A Place to Be
by John Lawrence, January 22, 2020
One of the most pressing problems for the homeless population is that there are no places that they can just be without being threatened by the police to move on. They have to settle into little vestiges of public property under freeway bridges or on public sidewalks or little strips of public grass. They need a place they can relax without the threat of constantly having to "move on." That's why the movement to turn parking lots into places where they can pitch a tent or sleep in a vehicle is a radical plan which is giving them some security from the police and illegitimacy of place. Vox reports:
The housing affordability crisis — most acute in the Bay Area, but stretching up and down the West Coast — has helped exacerbate a homelessness crisis in states like California, Oregon, and Washington. Many people who are no longer able to afford or find stable housing are now forced to spend their nights sleeping in the one major asset they have left: their cars.
California has about a quarter of the country’s homeless population, with almost 130,000 people experiencing homelessness, according to estimates from one night in January (known as a “point in time” count) from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The state’s neighbor Washington has just over 22,000 people experiencing homelessness, and Oregon has almost 14,500. Nearly half of all unsheltered people are in California, according to HUD statistics from 2018. In Los Angeles County alone, there are some 16,500 people living in vehicles. (Note that New York State has about 92,000 people experiencing homelessness, which is 17 percent of the national total).
“These folks by and large have not made any choice to experience homelessness,” said Cassie Roach, the program coordinator and senior case manager at New Beginnings Counseling Center in Santa Barbara. “They haven’t chosen to do drugs or make poor financial choices, and they’re not all alcoholics or any of those biased and ignorant assumptions people make. It tends to be folks that are dealt a really difficult hand; they’re making the best of a bad situation.”
In Los Angeles County, for example, 71 percent of people who are first experiencing homelessness cite economic reasons, according to Gary Dean Painter, the director of the Homelessness Policy Research Institute and a professor at the University of Southern California. About a third of people in the county pay half their income in rent, making them vulnerable to losing their homes when they have a negative shock to their finances. “I point a finger at the economy and housing market,” Painter said.
People who live in their cars are more likely to have been recently living in permanent housing and have some kind of income, making them a unique population that may not require or be able to use the same types of services other people experiencing homelessness do.
“This is a population we should think strategically about,” Painter said. “They’re not a high cost population to serve, they don’t have an accumulation of challenges, [but] they’re experiencing something they’ve never experienced before in their lives, they likely don’t know any of the services available to them.”
Asset prices like real estate and the stock market have soared in price due to the Federal Reserve's policy of low interest rates and quantitative easing. This means that money, which is available only to the rich, is flooding into the markets. That money is used to by stocks and to bid up the price of houses and apartments. The result is that rents have become unaffordable for the average person. It takes two pretty hefty incomes in order to be housed in any kind of housing these days especially in California.
Jewish Family Services is sponsoring a Safe Parking Program in San Diego. This is from their website:
Every night, JFS operates a Safe Parking Program for unsheltered San Diegans living out of their vehicles, many of whom are experiencing homelessness for the first time. As these individuals and families work to lift themselves up out of a difficult situation, many are making a nightly choice between buying food or purchasing gas to get to work and school. Creating further barriers to stability are the isolation and lack of social support that so often accompany homelessness.
The Safe Parking Program provides a welcoming environment, meaningful resources and tools, and dignified support to help families stabilize and transition back into permanent housing. With holistic services focused on basic needs assistance, employment, family wellness, school success, financial education, credit repair, and housing, our goal is to create a pathway out of homelessness while being a support to people where they are now.
The program operates seven nights per week at three secured lots on Balboa Avenue, Aero Drive, and Mission Village Drive.
While government dithers, religious institutions are stepping up to the challenge. Government response to homelessness is to fund a study to see what to do about it. When I was a duly elected member of the CCAC (Center City Advisory Commission), the City of San Diego paid somebody $100,000. to study the homeless problem and come up with a report. That was 20 years ago. They've been writing reports periodically ever since. They refuse to come up with practical solutions like I've suggested many times. My solution would be a glorified Safe Parking Program which would be basically a campground cum parking lot with amenities. That way tents could be pitched as well as cars parked. Of course sanitation facilities would be provided.
I wrote previously:
Why is it so difficult to come to the same conclusion about homeless camping in America? They wouldn't have to sleep on public sidewalks in LA, San Diego or San Francisco if they had designated areas (parks) where they could rest in peace and security and with sanitation facilities. Part of the angst of the homeless is that they have no place to be, let alone call home, that is legally sanctioned and where they are not subject to being told to move by police and where they can rest assured that their belongings won't be put in a truck and hauled away to the city dump.
Government officials don't want to create a permanent underclass of homeless people. I've got news for them. That has already been created. The question now is what to do about it. Until public or subsidized housing becomes a reality, providing safe parking lots and campgrounds is the best way to go at the cheapest price for society in general. It's a solution that can be implemented immediately.
