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| Las Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, etc… |
I’m sure we’ve all seen pix of the homeless in Californian cities. By all accounts they have got worse in recent years. And by all the accounts I’ve seen, they result, at least in large part, from well-meaning but failed policies, first of Republican and then of Democratic governments.
Going way back there was governor Reagan and the push to release people from institutions. Lots of folks with mental health problems were released to fend for themselves. Even today, nearly eight in ten of the people on the streets suffer poor mental health. Many of those are also drug addicted, some seven in ten according to this Quillette article.
There was a time when Republican mayors followed so-called “Broken Window” policing, which dramatically reduced crime including among the homeless. Then that was reversed by human rights lobbies, and we have the situation that Amy sets out in sad detail here. She also proposes solutions, based on policies that have worked earlier or elsewhere.
What I’ve learned from reading around this subject over the years is that the problem of “homelessness” is not so much that there aren’t enough homes. The street sleepers often refuse perfectly good accommodation. The problem is more that they have these serious issues, mainly drug addition and mental health problems. Implementing the solutions Amy proposes needs the municipal and state governments to admits that their progressive ones have failed. Breath holding, anyone?
And also that lax law enforcement — mandated not b the police but by the mayors —-is allowing homeless people to sleep and live anywhere, with no recourse to the police. This is down to progressive mayors. Well-meaning, perhaps, but with hugely bad unintended consequences. (There are some that don’t think they are well meaning, but rather have a Marxist agenda. That’s a story for another day).
Meantime, people are leaving California in droves. Including Joe Rogan, who’s not really a conservative. So many are leaving that the Governor Newsome wants to punish them for having the gall.
