San Diego Moving Forward With Solution to Homeless Problem
by John Lawrence
The San Diego Union reported:
"The San Diego City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday [June 13, 2023] to adopt a controversial policy to ban homeless encampments on public property after hearing hours of public testimony.
"The ordinance was supported by Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, who proposed it, and Councilmembers Marni von Wilpert, Jennifer Campbell, Raul Campillo and Joe LaCava.
"Mayor Todd Gloria also supported what they referred to as an unsafe camping ordinance, with he and Whitburn saying it would address a public safety issue while also helping to get homeless people off the street and into a shelter and connected to services."
In approximate tandem with this ordinance is the City's plan to provide safe sleeping and camping areas and also to buy 3 motels and convert them to housing for the homeless. Father Joe also plans to build a high rise with additional rooms. The problem is that these additional housing units and camping areas are not ready yet. So this ordinance and the plan to provide additional shelter units will have to be somewhat compromised until the additional units are available. The opposition to the ordinance seemed to be based mainly on the fact that the additional units are not immediately available. The larger question is do the homeless have an unconditional right to live on public sidewalks which trumps the rights of downtown residents and business owners who also would like to use those sidewalks in a clean and safe manner. The answer in my mind is no they do not have an unconditional right to use the sidewalks as living areas. If I went downtown and set up a stand selling something, anything, I would be arrested if I did not have a license. However, homeless advocates would argue that the homeless have an unlimited right to sleep wherever they please on public sidewalks.
Finally, I think the Mayor and the City Council are taking a serious approach to this problem after farting around for decades. It amounts to government admitting that people have a right to housing - public housing or social housing, whatever you want to call it - something that American governments at all levels have never before been willing to concede. Once the units the City has promised come online, they need to expand that program since the proposed units are unlikely to be a once and for all solution. As rents are continuing to increase, the City has to be in the business of providing the SROs that the free market used to provide and now doesn't. Getting people off the streets and into housing or safe camping and parking areas with proper sanitation and other services accomplishes not only more humane conditions for the homeless. It prevents San Diego from becoming a tourist desert. Also residents and businesses will be moving out if the streets cannot be returned to their safe and proper usages. People living and running businesses downtown should have rights too. This argument that the new City ordinance is criminalizing homelessness is entirely bogus. If shelter beds or other accommodations are available, the homeless should be forced to take advantage of them IMHO. On the other hand,to the extent that these resources are not available, they should be cut some slack. That does not mean an unlimited right to park their tents wherever they please.
I noted the story of the parent pushing a stroller who was almost run over by a car because they could not use the blocked public sidewalk. I had a similar experience on Commercial street when my car was almost run over by the San Diego Trolley. The fact that the City will be providing SRO type rooms and other accommodations for the homeless as well as social services does not mean that that will be permanent housing for the contemporary homeless. The social workers will be attempting to reintegrate if possible currently homeless persons and families back into normal society. That means that they will be trying to find them jobs and get them living accommodations that they can pay for in the mainstream of society. Problem is that rents are so expensive that it will be impossible for many people, even if they have a job, to provide housing for themselves especially in San Diego where housing prices and rents are continuing their upward cost progression. That's why the next step for the City should be to do something about affordable housing. This means that the City needs to counteract the free market with respect to housing so that people who are reintegrated into society can at least function within the parameters of that society. The free market tendency for rents to keep on rising needs to be counteracted by the public sector. The free market will continue to make housing unaffordable which will result in more people becoming homeless. What is happening is that hedge funds are buying up housing units, rehabilitating them to some extent and turning them into rental units if they aren't rental units already thus driving up rents. People who in prior years could afford to buy a home now can't in the current environment. This process is turning more and more would be home owners into renters and renters who are devoting more and more of their income to paying rent.
The only way children of long time San Diego residents can buy homes today is if the parents can convert some of the equity in their homes to a down payment on the child's home so that they end up with a mortgage they can afford which is something I was able to do. I bought into the San Diego real estate market exactly 50 years ago for a house that I paid 3% of the market value of that same house today! There are companies that will make a home equity investment in your house which means that they will loan you money that you can use as a down payment on a child's house if that's the way you decide to use that money. There are no monthly payments. When the contract period - which can be as long as 30 years - is up, the house must be sold or the contract settled in some other way and the home equity investment must be repaid in proportion to the equity increase in value over that time period. Since I will probably not be here in 30 years, my heir, who can also inherit the contract, will sell the property and have to split the profits with the home investment company. Meanwhile, the property she bought with the down payment they provided and with a mortgage she can afford is increasing in equity. It's a pretty good solution, but only available to people who bought into the San Diego market when prices were cheap. The Home Equity Investment is like a reverse mortgage, but there is no age restriction and it can be used in conjunction with a rental property.
