Homelessness Is Hopeless

As Long As It’s a ‘Them’ Problem Rather than a ‘We’ Solution

Press releases from San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria’s campaign have taken on an almost giddy tone in recent days, celebrating statistics showing an acceleration of homebuilding in the city.

“The most in 17 years!” “…flattening rents in areas that are building more housing such as downtown and Mission Valley.”

I’m not saying the campaign is doing anything wrong. Their candidate has taken a non-stop beating from all sides on steps being (or not being) taken on behalf of unhoused people. It’s their job to sell the person.

The pathetic squealing about the mere presence of the unhoused, in one instance encouraged by a former mayor, consists of declarations about public safety and health concerns from among the most privileged people in the region.

Instability and disappointing outcomes from the various safe zones set up after the “get tough” anti-camping law have some advocates claiming that these places are no more than prettied up prisons or dead ends. And they’re largely right, mostly because both the services and spaces needed don’t exist.

Those who believe that behavioral intervention is what it will take to get people off the streets know (or should know) the service providers and facilities simply do not exist. What people like El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells are selling is fear and disgust. It’s cynical and awful in every aspect.

This is, alas no magic wand. If only we had leaders who didn’t claim to have one.

Now, I’ll say elected officials willing to call out the sources of the housing crisis and admit that their administration by itself is incapable of providing more than band aids are as rare as corpse flowers. The public won’t believe them, thanks in large part to the garbage being served up by these wanna be John Waynes.

Every one of those weasels who blame an elected official for the growing unhoused population are a big part of the problem. You won’t see former Mayor Kevin Faulconer in his campaign for Supervisor admit that growing counts of the unhoused are a systemic problem. Nope. 

Somehow, the man that sanctioned corrupt real estate deals has now arrived at the conclusion the problem is incumbent supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s inaction. The man who could have jump-started low income housing that would now be coming onto the market insinuates that “treatment” is the solution. All the bastard is doing is whipping up anger to win votes; he has no solutions and is likely incapable of grasping the root causes.

Our Supreme Court has now cleared the last obstacle blocking the path to criminalization of people without a roof over their heads. Mass round-ups and prison camps are the next logical step to placating residents displeased with having to encounter people at the bottom of the economic scale. These choices won’t be on general election ballots, but the people inclined to make them will be.

Todd Gloria’s most effective tools for combatting homelessness are press releases announcing yet another act equivalent to rearranging the deck chairs on a cruise ship. 

People living on the streets are our problem, and our fault. (No, not you personally. Save your victimhood for another day.)

 A short term fix could involve community participation at levels typically not seen outside of wartime situations. Hell will freeze over before many middle class citizens will personally provide temporary shelter for an unhoused person or family or even allow a facility in their neighborhood.

Just a few days ago California lawmakers abandoned an attempt to repeal the nation's only constitutional requirement (Article 34) of voter approval for publicly funded low income housing projects. 

Via the Los Angeles Times:

• Voters have been asked to eliminate or weaken Article 34 three times since 1950, and each time they said no. The last effort was in 1993. Allen worked with former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on another repeal attempt in 2020. That was shelved. Advocates eyed 2022 but then decided to wait for 2024 so they would have time to raise money for a public education campaign on the state’s ugly history of housing discrimination.

The reasoning for this year's withdrawal was that the ballot was too crowded and difficulty funding the $20 million needed to convince voters this part of the state constitution was, in fact, a relic of post-WWII racism and not an attempt by Sacramento to strip away local control.

While the legislature and some local governments have found some work-arounds of Article 34’s provisions, the symbolism of requiring voters to approve funding local income housing is a testament to the underlying causes of homelessness.

My point here is that there are obstacles at every level standing in the way of what should be a critical element of our social safety net. Forget, for a moment, the absurdity of the invisible hand of today’s “free market” solving the housing shortage. 

High interest rates have, for instance, paused the construction of hundreds of apartment homes in Mission Valley. And the demands of private equity groups for ever-increasing profits would keep many companies from even considering construction of anything less than upper tier rentals. 

And ultimately, the commodification of what should be a basic need is the biggest block of all. Increases in property value are the most likely source of wealth generation for people collecting a paycheck. Anything standing in the way of real estate appreciation is easily perceived as a personal attack.

