Last week the San Diego City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee voted to forward a proposal aimed at the city’s homeless humans backed by Mayor Todd Gloria and Councilman Stephen Whitburn to the full council along with a list of unanswered questions.
My unanswered question would be ‘why is this item even under consideration?’
The ordinance supposedly prohibits camping on any public property, including sidewalks. Violations could be prosecuted as misdemeanors, if only the City Attorney decides it’s time to end the unspoken policy of not prosecuting people at the bottom of the totem pole for trying to exist.
Interestingly enough, the word “homeless” does not appear in the proposed ordinance. It’s technically only an amendment to an existing municipal code. It does, however, have a lot to say about camping.
Even if shelter spaces are full, camping would be prohibited in certain areas, including within two blocks of a school or a shelter, waterways, any transit hub or trolley platform, in Balboa Park, Mission Bay Park, Presidio Park and parks near beaches.
Sounds tough, eh? Check out the map below issued by Alliance San Diego:
(First image is Proposed Ban that would apply at all times, Two is proposed ban + areas already off limits, Three is full ban, if shelter is available.)
But if someone wants to put up a tent in those prohibited zones between 9 pm and 5:30 am, the ordinance promises no enforcement of the rule against public camping during those hours. Yeah, right. Go pitch a tent in La Jolla and see if the authorities up there can find their timepieces.
This time constraint is nothing more than a back door way of getting around various court orders recognizing that criminalizing actions by unhoused persons flies in the face of the ever-so-pesky Constitution.
Accompanying this proposed ordinance is talk of allocating land for a safe camping zone. The Mayor’s next year budget has a $5 million allocation ready to be used for such a venture.
Inspiration Point in Balboa Park has been suggested as one possible site, and the pearl clutching of park fans and institutions has reached epic proportions, as it will no matter where it might go. What other parts of the city will be declared as sacred locations by the anywhere but here crowd?
Despite happy talk about more shelter beds coming, the reality is that there are (and will be for the foreseeable future) more people on the streets than there are shelter beds available –even without taking things like disability access into account, which prevents people from using shelters.
Housing is touted as the ultimate best solution to this societal crisis except that it’s currently a losing battle. For every 10 people finding their way off the street 13 more are taking their place.
I look around where I live (University Heights and North Park) and wonder why all these new units opening up aren’t making space available down the economic ladder.
The answer may have something to do with unhoused people NOT living on the street who may have achieved enough economic stability to re-enter the ‘marketplace’. Families doubling and even tripling up mostly don’t get counted –maintaining a low profile keeps lease agreements intact.
Much of what we see and hear in the public square nibbles around the edges of the problem, which ultimately is decades of neglect for a social safety net and commodification of many things that used to be considered part of our obligation to the larger society.
Small entrepreneurs and families no longer drive the housing market; the rules of the game are now dictated by hedge funds and corporate entities. This reality somehow gets tossed out when the build, baby, build types get involved in housing issues. If you want a different reality in terms of affordable housing, the rules of the game must be changed.
The Union-Tribune’s special report from this past weekend on mental health issues in the community makes it clear that treatment for emotional and addiction illnesses simply isn’t available.
Currently the largest population with mental illnesses can be found languishing in San Diego County jails. And even if non jail facilities were available, a shortage of people with the skills and training needed to staff them would make them impossible to operate.
Local elected officials are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the unhoused population. On one side there are forces wanting to simply make “them” go away. They don’t say it that way, but it’s what they mean.
On the other side are people who recognize the humanity of people without a home. For them the problem is simply a lack of will or political backbone for politicians to address the galaxy of issues raised by people living outside the norm.
At times it seems as if they're saying every person dumped on the street by (maxed out) emergency rooms needs an elected official nearby to come to their rescue. (I get it. It sucks. But they’re only set up to handle so many patients. Having spent the night alongside the ER aisles, I can say it’s a lose-lose situation.)
Both sides want action now. Announcing (unattainable) plans –whether it's El Cajon’s Bill Wells or San Diego’s Todd Gloria –is a matter of job security. The passions of either side can be fodder for the kinds of attacks that sway elections.
And there is a third force that goes unrecognized, namely the homeless industrial complex. There are good people/institutions doing admirable things to be found within. And there are people/institutions who exist to make sure the status quo remains.
If homelessness disappeared tomorrow, what would these people do? Some might move on to other public endeavors and others would be out of a job. Everybody needs to understand, for instance, the connection between law enforcement budgets and people living on the street. If the latter ceases to exist, would the former shrink?
Police departments and their appendages have emerged as a disciplined and powerful force in politics, and any politician who fails to meet their expectations can expect a fear-based campaign against them. Sometimes angry looking Black men are villains; sometimes it’s George Soros.
