while simultaneously a sufficiently rudimentary level of service, as to discourage people from hoping to live for the rest of their lives on these handouts, would be smart in this regard. As would the creation of a network of shelters and sign up for shelters, which took away people’s ability to choose exactly where they would live, again helping to teach important moral lessons that would combat an entitlement mentality and over-dependency by showing that “beggars can’t be choosers” and that the benefit of working to stand on your own two feet in life, is that this, and this alone, gives you choice again.
I want to bring attention to a few excellent articles on homelessness by Heather MacDonald, the brilliant writer and thinker, who is a senior fellow and contributor at the Manhattan Institute. She also has a lot of valuable things to say about identity politics, immigration, race relations, policing and higher education.
One is called “Homeless Advocates in Outer Space“, which, though it was written 20 years ago, is as true today as it was then. I will quote some parts of this article here:
In eighteenth-century London, aristocratic elites visited the mad in Bedlam Hospital and called it entertainment. In twentieth-century New York, professional elites visit the mad in the streets and call it homeless outreach. The results in both cases are the same: the objects of attention are left to rot in their own filth, perhaps to lose a limb or two to gangrene, or to die. The intention, however, could not be more different: in modern times, such hands-off treatment shows “sensitivity” and “respect.”
As recounted in “To Reach the Homeless,” a typical day of outreach resembles a Dantean pilgrimage through the underworld. One day, for example, outreach workers stop by a coffin-sized box across from the New York Times building. “We know it’s a person,” reports Porter, “because we can discern a hand moving underneath some rags.” The workers knock on the box and say hello but get no response. Because the hand is still moving, though, the team concludes that whatever it is attached to must be okay, so they move on.
Nothing, however, compares to the difficulty of enticing the homeless into housing. Time after time, a client deemed “housing-ready” will balk at the threshold of his new abode and plunge back into the most squalid street life. Only a few vagrants even get that close; most keep themselves safely removed from the housing process.
When it gets cold, recounts a scraggly vagrant, “I smash a window with a brick and go to jail. I get along fine in jail.”
“To Reach the Homeless” proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the homeless are not on the street because they can’t find housing: desperate to give away subsidized apartments, the BID found almost no takers. Clearly, most vagrants prefer the streets to the responsibilities of a housed existence. Some may simply refuse to play by society’s rules, like many hoboes of old; for others, speculates the respite center’s director, housing may represent a scary reencounter with whatever psychological demons drove them to the streets in the first place.
But although the homeless may prefer the streets, that is not why they are still there. They are there because the advocates need them to be there. Should society finally decide to end street vagrancy, it could go far in that direction by facilitating commitment to mental hospitals (see “Let’s Stop Being Nutty About the Mentally Ill,” Summer 1997) and enforcing existing laws against street living. Though the average householder would surely welcome such a change, the average householder has no say in these matters; a vocal minority purporting to represent the interests of the homeless governs homeless policy.
A sane homeless policy would acknowledge two basic realities. First, many people on the streets need treatment, not housing. For the sickest, legislators need to change rules against involuntary confinement, and states need to recommission mental hospitals emptied by deinstitutionalization. Second, for the rest of the homeless the best medicine is the expectation of responsible behavior—the expectation of work and of civil and lawful conduct in public spaces. (See “Who Says the Homeless Should Work?” Summer 1997.) Accordingly, opinion leaders, from politicians to ministers, should decry all types of no-strings-attached handouts, such as no-demand soup kitchens and indiscriminate alms-giving to beggars, which simply subsidize self-destructive behavior. They should oppose allowing the homeless to turn public spaces into hobo encampments. Effective charity asks for reciprocity from the recipient, building patterns of work and discipline; to exempt the homeless from the rules that everyone else lives by infantilizes them permanently.
Ms MacDonald wrote an article called “San Francisco Gets Tough with the Homeless” about San Francisco’s approach to homelessness at a point in the early 1990’s when it seemed, for a time, that the city’s policy was shifting. Ultimately the city failed to pursue a new tougher policy on homelessness that would have set healthy boundaries.
Stroll down Haight Street these days, and chances are you’ll be accosted by aggressive young vagrants. “Can you spare some change?” asks Cory, a slender dark-haired young man from Ventura, Calif. “Dude, do you have any food?” His two female companions, Zombie and Eeyore, swig from a bottle of pricey Tejava tea and pass a smoke while lying on a blanket surrounded by a fortress of backpacks, bedrolls and scrawled signs asking for money. Vincent, a fourth “traveler,” as the Haight Street gutter punks call themselves, stares dully into space.
