There Will Be No Camping in Gloriaville

Angry Mob Says Do Something. Or Else!

Tomorrow, ( June 13 if you’re reading on the day I publish) the City Council will consider Mayor Todd Gloria’s “ban on camping” ordinance. It’s been sold as a “Ban” when in fact no such thing will happen; the gap between legal places to stay and the number of people needing those places is large and there are no prospects for catching up.

If I were to “two sides” this ala CNN, I’d say on the one hand, city government is facing increasing pressure from enough angry citizens scared by what they’re seeing on the streets to feel the need to make a gesture toward moving homeless people away from many of their current abodes.

On the other hand, there are citizens who have taken up the cause of the unhoused and are seeking to replace the current and proposed policies of suppression with access to life affirming resources and a pathway to long term housing.

I’m hoping the sniping on social media between these factions makes somebody feel good, because I can’t figure out how people living along Commercial Street are having their spirits raised by people fighting over improbable solutions.  

The reality on San Diego’s streets is horrifying; the neglect and disdain for homeless humans is palpable.  There are homeless vigilantes who harass people discharged on the street by hospital emergency rooms already bulging at the seams. 

The overlap here is that most everybody at what will be a really long council meeting agrees philosophically on ultimately housing people without homes; getting to that point is another matter altogether.

Sadly, I have to say the returns are coming in on “build, baby, build” and the concept appears to be losing. Studio apartments starting at $3000 (@The Winslow, Park & El Cajon Blvds) aren’t going to fix anything.

There are more than two sides to this issue. I’m certain the Democratic council members don’t want to be seen as supporting the local version of the Republican Big Lie, namely that treatment (or jail) will make the visual blight of tents alongside streets go away. 

San Diego’s version of RepubliSpeak is the foundation for reactionaries’ campaign strategy in upcoming elections, a local variation on the “look how bad things are” commentary espoused by GOP national figures. Get “them” “treatment” is the rallying cry being boosted by El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, who has visions of taking out Rep. Sara Jacobs in 2024. 

Locally, the probable candidate theoretically benefiting the most from a doom and gloom framework in upcoming elections would be former Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who is now the favorite among the city’s monied classes. 

Word is that he’s running for Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s seat on the Board of Supervisors, displacing Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey as the GOP candidate. (Bailey’s largely ceremonial role would be easy to dismiss in a hard fought campaign, not to mention his flirtations with the increasingly strident Awaken Church.)

Via Michael Smolens at the Union-Tribune:

• A private poll has been circulating to gauge the viability of former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and current Coronado Mayor Richard Bailey, both Republicans, against Democratic Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer in the coastal District 3 election next year.

• That’s a surprising development about Faulconer, who has been the subject of speculation in running for his old job against his successor Todd Gloria next year — even though Faulconer has flatly rejected the notion of making another bid for mayor.

• Bailey’s a different story. He appears to have been positioning himself for a possible run for supervisor with his newly-minted “San Diego Comeback” website and has stressed the need for a regional approach to tackling problems during ubiquitous television interviews and social media posts.

There’s tons of irony at play here, since Mayor Faulconer’s dilly-dallying on homeless humans laid the groundwork for our present situation, and incumbent Supervisor Lawson-Remer’s initiatives have been the most realistic approaches toward getting more services to the people who need it.

My read on what the SD Council is likely to agree on is a largely symbolic gesture setting up a structure for moving the unhoused around the city as opposed to the current whack-a-mole approach. 

Angry voters– and, believe me, there are a lot –will get the message that something is being done and they’ll see the camping area proposed for a parking lot at the southern edge of Balboa Park as proof of concept. We wouldn't be having this conversation if there wasn’t a fear that this situation could mean a changing of the guard. 

The reality here is that 60% (or more) of people living on the street would not benefit from the divine detox envisioned by reactionaries; the biggest increase in the homeless population is attributable to seniors whose $1800 Social Security checks are simply not enough money to live on.

