Tough Talk, Bad Policy
With his new executive order, California Governor Gavin Newsom shows he's concerned more about looking like a leader on homelessness than actually being one.
“Get the hell out of here. I don’t care if you have nowhere else to go.”
That is, essentially, the new message from Governor Gavin Newsom to tens of thousands of unsheltered homeless people in the State of California. After several years of strong leadership on homelessness, Newson pivoted sharply last week, issuing an executive order to dismantle tent encampments without providing any indoor alternatives.
Make no mistake: Newsom’s new policy is bad, and will make homelessness worse. It will push homeless people from block to block or city to city, costing taxpayers a fortune while bringing no one inside. It will disconnect homeless people from services, and subject them to fines and arrests that will become barriers to housing and long-term stability. The proven, successful and cost-effective way to address the homelessness crisis is to provide housing and services. The governor knows that, which makes his executive order so troubling and disappointing.
By itself, Newsom’s encampment policy is harmful, expensive and counter-productive. That he would push such a strategy after several years of providing state funds for Project Homekey and other successful programs is deeply disturbing. Equally disturbing is the way he framed his decision and talked about his executive order.
The flowery preamble to Newsom’s executive directive spoke of humane solutions and offers of shelter and services. But the order itself (pg 3) required no such action, and committed not a single additional penny of resources. In fact, it called for aggressive displacement of encampments. This comes just as the state budget is cutting expenditures for homelessness and affordable housing.
The governor claimed a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision finally freed public officials to act with urgency about encampments, unencumbered by prior legal rulings. That’s false. Cities already had the ability to clear encampments – as long as they offered people shelter or housing. The only thing the court’s Grants Pass decision did was free cities from the obligation to offer shelter. They can now fine or jail homeless people without offering a single shelter bed. Officials in many cities will surely interpret Newsom’s statements as encouragement – or even a mandate – to do just that. (San Francisco Mayor London Breed seems to be rushing to be the first, and most draconian.)
The tone of Newsom’s statements was jarring. He was full of swagger and theatrical outrage, speaking of his frustration with local officials, declaring they have “no more excuses” and must act to dismantle encampments. He made it sound like public officials were to blame for homeless encampments because they refused to displace people, not because they failed to house people.
In announcing his order, Newsom performed the rhetorical jiu-jitsu of most architects of criminalization, trying to stake a moral high ground. He argued that it is inhumane to have people living in tent encampments. That’s absolutely correct. But it is even more inhumane to seize people’s tents, offer no alternative and leave them exposed to the elements and at risk of arrest. Let’s be clear: critics of Newsom’s new policy are not insisting on leaving people in tent encampments, as the pro-criminalization crowd suggests; we’re insisting on providing housing.
Newsom’s policy directive sides firmly with those who claim people are homeless by choice, and need tough love to be forced into housing. It is a popular narrative, and it is false. When offered a safe, secure and dignified indoor option, most homeless people eagerly accept it. And the state and its cities have nowhere near enough beds to accommodate everyone who wants one. Rather than acknowledge that reality, Newsom gave energy and support to those who blame people for their own homelessness.
Newsom’s statements were troubling – and very revealing. He said the state’s most urgent priority was the “issue of encampments” – not the wrenching crisis of homelessness, not the fact that more than 181,000 people in his state are unhoused, not that six people are dying on the streets every day in Los Angeles County alone. In a 70-second video posted to his social media, he spoke of cleaning up encampments five times, but did not utter the words “housing,” or “shelter” or “homelessness” once.
Newsom has now made it abundantly clear that he is not focusing on reducing homelessness; he is focusing instead on just making it less visible. Like so many other public officials who promote sweeps, his goal is not to solve the problem; it is to make it appear as if he is doing so. Ordering encampments sweeps is tough talk, but moving homeless people from block to block instead of indoors is a cynical political strategy, not an action plan.
Confronting the homelessness crisis demands real leaders. With his new executive order, Governor Newsom is showing us he'd rather sound like one than act like one. That means we all lose.
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