Such strapping young hobos see themselves as on a “mission,” though they’re hard-pressed to define it. In fact, they are defined by an oversized sense of entitlement.
Of all the destinations on the West Coast “traveler” circuit, the Haight carries a particular attraction to these panhandlers, thanks to the 1960s Summer of Love. Over the last several years, however, the vagrant population has grown more territorial and violent. “I don’t care if they ask for change,” says Arthur Evans, a self-described former hippie who has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years. “It’s okay if they loiter and make a bit of noise. But I don’t feel safe walking down the Haight at night any more.”
What percentage of the “homeless” are people living with serious mental illness? This is an important question, particularly since many people are over-emphasizing that “the solution for homelessness is housing”. But if people with serious mental illness are simply given housing, it’s very likely they will lose it again if their mental illness continues to be untreated.
A recent article in Mother Jones quoted a man who works with San Diego’s homeless in the tents provided for them there.
He estimates that about 80 to 90 percent of the tent’s residents are affected by some kind of mental illness.
This means that in San Diego, the estimated figures there imply that the rate of mental illness among homeless individuals there, is 20X or 2000% higher than the population at large. This is such a stunningly high number that it would be simply negligent to fail to factor this into any strategies to work with the homeless there, or seek solutions for that city’s homelessness. It also implies what many of us have suspected…that the “explosion of homelessness” is innately a failure of our mental health care system (or lack thereof) and that our streets and sidewalks are being appropriated by our cities and states as outdoor insane asylums, to the extent that these municipalities and governing entities simply allow the mentally ill to continue to wander there.
A study done in Berkeley found a different percentage of those with serious Mental illness — about half that of the number found in San Diego, but still extremely high.
The study done by the Homeless Task Force on Homelessness in Berkeley in 2009 :. Homeless Task Force study on Homelessness in Berkeley 2009
Note from page 3 of the study, 41% of homeless had serious mental illness and 40% were chronic substance abusers. Hence, those who are homeless have 10 to 20 times the rate of substance abuse as the general public as a whole, and 10 times the rate of serious mental illness as the general public as a whole.
But again, the numbers on the ground in some areas are much higher. In Oahu Hawaii, the Institute for Human Services found that 60% of the homeless suffer from serious mental illness.
It is really very unfortunate that it is taking us, collectively, so very long to realize that those with serious mental illness cannot take care of themselves. I’ve personally been very concerned with this problem for about 4 decades now, which is about how long I’ve been seeing those with serious mental illness wandering the urban streets, living on sidewalks, left to rant and rave and talk to themselves while wearing rags and defecating and urinating on themselves. It’s been incomprehensible to me that we (national, state and city governments) have just ignored this serious problem for so long. Why were we not addressing this very serious problem 30 or 40 years ago?
We are finally realizing that people with serious mental illness — surprise!– often dont’ realize that they can’t see reality as it is and dont’ realize they have a mental illness. Duh! They have “anosognosia” , which is a prominent symptom of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It’s flatly evident that people out of their minds, do not realize they are out of their minds. This is why giving those with untreated serious mental illness the “freedom” to do as they please is a form of cruelty — it’s like sending a 2 or 3 year old child out into the world and saying “take care! Hope you can get a job and some housing and take care of yourself!” These people can’t care for themselves and it’s really abusive of us as a society to expect that they would be able to.
Arguably, if one is homeless or low-income, it’s far better for you to be able to live in a vehicle as opposed to a tent on the sidewalk. This is a far more secure, comfortable, private and desirable way to live. Particularly if the vehicle is large, and outfitted for long term residence — as with the RV or trailer home. It’s also a way that many people of means have chosen to live, for significant amounts of time.
But the problem with this way of life, is, that just as with tiny house dwelling, there are very few legal options for those seeking a “low rent” or free way of living in Berkeley or really anywhere in the Bay Area.
There are very few RV parks in the Bay Area, particularly any that have space available and also offer reasonably low rents. And — it’s not an acceptable plan to allow people to simply live in vehicles, indefinitely — or in perpetuity, as their permanent, chosen lifestyle — on public streets. As mentioned in another article here, most cities not only do not allow people to live in RVs on public streets, but they even prohibit the overnight parking of RVs on any city street.