Homeless populations are going to continue to grow as the metrics for the State of California’s food insecure population clearly show in the wake of sunsetting COVID assistance funding.

From CalMatters:

• California food banks, which saw more families seeking help during the pandemic, are now serving more people every month as extra benefits started during the pandemic come to an end. That is reducing benefits to 5.3 million Californians — and prompting the statewide food banks association to warn of a “catastrophic hunger crisis” this year. 

• Instead of functioning as sources of emergency aid, food banks say they are becoming long-term supermarkets for Californians facing food insecurity. 

• Recipients of CalFresh, California’s version of the federal food stamp program, were given the maximum benefits available for their household size during the pandemic, or at least $95 more a month if they were already at the maximum. However, those emergency allotments ended March 26, meaning that for some single-person households, CalFresh benefits dropped from $281 to as little as $23 a month. 

Here’s the dirty little secret about homelessness: it’s the economy, stupid, as James Carville once said. Or maybe I should say induced inequality. Gains for the not-wealthy have been largely illusionary, while the ultra wealthy have parted ways with the rest of society, firm in their belief that they know what’s best for the rest of us.. 

We’ve been here before. A little more than a century ago there were large homeless encampments aka shanty towns throughout the US, nicknamed “Hoovervilles” after President Herbert Hoover, whose economic policies were blamed for worsening the Great Depression.

The beginnings of the social safety net (yes, WWII was a factor) brought on during the Franklin D Roosevelt administration led to millions of people ultimately climbing out of poverty.  

This is the same safety net, growth of unionization, and financial regulations that have systematically been undermined by the right over the past fifty years. The only realistic path out of the crisis of the economy for those without inherited wealth and/or a cushion leftover from the days prior to the ascendancy of the “market economy.”

Trickle down, the salve sold to suckers by reactionaries, doesn’t exist in a world where the economy dictates support for shareholders and CEOs at the expense of everything else. 

Our situation is akin to a large yacht, turning it around is no easy task. A good place to start is believing in a world where a sense of community takes precedence over worshiping golden idols.  

So what to do with the City Council? They should start by acknowledging the political trap they’ve been led into; the City of Poway with its TWO homeless humans (as counted in January) is passing a ban on homeless camping this week. That should be a BIG CLUE as to what won’t work beyond enhancing political futures.

The claim that housing first doesn’t work is bullcrap. It isn’t even being tried locally because there is little to no housing. It's a reactionary code for “lock ‘em up and throw away the key,” being peddled by politicians whose empathy has been drained by hate. 

The city absolutely lacks the financial ability to build or acquire enough housing to get people off the street along with supportive services. Same is true with the county. And the state. And probably even the federal government, which is currently without a functioning House of Representatives.

What will help in the interim (which may be a long time) is all-of-the-above solutions, plus a considerable amount of community involvement. The services and partial solutions available through government need to be supplemented by citizen involvement, and elected officials as public figures should be leading by example and setting up structures through which participation is possible.

Only One Mention of Trump…

The CNN chief messed up in many ways. Only one of them was fatal Via Margaret Sullivan at the Guardian:

• Perhaps the biggest cheeses at CNN have learned the right lessons: that you can’t “both sides” your way into ratings success. That there is no vast political middle just waiting to be entranced by performative neutrality. And, most of all, that good journalism has nothing to do with sucking up to would-be authoritarians but rather it demands brave truth-telling.

• There’s little evidence that these will be the takeaways from this debacle. But it sure would be pretty to think so.

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FBI investigates developer’s payments to Miami’s mayor as SEC digs into company’s finances Via the Miami Herald’s Jay Weaver. 

And get this– being under investigation is looking to be a new qualifier for GOP candidates for president. Miami’s Mayor is promising a big announcement this week, and it’s not about a plea deal. The dude was collecting $10K a month as a “consultant” to a developer.

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