Is ‘Otherizing’ Homeless Humans Better Than Promises Not Kept?

The way things stand in San Diego (city & county), a snowball in hell has a better chance of survival than getting short term shelter and/or longer term housing in place to meet our growing unhoused population.

Politicians are making noises about actually doing something, and I’m here to tell you to look more closely at what they say.

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There are two schools of thought among local politicians when it comes to solutions for those living on the streets. 

1. Say we’re doing the best we can while utilizing law enforcement to give the impression that progress is afoot.

2. Propose to lock them up (soon) if they can’t find their way into shelters, mental health, and/or substance abuse facilities.

Both approaches deny the fundamental realities for those without a home. 

• There aren’t enough shelter spaces to place those living on the street, and, with current planning, there will never be an alternative to tent living.

• According to San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez, local jails are so short staffed that they can’t accept an increase in the inmate population.  

And then there are the thousands of people on the precipice of losing the roofs over their heads.

From a February article in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

• The number of active clients in programs is 27,222, with a third of those being served in permanent housing. Another 19 percent are receiving some type of services and 12 percent are in emergency shelters. Active clients include 8,290 people ages 55 and older, 2,463 families, 3,889 veterans and 1,993 youths ages 18-24. About 4,100 new clients entered programs last month.

(Not included in much of the media coverage on homeless people are the numerous congregations contributing in meaningful ways to assist other humans.)

A radical solution to ending encampments would involve addressing root causes, which –interestingly enough– is the etymological predecessor to the term radical. Our end stage flavor of capitalism has (and is) rejecting the need for commonwealth solutions in favor of an empathy-free, self centered individualism.

And let’s face it folks, there is no possible local solution to the privileges of the wealthy trumping the needs of the populace. The middle class is shrinking, and those still classified by that term have shrunk from 61% of the population in 1971 to 50% today, according to the Pew Trust.

I suspect we’ll have to wait for the inevitable crash of the financial bubble when governments reach the point where they can no longer protect capital.  

There are plenty of flashing warning signs around, including:

• the recent collapse of banking institutions (although fewer in number, the total cost has already exceeded the 2008 recession), 

• to the collapse of the cryptocurrency scheme, only money launders will benefit.

• to the increasingly authoritarian strain of politics (a Dear Leader would be empowered to to measures considered outside the realm of democratic governance).

So, back to what’s on the table now. 

The liberal school of thought sees incremental solutions, especially if they can find the money to pay for it. Here’s just one example.

A measure authored by State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, formerly the mayor of Encinitas, is working its way through the legislature. It offers a path for penalizing local governments that fail to have space and services for their homeless populations.

Senate Bill 7 would require cities and counties to plan enough beds for everyone living without a place to call home, going beyond temporary shelter to include permanent housing placements. Local officials would have to include homeless housing in their already mandated regional housing needs allocation.

This sounds like a great idea until you see all the localities that have chosen to wave their middle fingers at Sacramento. Huntington Beach being sued by California is being heralded as an example of what can happen for flouting state state requirements. 

Balderdash! 

There are, as of last month, more than 240 other cities without a certified housing element. Coronado’s legal battles with the state have already bought them some time with the successful conclusion of a lawsuit concerning accessory dwelling units.

Coronado, by the way, has already bought into the enclaves concept for homeless humans who happen to show up there; its mayor (who is mostly ceremonial, and running for office with a right wing program) brags about shipping them over to San Diego via police cars.

The reactionary school of thought believes “otherizing” those left behind by modern day economics will lead to a consensus on eliminating them. (This doesn’t necessarily mean deaths; enclaves or forced servitude are other paths.)

KUSI is big on promoting otherism, giving what I see as a wannabe vigilante group airtime to categorize homeless humans as criminals living on the street because liberal politicians have emptied jails. In fact, it was voters that changed the incarnation landscape.  

• Mayor Todd Gloria, along with other elected Democrats, insist the out-of-control homeless crisis is simply a housing issue, as they blame high rents for the record-high homeless population.

• But Kirylo and the East Village Doers aren’t buying it. They engage with the homeless every single day, and have video proof of the homeless selling drugs, using drugs, going to the bathroom on the sidewalk, running around naked, and brandishing weapons in broad daylight.

• Kirylo told KUSI’s Lindsey Fukano that many of the homeless were released from our jails, and that is directly correlated with the increase of low-level criminals living on the streets. Kirylo added that pre-pandemic, there was about 5,900 inmates, and now there is 2,900

So homeless humans are dismissed as those too weak, too evil, too mentally ill, or too addicted to successfully get housed. 

The question KUSI fails to ask is “What are you proposing to do?”

The answer is: None of their solutions are viable. It’s all bluster, designed to stoke fear, and to associate themselves with the mean asshole wing of the Republican party.

I should also mention that reactionaries are against incremental solutions when it involves “their people.” County Supervisor Joel Anderson effectively killed a plan for 60 small cabins (with services & security) on a parcel in Santee, saying his constituents were not supportive. 

So if all else fails, local politicians fall back on Not In My Back Yard, the attitude that’s at least partially responsible for the situation we find ourselves in.

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Terrible Things Are Happening in Texas

If people want to move to places with low taxes it’s fine by me. Just remember that you get what you pay for. And in Texas, what taxpayers are paying for is the worst sort of performative (and hurtful) nonsense.

A mass shooting over the weekend in San Jacinto County, Texas left five people, including a nine-year-old boy, dead. The shooter, who remains on the lam as of this writing, was asked to stop firing his assault-style rifle so a baby could sleep. He responded by killing people in the household that complained.

It’s bad enough that yet another mass shooting happened, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott poured gasoline on the fire via a press release calling the victims “illegal aliens.” His office later apologized for not saying one of the dead was, in fact, a legal resident. I guess they thought it was okay to dehumanize the other victims.

Among those chastising the Governor was Chef and great humanitarian Jose Andres:

• @GregAbbott_TX nobody is illegal in heaven “dear” governor! Nobody! And in life at the most are just undocumented! You speak with hate about immigrants, and that rhetoric is what may have created this situation in the first place. Show some empathy…that’s what good leaders do

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In other news, Texas is leading the nation in book banning, aka the odious attempts to impose  narrow  religious doctrine on the general populace.

From Texas Monthly:

•  …no state’s schools have embraced the practice of declaring certain stories and perspectives forbidden to their young people the way that Texas’s have. According to a list compiled by the literature and human rights nonprofit PEN America, between July 1 of last year and June 30, Texas has seen 801 bannings.

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I’m not finished yet. In response to school shootings in Texas, the legislature is mandating annual training in 'battlefield trauma care' for students in the third grade and up. 

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Wait! There’s more!

The Texas Senate passed a bill last week requiring each public school classroom to display a copy of the Ten Commandments. Senate Bill 1515, authored by state Sen. Phil King, a Republican, requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom in a “size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”

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So, folks, a reminder:

• “Freedom” doesn’t ban books.

• “Freedom” doesn’t restrict health care.

• “Freedom” doesn’t impose one religion.

• “Freedom” doesn’t oppress minorities as scapegoats. 

• “Freedom” doesn’t stage coups against democratically elected governments. 

You’re thinking of “tyranny”.

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