The number of people illegally living in RVs and other vehicles at the Berkeley Marina has gotten way out of hand. At the Berkeley City Council meeting this week, a park spokesperson estimated that there are 200 people living in RVs at the Berkeley Marina.
Keep in mind that there is NO campground there, and Berkeley Marina laws explicitly and clearly state that overnight camping is prohibited everywhere at the Marina. Nevertheless, the city has tolerated this illegal activity for over 2 years.
The result is predictable: the people living illegally in RVs and other vehicles at the Marina, having been permitted to stay there for so long, now feel like they have a claim on the area, and thus, the city of Berkeley is now looking at the possibility of setting up a designated lot or site for people to live in RVs in Berkeley or not too far away.
As written, this proposal is over-idealistic and not workable. Yes, it would be nice if there were places for all RV dwellers to live in the Bay Area, at low or no rent. However, absent someone with a magic wand to wave and somehow magically create more and more low income housing opportunities, it’s not possible to accomodate the huge number of people who would just like to live in Berkeley or Oakland or SF and pay, say, $100 to $300 a month in rent. The number of people who would like that opportunity is huge, and even if it were possible to give 200 such people such an opportunity, within a few months, there would be 200 to 5000 more people wanting the same thing.
There are many people living in RVs on streets all over the Bay Area, and they all would like to be given a $100-300 a month RV park spot. For instance these in East Palo ALto:
People argue that we need more low income housing in the Bay Area, we need RV parks. Well we already have low income housing, we already have RV parks, and they are pretty much all full. There are opportunities to live at low rent on a liveaboard at the Berkeley Marina — those slots are taken. There are a variety of low income apartments in the Bay Area — all taken. There are RV parks in the Bay Area — most are not in the inner Bay Area, where land costs are very high, but in the outer Bay, for instance in Vacaville. Even those are mostly all full. There is section 8 housing in the Bay Area…all full, with a long waiting list.
It’s just not possible to meet the demand for low income housing or RV park slots in the inner Bay Area in particular.
If any RV park or vehicle dwelling park is to be set up by the city, it makes far more sense to me that this would be done in the same spirit and with the same purpose as the new Pathways navigation center in Berkeley. Namely, to offer ostensibly “homeless” people a place to stay for a limited period of time (say up to 3 to 6 months) while they are provided services and directed to available shelter or housing, not necessarily in Berkeley (as there is little of either here) but somewhere in the state or in the nation. Those who are not interested in receiving such services should not be given a spot in the vehicle campground/park. The city should not be subsidizing one select group of vehicle dwellers (those at the BErkeley Marina) , any more than they should be subsidizing one particular group of homeless tent campers (FTCFTH). Among other things, focusing only on one ostensibly “special” group of people is discriminatory. But more to the point, governments need to come up with plans for the homeless that work with the big picture scenario.
Berkeley City Council members have indicated that those 200 (gasp) people living in RVs at the BErkeley Marina will “have to go”, and they are considering some type of RV park arrangement, but have recognized that this is not just a Berkeley issue, it is an issue for all the homeless (and low income persons) all over the Bay Area.
Instead of expecting the city to find places for them, RV and vehicle dwellers might take the initiative and find places for themselves. A group called “BusPatch” has done that, and they band together and rent vacant lots in the Bay Area where they can live communally. http://www.buspatch.com/
UPDATE: September 30 2018
The city of Berkeley, faced with a large increase in the number of complaints about RVs in the West Berkeley area, in District 1, is considering implementing regulations on RV parking in the city. See the Berkeleyside article about this issue.
On October 1 2018, East Bay Times reported that an RV caught fire on a road in the Oakland hills, and the fire spread to nearby brush.
Rivera said Portland Fire & Rescue has responded to at least 25 RV fires just this year. One time, a burning RV torched power lines in a neighborhood. He also mentioned abandoned RVs can be a hub for criminal activity. The city had to hire additional parking staff to deal with abandoned RVs.
The task in total has earned quite the price tag.
“We expect to spend more than a million dollars this year, getting RV’s off the streets of Portland,” Rivera said.
As mentioned in this Reddit thread, there was an RV that caught fire at a grocery store parking lot in Portland, and the scene was caught on video…
Anyone with interest, can explore the RV park offerings in the Bay Area…I found this list on YELP. Note that most all of the existing RV parks are in the outer Bay Area, places like Vacaville or Santa Rosa, or Half Moon Bay.