What would the SD County Sheriff's Department do if the 40% of people currently incarcerated who are mentally ill suddenly had healing places to go? Would jails close? Would we need as many first responders on the street?
The issue of disappearing people on the streets is tied up with all kinds of emotional and economic fears; on a fundamental level there is disgust. Those people are diseased criminals who threaten everything from children to property values. There is also the often unsaid notion saying they didn’t try hard enough to make a life for themselves.
On a national scale, House Republicans are proposing to make things worse as Speaker McCarthy told Wall Street today. They’re aiming to take a vote by month’s end calling for lifting the debt ceiling and charging the cost to America’s economically ailing citizens.
Want Medicare? You’ll have to roll down the street in your wheelchair and start hunting for a job. Need food assistance? Sorry, that budget’s been cut. Did you think you or a loved one might get student debt relief? Think again, and Republicans are ready to dash those hopes. And it goes on…and on…and on.
Homelessness is not a singular issue. It’s tied to a host of challenges facing society. And solving these issues comes down to more than funding. Moral leadership needs to accompany budget proposals.
We have a serious imbalance between ‘me’ and ‘we’ in the present. It doesn’t help matters when “me,me,me” is considered acceptable behavior to the point that leaders of all stripes think it must be part of their public persona.
Neither priority can stand by itself. Each promises utopia that, when taken to its logical conclusion, ends up being anti-democratic and oppressive.
There are basic minimums we should expect from government; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were three mentioned by our founders. In this day and age, unconditional basic survival shouldn’t even be an issue. Those advocating for less need to be called out as moral outliers. This isn’t a matter of religion; it’s a matter of understanding that we stand together or not at all.
An ‘ideas’ essay at Time magazine by Harvard’ Richard Weissbourd and US Senator Chris Murphy gets to the fundamentals of the divides facing society.
It no longer feels like America can hold together when we all exist in silos, with little concern for collective health. Our country’s survival may rest on our ability to restore the prior balance between individualism and the common good. As a social scientist who has long studied Americans’ retreat into ourselves and as a U.S. Senator raising children amidst this new national reality, we believe the question of how we restore in Americans a stronger sense of responsibility for others and their communities is one of the central cultural and civic concerns of the moment.
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Some More News to Round Out This Post
Abortion Attitudes in a Post-Roe World: Findings From the 50-State 2022 American Values Atlas Via the Public Religion Research Institute
Just under two-thirds of Americans (64%) say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while roughly one-third (34%) say it should be illegal in most or all cases. More granularly, 30% say abortion should be legal in all cases, 34% say it should be legal in most cases, 25% say it should be illegal in most cases, and just 9% say it should be illegal in all cases.
The share of Americans who say abortion should be legal in most or all cases has continued to increase since PRRI began tracking abortion legality in 2010, when it was at 55%. The share of those who say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases has shrunk (from 42% in 2010 to 34% now), with the proportion who say abortion should be illegal in all cases seeing the largest decline (from 15% in 2010 to 9% now).
Don’t Settle, Dominion! Drag Fox News Across the Hot Coals Via The New Republic
That’s not the end. It’s a beginning. Because from that moment, we will be able to say, with a certainty we can’t quite claim now, that Fox News lies.
NRCC launches anti-Bud Light campaign, yanks it when someone realizes Anheuser-Busch is major donor Via Daily Kos . All the manly MAGAts have declared war because of one social media post including a trans person. Then…ooops!
A Firehose of Insanity and The Republican Cycle of Radicalization Via Teri Kanefield All the sh*t in one place. Please have a barf bag ready.
Ralph Yarl: Black Teen Shot in the Head by White Homeowner After Knocking on Wrong Door to Pick Up His Younger Siblings Via International Business Times
Yarl pulled up the driveway and rang the doorbell. "The man in the home opened the door, looked my nephew in the eye, and shot him in the head," his aunt, Faith Spoonmore, wrote. "My nephew fell to the ground, and the man shot him again."
Still conscious, Yarl ran for help, but Spoonmore alleged that he "had to run to 3 different homes" before someone came to his aid, and then only after ordering the 16-year-old to lie on the ground with his hands up. He was hospitalized, but "has a long road ahead mentally and emotionally," the fundraiser page reads.
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Seems to me that there is something that is constantly overlooked in any discussion about unhoused people. The emphasis is on the of being homeless. I think the emphasis must be on the fact that they are human beings, people with the exact same needs as any other person.
As for camping... I think every single church, mosque, and synagogue ought to allow people to camp on their property.
About the expression "clutching pearls," I object to it. It is misogynistic as it is only women who back in the past clutched their pearls. I wish people would stop using it.