On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that federal courts have blocked efforts by Sacramento and other cities to dismantle encampments of people who have lost their housing. There are several appalling aspects of the tweet—siding with cartoon villain Elon Musk, neglecting to mention that California cities are robbing people of their only shelter in the middle of a heat wave—but the most galling and dishonest part of the tweet is where Newsom claims that “housing and services are offered” to those whose shelters are razed and thrown away in encampment sweeps.
On Twitter, homelessness advocates are pointing out the most glaring problem with Newsom’s claim: The “housing and services” he’s referring to are often unacceptable. Sometimes, encampment residents are promised shelter that never actually materializes, or shelter that’s so short-term that they quickly find themselves back on the street again. Other times, a shelter bed is impossibly far away, or subject to curfews and check-in policies so restrictive that they interfere with residents’ efforts to find and keep jobs. Shelters may not allow people to bring their pets or belongings with them, or they may be rife with violence, insect infestations, or disease.
But for Newsom and other lawmakers, the lives and wellbeing of homeless people isn’t the issue. The only thing that matters is the comfort of more privileged Californians, and he’s blaming courts for his inability to discount the rights of vulnerable people for the benefit of the privileged.
All these issues came to a head in March 2021, when an encampment in Los Angeles’ Echo Park was cleared and roughly 200 residents were displaced. At the time, authorities touted the fact that they’d offered services and housing to everyone in the encampment, but a UCLA study found that only 17 people were in longterm housing a year later. The Guardian chronicled the devastating failures of the sweep:
[UCLA researchers’] analysis, co-authored by former park residents, concluded that although some displaced residents were eager to get indoors, the temporary shelters they initially landed in had strict regulations that stripped people of basic freedoms and caused many to leave or be kicked out. People who lasted in the temporary programs said they had been unable to transition to long-term housing as officials had promised, the researchers found. Ultimately, one year after the eviction, many were back on the streets, often living in worse conditions than they did before.
The Guardian interviewed Echo Park encampment residents who accepted housing offers, and although there are too many horror stories to quote here, the words of Gustavo Otzoy elegantly sum up the situation. Otzoy accepted an offer of housing only to be told later, in a ghoulish bait-and-switch, that there weren’t any actual spots available. “They wanted to get me out of the park, and I took their deal,” Otzoy said. “They lied to me, and it really devastated me.”
I witnessed some of these issues firsthand when I worked as a librarian in a neighborhood with a large homeless population. The library was well-stocked with shelter listings, but those shelters were always booked solid. Once, a man came in during a rainstorm, newly evicted from his apartment, and asked if I could help him find a shelter bed for the night. The closest available bed was 12 miles away, with no transportation provided. It was almost 8:00PM, giving him no time to figure out how to get there. I suppose, according to Newsom’s definition, that I had technically “offered” the guy shelter.
He opted to try his luck under a bridge down the street instead.
(featured image: Ekkasit Jokthong, Getty Images)