This place is located in the heart of downtown San Leandro, and really an awesome trailer park. I stayed here in an RV and had a very good experience. Their monthly rate is $700 and… read more
RV! All spots included a fire pit and table/chairs. There is no shade for days like we had during Labor weekend! We were just done the street from bike trails that lead to the state… read more
would never stay here again, we woke up to our car keyed and someone trying to flatter our tires, our rv site was tore up, and our wheel stoppers removed from our tires and put on… read more
from Sam’s Chowder House. So we walked there for lunch and dinner, which was great as there is never parking available at Sam’s Chowder; but it’s a great place to eat. Thanks again,… read more
the dogs. How awful that these animals are locked in a camper that they are unfamiliar with. Worse part about this is I really like using this site. I have been here many times and… read more
I stayed here for right at a month because I had a short job down the road. This place is really nice. Lots and lots of mature beautiful trees. Reminds me of San Diego. Plenty of RV…read more
This is about the most convenient rvpark and public dump station in the Bay area. Now that the rvpark in Pacifica closed it’s public dump station it’s one of about two local… read more
This is a great place to stay. Just very difficult because it’s always full. Everything you need is right around the area. Restaurants, post office, grocery shopping. read more
traveled with other RV’s and this also included 1 pitbull (again, great dog). Shame on you Snug Harbor, obviously we (or any of our friends and family) won’t be returning anytime… read more
We’ve stayed her on a couple of occasions. I ‘ll agree with other on here that it is simply place to park your RV. It is not a “camp ground” and there is no picnic tables with each… read more
important info. It was nice and quiet. The showers and restrooms needed to be cleaned, they’re out dated, but I was used to it, my husband thought it was horrible especially for the… read more
We arrived on a Sunday about noon towing my small trailer RV. Since we arrived without a reservation, I stopped at the gate and used the intercom to call the proprietor. He was not… read more
have stayed at this place without the commute. Yes, it can be loud in the early morning, but it is well kept, small and quaint. It is a very functional, safe park. I would recommend… read more
Years ago this park use to be nice, however its turned into an overpriced ghetto. Yes rent prices are high in the area, but so is the little pavement you are renting. Management… read more
We come here about once or twice a year with an rv club. Nice place, near the water, nice restaurant too. Clubhouse was convenient to where they parked us nearby. read more
We parked our tiny house on wheels at Park Delta Bay for a short but sweet visit. This is a beautifully green, tree-covered RVpark with solid amenities. Quite affordable with great… read more
trimmed a few tree branches to ensure our bedroom slide would not bump into the tree. This is an upscale RV Resort. Great location. Staff and grounds are 5-Star. read more
PROS: Probably the nicest RV-specific park in Marin County. Good location only with easy freeway access, about 30 minutes from San Francisco in normal traffic (during the morning… read more
We parked our tiny house on wheels at Park Delta Bay for a short but sweet visit. This is a beautifully green, tree-covered RVpark with solid amenities. Quite affordable with great… read more
across this RVpark thanks to the “RV Parky” app I downloaded onto my iPhone. When I called I spoke to Karen, and she was so friendly, and helpful, and let me know I had 2 spaces to… read more
traveled with other RV’s and this also included 1 pitbull (again, great dog). Shame on you Snug Harbor, obviously we (or any of our friends and family) won’t be returning anytime… read more
I’ve lived at Vallejo MHC & RVPark for nearly 20 years. It was called Tall Trees MHP when I moved in. About two years ago, the park was sold to a corporation called Cascade Property… read more
. The customer service is great too, all staff has been very nice and accommodating so far. Just wish they offered the good Sam discount for the monthly spots! So glad we found this… read more
Well it does provide some utility. But it is not a pretty place by any stretch. Not the kind of place you’d even want to sit outside your RV. Hard to find. You will probably go… read more
I thought it was a nice rvpark. Clean, had no problems. We were here with a camping club and used the clubhouse. Very nice. We had a good time. read more
I’ve lived at Vallejo MHC & RVPark for nearly 20 years. It was called Tall Trees MHP when I moved in. About two years ago, the park was sold to a corporation called Cascade Property… read more
. The customer service is great too, all staff has been very nice and accommodating so far. Just wish they offered the good Sam discount for the monthly spots! So glad we found this… read more
Just came back from a weekend camping in an RV here. We are new to RV camping so I don’t have a lot to compare it to but I will try to be reasonable. The location is amazing as you… read more
The bad… the rv sites are on top of each other in the eucalyptus spots. The good… a sauna, nice bathrooms, get a spot on the end and you can see the ocean from across the… read more
We have been with Vista Resorts since 2006, and learn more and how to, as we go RVing thru the years. Traveling in RV is fun and exciting adventures. Remembering on our learning, the… read more
