Inside Homelessness
Forward Steps
The homelessness crisis continues to grow. My office receives more calls, emails and online posts about this issue than any other.
The growing population of people living unsheltered on our streets, parks and open spaces brings human suffering to our doorsteps and represents a failure of government to provide safe and sanitary shelter and meaningful treatment programs for addiction and mental illness.
Getting Worse
The federally mandated headcount of homeless individuals in Sacramento County was last conducted in 2019. It revealed more than 5,500 people experienced homelessness on a given night. This year’s count was canceled by the pandemic.
While the 2019 survey showed an increase of nearly 20 percent from 2017, residents don’t need an official report to know homelessness continues to grow.
Treatment First
The Gavin Newsom recall began as a referendum on the governor’s handling of the pandemic. But homelessness has become a critical issue for Republican candidates eager to replace Newsom in this month’s special election.
Businessman John Cox has been hauling an 8-foot ball of garbage around California to symbolize “the trash that’s left behind” by homeless people.
No Way L.A.
After a decade of looking for encouraging news about Sacramento’s homeless crisis, I’ve found some: Compared to downtown Los Angeles, Sacramento has no homeless crisis.
I visit downtown L.A. every couple of months and have watched its vibrancy sink into an abyss of misery, poverty, crime and wasted lives. Tents, doorway sleepers and garbage are everywhere. Recovery will take years. If L.A.’s anguish makes Sacramento look hopeful, it also carries a warning. As Mayor Darrell Steinberg says, “Los Angeles is a cautionary tale.”
Before the pandemic, about 4,600 homeless people lived in L.A.’s dystopian wasteland east of Main Street between Third and Seventh streets. The slum covers 50 blocks and almost 3 square miles. Welcome to Skid Row.
Treatment First
The homeless crisis has defied all solutions advanced by local and state politicians. In Sacramento, strategies to end the crisis have only made the problem worse, with increased numbers of people living on our streets.
The challenges are complex and seemingly endless. Homeless people struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Many suffer from mental illness and physical health issues. Some engage in criminal behavior. Few are prepared for employment opportunities.
Wrong Way
Like a truck speeding downhill with imbalanced brakes, the plan by Mayor Darrell Steinberg to cure homelessness by giving a roof to every unsheltered person is poised to jackknife and skid out of control. The rubber is already starting to burn.
The Steinberg plan, revealed in January, rests on three cornerstones. First, the proposal requires all eight City Council districts to identify and prepare shelter sites for homeless people. This expectation spreads the pain and creates a veneer of egalitarian sacrifice.
Second, the proposal is designed to limit neighborhood objection. Sure, City Hall is conducting outreach. But Steinberg envisions one decisive City Council vote in June to launch his $100 million housing balloon. It’s all or nothing.
Share The Pain
Darrell Steinberg is a smart, sophisticated guy. He has a law degree from UC Davis and decades of legislative experience. Sacramento voters figured they were getting a pro when they elected him mayor in 2016. He won a second term without serious opposition last year.
So it’s a mystery why Steinberg has been unable to muster nothing beyond the most elementary, simplistic response to the deepest challenge of his mayoral tenure—the homeless crisis.
Bad To Worse
An October column in The New York Times called attention to California’s “epidemic of homelessness that seems to defy all attempts to fix it.”
Clicking on a link in the text, readers were directed to a Los Angeles Times article headlined: “This was supposed to be the year for California’s homeless. Instead it’s a slow train wreck.”
All true, but don’t expect the dire observations to discourage Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who has invested more political capital on this issue than most California mayors.
Camped Out
The counter-intuitive correlation between money and homelessness continues to confuse Mayor Darrell Steinberg and city leaders. The correlation goes like this: The city raises money to house homeless people, yet the number of people living on the streets grows larger. More money equals more homelessness.
Steinberg recently said Sacramento would receive about $28 million in state funds to combat homelessness. The dollars would become part of a $62 million campaign to convert old motels, manufactured homes and other sites into supportive units for unsheltered people.
Off The Streets
Salvador Bradford takes pride in keeping his studio apartment tidy. His converted hotel room has around 250 square feet for a bathroom, stove and mini-fridge.
There is space for the trappings of a home: a shelf of Star Wars and Star Trek DVDs, and a small shrine to Jesus Christ, to whom Bradford credits his past five years of sobriety.