The Rising Homeless-a-Phobia

 

"I have no doubt the private sector is ready to step up, but that will not happen until there is confidence investments won't be tossed on the bonfire of wasted and ineffective spending that's characterized our city's homelessness strategy to date." 

Richard Caruso, former LA Mayoral candidate and major developer on an Instagram post, after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced (April 15th) she is looking for donations from business leaders and philanthropic organizations to buy buildings for the unhoused.

I live in Los Angeles, where homelessness is a horrific public policy failure. Sure, there are criminals and drug addicts in the mess, but given our warm weather combined with a profound dearth of affordable housing, homelessness is not only growing but embracing employed people who just cannot find a place to live. For those incumbent residents whose streets have evolved into homeless encampments – replete with garbage, urine and defecation raging – or endless lines of decrepit trailers parked on city streets, they have a legitimate beef with local law enforcement and governmental social services officials on why their neighborhoods are effectively providing these fetid “homes” where crime is absolutely on the rise… and government is not protecting legitimate renters and homeowners.

And yes, there are occasional “clean-ups” by governmental officials, but the results can be life changing and catastrophic. “For homeless people, the only place to store their belongings is on the ground or inside a tent. When city workers clean up a sidewalk and take those belongings and destroy them, the effect is devastating. People have lost their tents, clean clothes, personal records, IDs, medications and more, according to a lawsuit accusing the city of Los Angeles of illegal seizure and destruction of property.

“Janet Garcia, one of the eight plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles along with pro-bono counsel, who works as a house cleaner, lost her cleaning supplies when L.A. Sanitation workers seized and destroyed her belongings while she stepped away briefly to go to the bathroom and get ready for work, the lawsuit says. The seizure, one of several, made it difficult for her to keep working.” Los Angeles Times, April 22nd. But what’s the answer? LA Mayor Karen Bass’ asking wealthy Angelenos to pony up? The above quote tells you how that went over. Arresting the homeless as trespassers? But the federal 9th Circuit ruled in 2018 that arresting homeless people just for sleeping in public parks, people with nowhere else to go, was “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Well conflicted fans, the 9th Circuit ruling is being challenged before the US Supreme Court in Grants Pass, Oregon vs Johnson, the most important dispute over homelessness to come before the high court. The question is whether the Constitution protects the rights of homeless people who camp on sidewalks or in parks. In questioning before the Court on April 23rd, the Court seemed reluctant to grant either side a blank check. But municipalities argued that they need some meaningful regulatory power to protect existing citizens’ and governmental property. Writing for the April 23rd Los Angeles Times, David Savage writes:

“The court’s three liberals said they were wary of giving cities a broad and unchecked power to use arrests and fines to punish homeless people who are sleeping outside… ‘Sleeping is a biological necessity,’ Justice Elena Kagan said. It ‘seems like you are criminalizing the status of homelessness,’ she told a lawyer representing the city of Grants Pass, Ore.

“But conservatives, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., said they were skeptical of treating homelessness as a status that deserves constitutional protection… People can be homeless for one week and find shelter the next week. ‘You can move into and out of that status,’ he said… He also questioned why judges or the justices, rather than city officials, should decide how to cope with the problem of homelessness… ‘Why would you think these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?’ he asked one attorney...

“Los Angeles-based attorney Theane Evangelis, representing the Oregon city, said the problem of homelessness has been made worse in the West because of U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rulings that found it was unconstitutional for cities to impose fines or other punishments on homeless people who sleep outdoors. No other federal appellate court in the nation has followed suit… She began by urging the justices to ‘end the 9th Circuit’s failed experiment.’ She said cities should have the flexibility to enforce ordinances that limit where people can sleep and camp.

“It was unclear that there was a solid majority to overturn the 9th Circuit entirely; some justices appeared to favor a middle-ground approach… That would allow cities to regulate where people can sleep outside, but it would not prohibit camping or sleeping throughout the city… Deputy U.S. Solicitor Gen. Edwin Kneedler urged the court to adopt that approach. Although cities should not make it a crime for homeless people to sleep outdoors, cities should have ‘flexibility to enforce’ reasonable restrictions on where homeless people can sleep, he said.

“Many cities in California, including Los Angeles, generally follow that approach. Gov. Gavin Newsom has also advocated ‘reasonable limits on public camping.’… Justices Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett may hold the deciding votes. Both questioned laws that would punish homeless people for sleeping outdoors.” Prison may not be the answer, but the Supreme Court is hardly a legislative body that is the appropriate forum to solve the homelessness problem. Yet it is shameful that in California cities where housing for the rich is now exceeding $100 million, we have a third world problem for which no one has proposed an overall solution. Jail cannot be a vile bed and breakfast for the homeless, and fear of the homeless needs to yield to finding a viable solution. Where exactly can homeless people sleep and live?

How bad is this rising negativity? Try this on for size: “Here in Arizona, a novel response has emerged, one that has alarmed homeless rights advocates and mayors but that could win favor among a public that has grown weary, and in some cases angry, with public encampments. Voters will decide this November on a ballot initiative to award property owners tax refunds if they can prove monetary damages resulting from their local government’s failure to enforce nuisance laws…The initiative’s authors see it as a potential model for other states. That’s what its opponents fear.” Los Angeles Times, April 24th. Think about it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I suspect the court will not accept the 9th Circuit ruling but won’t give cities a floating right to arrest the homeless for trespassing, and since the Court cannot vote in new legislative allocations to fund the solution, the problem would seem to fall right back in the lap of hapless cities and towns.