& it was just fine. This is a nice facility. My wife & I, civilians ourselves, strive to only stay in the very best RV resorts. This isn’t that, but it it isn’t meant to be. It was a… read more
I have stayed at Sleepy Hollow Trailer Park off and on since 2009. The neighborhood surrounding the park is a little run down but the rvpark is like a completely different culture.… read more
Not a bad place to stay if you’re in the area and they are pet friendly. The folks here aren’t the friendliest and the RVpark next to it Vineyard is much better with accommodations. read more
Just came back from a weekend camping in an RV here. We are new to RV camping so I don’t have a lot to compare it to but I will try to be reasonable. The location is amazing as you… read more
The bad… the rv sites are on top of each other in the eucalyptus spots. The good… a sauna, nice bathrooms, get a spot on the end and you can see the ocean from across the… read more
We have been with Vista Resorts since 2006, and learn more and how to, as we go RVing thru the years. Traveling in RV is fun and exciting adventures. Remembering on our learning, the… read more
& it was just fine. This is a nice facility. My wife & I, civilians ourselves, strive to only stay in the very best RV resorts. This isn’t that, but it it isn’t meant to be. It was a… read more
I have stayed at Sleepy Hollow Trailer Park off and on since 2009. The neighborhood surrounding the park is a little run down but the rvpark is like a completely different culture.… read more
This RVpark is conveniently located close enough to the city to have an easy commute and far enough away that you are not in the daily buzz. There’s a ton of shade trees, a pool,… read more
Do not believe the photos or description you see on the website. Those were taken years ago apparently. This place is currently a dump. The “RV’s” that are in there are all old and… read more
An alright place to stay. Stayed here while on a job and enjoyed my stay. Looks like the other reviewers on here just had a bad experience or are not used to trailer park life.… read more
The new park managers are really making great improvements. There are weekly events happening at the clubhouse now because of them,the park has really been kept up very neat and… read more
As the number of homeless and homeless camps explodes in West Coast cities, the trope of the “Zombie Apocalypse” is apparently entering the minds of many, as they gape at the seemingly intractable problem on many city streets.
While calling all homeless people “zombies” is mean-spirited and cruel, as well as a potentially damaging dismissal of struggling and vulnerable individuals, nevertheless, I think it’s important that we explore ordinary people’s response to a truly disturbing situation, and explore why people are led to think “Zombie Apocalypse” in conjunction with the explosion of numbers (and locations) of homeless camps in our cities. Just as we should not be dismissing all the homeless as “zombies”, likewise, we should not be dismissing the legitimate fears and disturbance that ordinary people have to the spread of squalid homeless camps across their cities, and their tendency to glimpse there, something frighteningly “zombie-apocalypse-like” unfolding in their city.
In this Op-Ed about “faux compassion”, the author, concerned about the consequences of exploding numbers of homeless camps in California cities, says
It seems today like we have somehow traded the California paradise we remember for something more akin to a zombie apocalypse movie.
In this article, people debate about a group that apparently took a mean spirited and mocking approach to the homeless
To see some of that Orange County situation for yourself, take a look at this video that someone made, of the Santa Ana Riverbed bicycle trail in Anaheim, prior to the removal of the massive, mile-and-a-half-long homeless camp in that area:
The narrator in the video said, “the amount of tents and homeless people that you see in this video is just disgusting.”
Further up the California coast, homeless zombie apocalypse can readily be found in San Francisco. A conservative news website posts an article about the “zombie apocalypse” scene in San Francisco’s Civic Center BART station — and unfortunately, as many of us know who ride BART, that characterization is fairly accurate:
(That website asks you to enter your email in order to see the article– you can enter an email that you use less often so you don’t get bombarded with spam)
The author posts this news video which clearly demonstrates the disturbing problem:
Elsewhere in San Francisco, residents of South of Market neighborhoods, often artists and very “progressive” type people, are finding themselves shocked by the increasingly appalling scene on their streets. They regularly find human feces, rats and hypodermic needles on the streets, see homeless vagrants breaking in to cars, and one resident recently found a suitcase full of human poop. At that point, he wrote letters to the city and to the media. Of one young performer who lives in the area, the article says:
She said it’s scary walking by herself or riding the bus late at night after work, so she has to pay for car service. She can’t wear shoes inside anymore because the bottoms became so disgusting from walking on her sidewalk. She has struggled to sleep at night because of the tortuous sounds of screaming and fighting wafting up from the street below.