Let’s face it. Pensions are disappearing. Those continuing to exist are endangered by weakened unions, irrational budgeting decisions, and stock market scammers. Social security, the baseline elder lifesaver, is endangered by Republicans offended at the idea of connecting tax brackets to inflation, or –God forbid– slightly wealthier Americans paying slightly more taxes.

Decades of wage stagnation (now abating somewhat) and greed-driven inflation make the various financial devices being peddled as a replacement for dedicated pensions unrealistic. 401(k) and the like won’t get most people through their non-working years.

The shinbone connected to the kneebone… The deeper you dig, the more it becomes clear that unhoused humans are a byproduct of our economic and political systems. It will take more than a commitment of church parking lots as shelters or construction sites. 

It takes being willing to tackle basic questions in many areas. It can be done, and practically speaking it would be done piecemeal. The Biden administration has taken baby steps on the bigger picture (antitrust and oversight); the Supreme Court is doing its darndest to stop it.  

One place to start would be to push back against the foul propaganda enabled by the media about fair pay. We’re being lied to, or fed an incomplete picture by the media we’re supposed to trust.

Area restaurateurs were, according to the local press, spared the indignity of eliminating service charges, a frequently abused and not easily audited income stream. With service charges, even advertised on the menu, the realities of the cost of doing business are laid at the feet of the person presenting the bill.  

Covid was an easy excuse for playing this game. What’s not obvious to the customer are the supply chain disruptions driving erratic quality and the increasingly not hidden costs of climate change.

Fast food joints aren’t going out of business because they’ve been required to pay employees more. Many locations were already paying more than the new minimum wages due to the fact the jobs are considered undesirable dead ends.

The assumptions underlying business models for the entire hospitality industry are crumbling, along with the profit expectations of the corporations who set the rules.

• McDonald's gross profit for the twelve months ending March 31, 2024 was $14.688B, a 9.03% increase year-over-year. McDonald's annual gross profit for 2023 was $14.563B, a 10.26% increase from 2022. McDonald's annual gross profit for 2022 was $13.207B, a 4.98% increase from 2021.

And if you want to pull further back on the big picture, the fast food industry is built upon the assumption of an auto-centric culture. Lines of Teslas at Starbucks Mission Valley are going to be part of the solutions needed to face the changes in climate headed our way.

There will be no box on your ballot this fall for ending homelessness. Instead virtually everything will be connected in some manner. I’ll be looking at this as part of my criteria for this Fall’s Voter Guide.

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VACATION(s)--I intend to take some time off this summer. It’s hard to do because writing is as much a habit as my morning cuppa joe. So far, the days off I have planned are July 4-7 and August 1-12.

When I return from the August break, I’ll begin focusing on my Fall 2924 Voting Guide, meaning that many of my posts will be focused on candidates and ballot measures. On the week that mail-in voting starts, I’ll publish a condensed version, complete with links back to more detailed coverage.

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Monday News You Should Read

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When media build their brand by platforming fascists by Mark Jacob at Stop The Presses

• I agree there is value in exposing people who are dangerous threats to the health of our society. But when their plans and their nature are already well known to the public, interviewing them turns into a cooperative project in which both the journalist and the fascist get to build their brands.

• In effect, major media are running infomercials for insurrection. 

• Some journalists may think it’s good for their careers in the short term, but the ugly truth is that it could well be disastrous for America in the long term. Why can’t they see that? Why don't they care?

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Baseball's Not Dead, and Neither is America by Brendan Danito at Out in Left Field

• Baseball’s death notices usually focus on the game’s finances and viewership or its aesthetics and cultural significance, but to me baseball’s survival is tied not to dollars and eyeballs but rather to politics, and I worry about the game in today’s environment. 

• It’s not that Major League Baseball will go away in an increasingly illiberal America. It’s that the league’s owners will curry favor with neoconservative overlords, who, by changing election law and interpreting them to their advantage, will permanently entrench themselves in power. The owners have long done this (their anti-trust exemption was awarded by a sympathetic Supreme Court in 1922), but in this possible future their extortion efforts will become more brazen, their labor practices more exploitative, and their game product more divorced from the profits they make and the desires of their customer bases. 

• As it always has, baseball would then reflect the country: ignorant of popular sentiment and determined by contrived results. MLB would then be a tool of the state to enrich oligarchs who stand by as fascism creeps towards us fans.

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Happy Bannon Goes to Jail Day

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