In the middle of the night not long ago, a man rolled around in the middle of the street “acting like a wild beast — just screaming,” she said. She called 911. She often refrains from calling police if black men are involved, not confident officers would treat them fairly.
The article’s author visited the area, and said of what she saw:
On one of my visits to Isis Street in early April, the sidewalks at the end of the block underneath the freeway were teeming with homeless people. One woman leaned against a wall with drug paraphernalia spread around her. She alternately cried, gave huge clownish smiles and screamed profanities.
A man with a pile of belongings and a dog nestled in an open suitcase stood nearby. He said his name is just Roni and he’s been homeless for eight years. He said he’s addicted to meth. His teeth seemed to be disintegrating.
In recent weeks, residents have been absolutely astonished that at least in their area, most of the time now, the mayor has made good on a commitment to get the tents out of San Francisco. This just goes to show that we dont’ have to sit passively and helplessly by and watch the homeless zombie apocalypse unfold around us. We can take action to prevent this disintegration of neighborhoods and spread of deeply disturbing behavior.
Someone created a FaceBook page for a business/location called “Zombie Apocalypse Homeless Camp” in the Clearlake, California area. This is a rural area which has been disturbingly effected by methheads.
A YouTube video about a prank “Homeless Zombie” in an elevator:
A short film etitled “Homeless Zombie Attacks” — used to be on YouTube at this address but has apparently been removed.
This has six episodes have been created thus far and apparently many more episodes slated to come, which features “Homeless Shopping Cart Zombies” and several other toy characters:
Episode One:
Episode Two:
Episode Three:
Episode Four:
Episode Five:
Episode Six:
This video about “Homeless Zombie Hordes Take over Venice Beach” —
There’s a San Francisco resident who uses the Twitter Handle @SFZombieNation to write about the zombie incidents/situations in San Francisco: https://twitter.com/sfzombienation?lang=en
His expressed mission is “Calling out San Francisco’s corruption and ineptitude that has led to the degeneration of a once beautiful city.”
Though President Trump was blasted as “racist” for his criticisms of the city of Baltimore, Representative Elijah Cummings himself referred to the roving drug addicts in Baltimore as “zombies”, as seen in this video:
There is a book by John Vervaeke and two other authors, which takes a look at the use of the Zombie archetype in Western Culture, which sheds light on the use of this trope
In chapter 3 of their book, on page 13, they discuss “the four symbols of the zombie metaphor”. Intriguingly, in the discussion of the first “symbol”, the authors give these qualities of zombies:
(1) Zombies don’t talk (the zombie’s most marked pathology is that it lacks intelligibility).
We see this in those with serious mental illness on our streets, those who arguably most closely approximate the zombie, as they often say things which are unintelligible or truly crazy.
Beyond that, we also can see a variety of this “incapacity to talk” when there is talking but it is rather nonsensical. As when either the homeless or their advocates, say things which amount to an almost insane level of denial about the problems caused by dirty homeless encampments where there are fires, disease, public health dangers, crime, drug addiction, hypodermic needles.
(2) Zombies are communal.
We see this communalism in the large homeless camps, which also reasonably appear to us as more frightening and disturbing than the individual tents. When homeless form communities, this can give them support, but it can also lead to an exacerbation and enabling of crime (eg bike chop shops), drug addiction, and public health dangers caused by the greater amount of garbage and feces.
(3)Zombies are homeless
That the authors have found this to be an essential symbol of zombies, helps us understand why the connection between the homeless and zombies comes up quickly for many observers.
(4) Zombies eat brains.
The author says that “a zombie never stops eating, but never grows or changes. In its insatiability, the zombie has put its face to the disorder of addiction.”
And it’s easy for many observers to make the link between the depravity that results from serious substance abuse (particularly when its results are exposed in public palces)and the zombie.
(5) Zombies are ugly.
We dont’ see many attractive things in homeless people or homeless camps. Not always, but often, the camps are literally full of garbage, feces, and debris, and many of their residents are unwashed and wearing rags.
(6) The Zombie is vacant: it lacks an interior life
When some of the homeless are interviewed, and their storiesor statements appear on the news, one of the things many observers will note is that while clearly many people are homeless due to outside forces over which they have no control, in others, there appears to be a vacancy where common sense should be. Observers can note that some people have ended up homeless, and likely remain homeless, due to bad decisions, lack of common sense, and/or a lack of interior life and inability to reflect on their own behavior and its effect on others. And so we see people who’ve made a living in crime and who are involved in drug abuse, wondering why they have trouble finding housing. We see people who will state they can’t afford housing in a certain area, end up in the streets, apparently unable to use their resources to either move to a place where they can afford to live, or get roommates to help pay their rent. This apparent lack of ability to make any forward motion, but instead allowing themselves to disintegrate on the streets, can lead observers to glimpse this aspect of the zombie archetype.
Further on in the book, the authors similarly state in the “Fourth symbol of the Zombie” that the zombie is bankrupt and lacks insight. Again, with many, but certainly not all of the homeless (particularly those effected by mental illness or substance abuse) we see these people doing the same inane, self-destructive and useless things that cannot get them anywhere, but deeper into a hole, or down the toilet. They seem spectacularly unable (and/or unwilling) to do anything to improve their condition, and in many instances seem content to simply rot away. Some of this, however, we must understand as the consequence of depression and despair — the same thing can happen to anyone, homeless or not, if they fall into deep depression. It can be a black hole that swallows them up.
I would add another aspect to the “symbolism” of the zombie, which is the lawless, out of control situation that we see in many homeless camps, and which for instance is summed up well in an article called Left Coast Lawlessness. It’s this lawless and highly disordered environment in which the homeless are living, which differentiates them in their self-destructive behaviors, and apparent lack of insight, from the affliction of despair and depression among the housed, who at least have an external framework of security and order in which they live.
In order to attenuate the disturbance caused to many by the explosion of homeless camps, as well as the potential for demonizing of the homeless, I think it is important both for city, state and national governments to come up with real, effective plans to shelter and house the homeless, the destitute, the disabled, and to require (not simply request) that those with serious mental illness or substance abuse are housed in treatment centers, and not allowed to roam our urban centers and continually frighten and disturb, or endanger, passers by. There have been a number of attacks on ordinary people by crazy homeless individuals, and these things just need to stop. Cities cannot allow disturbed people to roam the streets and harm others.
For instance, this month on June 20 a homeless man attacked a person in downtown Berkeley with a rock, accusing him of an “illegal Asian takeover.”
I could go on and on with these stories of how some homeless individuals, often with serious mental or drug addiction issues, are causing serious danger to the rest of the population.
And as my other article on this subject indicates, there have been many crimes, some violent, fires and drug use at homeless camps. And again, the number of homeless people with serious mental illness or substance abuse issues is ten times as high as the percentage of people with those issues in the population at large.
However, in all fairness it must also be said, that homeless individuals are not only the perpetrators of assaults and crimes on others, but are often the victims of such crimes. This is not an either/or situation, but a both/and situation. Simply put, allowing homeless/street people with serious mental illness to wander at random on the streets, endangers both these people themselves, as well as ordinary persons who might unwittingly trigger one of these disturbed individuals to attack or assault them.
For instance, in San Francisco recently, a man was arrested for a violent attack on a homeless man lying on the sidewalk. In Oakland, a jogger impulsively started throwing out the belongings of a homeless man, who was camping in a very prominent, indeed scenic location at Lake Merritt — a park which we ought to note has been called “The Jewel of the City.” Yet, of these crimes perpetrated upon the homeless, we should note that they would be minimized if we could stop allowing our streets to be turned into outdoor insane asylums and our parks to be allowed to be turned into slums. The alleged perps in both these crimes expressed frustration that the city was not doing more to deal with an out of control homeless issue.
And we could better protect homeless individuals, by creating places for them to be, other than lying on the sidewalk, where they are much more vulnerable to random attacks, than when they have shelters to stay in.
By failing to create places for these people to be, and by allowing our streets and parks to be turned into slums and garbage strewn camps, our cities endanger many of us and unwittingly contribute to the characterization of the homeless as zombies, and to the spread of camps as a homeless zombie apocalypse.
When cities stop allowing our streets to be outdoor insane asylums, we will be protecting those with drug or mental health issues, and protecting the rest of the population, and the incidence of “zombie sightings” on the streets will correspondingly diminish.
a place to reflect on stories, concerns, condundrums, enigmas and potential solutions for homelessness
Z
See a discussion about this in these Twitter threads:
I often wonder what the owners of this business think of the homeless camp which is an overwhelming presence very close by. When you sit at the patio benches of this cafe. you’re treated to a view of piles of trash and raggedy tents and debris: this has been the case for several years now.
The part they are unfamiliar with, because indeed we’ve hardly begun to put it into operation, is the difference between “
Liberal Logic:
And in my book it’s far better that we pay much less to house them in FEMA style camps, than allow them to take over the plaza in the center of the city in dirty tents. It’s better we provide them free medical care at early stages of need, rather than end up paying much more for expensive 911 emergency care when their untreated illness leads to an expensive longterm hospitalization. It’s better that we give everyone $20k in guaranteed basic income, which some morons will blow in one night in an intense methamphetamine party with strippers and call girls, rather than refuse to provide this income, and thereby deprive those millions who suffer invisibly because they don’t have money to get a dental procedure or have to choose between paying for heat or paying for food.
And:
And:
And in this case, a sex offender living in an RV had 2 children inside and fled police on a long chase, culminating in a SWAT team stopping the RV and rescuing the children. 
and create millions of “free” apartments in buildings in a dapper and charming part of town, for all the homeless, much less for all those who ended up in the gutter due to problems with drug addiction and mental illness. But we can create large tent shelters, we can build rooming houses where they can be housed much less expensively than if we think we have to provide everyone with their own apartment.
It’s come to my attention that it’s high time to address racism as it relates to homelessness. Many of you will have realized the importance of this topic for quite some time, and wondered why it’s taken me so long to get to it. In fact, for many of you, on the very first day you began to be concerned with homelessness, the topic of racism would have been on your minds. Some of you may have reflexively asserted a truth that we often see reflexively asserted these days: namely that it’s not possible to have homelessness without racism, that in fact, racism is responsible for most all the homelessness we see in the nation, just as racism is responsible for most all the ills we see anywhere in the world.
Over time, towards the end of their stay at the Bulb in 2013, parkgoers noticed an increase in the number of homeless people living at the park, and the number of problems associated with them increased as well. There were fires, and viscious dogs, as described in this article:
I try to avoid riding the BART subway whenever possible, in large part because BART has felt increasingly dangerous. Not only have numerous people been robbed while riding BART, but every time I ride the train, there is at least one homeless and/or crazy person aboard the car, if not more than one. Given the increased possibility of bed bugs, lice and other vermin among the homeless, as well as the spread of 
the city of Oakland finally took a very long overdue action and evicted the tent campers from Lake Merritt, and put up signs indicating that camping there is not allowed. The camping and filthy accumulations surrounding mentally ill individuals lying on the sidewalk or lawn at Lake Merritt had gone on for quite a long time, and the city was direlect in its responsibility to preserve this park as a recreational park for the public to use. Area residents and park users had complained for years about tents pitched right next to the water, in the bushes, on the sidewalk, in the middle of picnic areas, and really all over the park. The city had ignored these complaints for many years and allowed the problem to fester, which made many residents and park users absolutely furious. 
This is about the size of the Tuff Sheds that are being used for the Oakland Tuff Shed camps. These tent camps, like the Oakland Tuff Shed camps, will not be permitted to become garbage dumps, because they are being run by the city, with city staff there during the day and a security guard at night. People will have to follow rules in order to stay there. Massed piles of stolen bikes and bike parts will not be appearing there. And no, you dont’ allow homeless people to run the camp by themselves, so that it turns into an open-air drug den. The camp is provided by the government, and should be run by the government or by personnel from an agency providing services to the homeless. These things are just common sense, but common sense has been quite a long time coming.
is being closed down, as reported in this 
Here are incidents which have involved crimes and harm to homeless or others, which have occurred in just one place in Berkeley, in People’s Park:
Some version of this parklet could be constructed on the street in front of your home.
These are not emblems of the city by which to draw tourists and celebrate diversity and a colorful history.
, irate residents had had quite enough when they discovered their own stolen bikes in a nearby homeless camp, and when police would not respond to their calls for enforcement on this issue. SO they took matters into their own hands and went and retrieved their own property which had been stolen by the homeless campers.
The Homeless Quandary 
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