☆ Smith and Wolf: “We've blurred the line between helping and enabling” (4/4)
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Two local leaders (from SJ/SF) for smarter, data-supported homelessness solutions discuss the importance of CARE Court and Permanent Supportive Housing's behavioral codes in this final Opp Now exclusive installment.
Opportunity Now: What are your thoughts on CARE Court—how effective it might be in terms of compliance and accountability for our struggling neighbors?
Irene Smith: As an officer of the court for Santa Clara County, I'm concerned that we largely aren't focusing on the core issues for homelessness. But I'm hopeful for CARE Court.
For individuals who are incapable of caring for themselves and making day-to-day decisions for their life (like getting dressed, getting fed, basic self care), it mandates that they get the court-ordered treatment they need, including stabilization, medication, wellness and recovery supports, and connection to social services and housing. It's simply cruel and uncaring for our society to allow these people to wander—untreated and at great risk to themselves—along our creeksides and public spaces.
Tom Wolf: I support CARE Court (just as I voted “yes” on Prop 1) as a model, as a concept. Because we're severely lacking substance abuse treatment across California. My concern is the lack of infrastructure.
I say this as a moderate Democrat: California has so many politicians who are focused on progressive values and moving forward with good ideas. But they're not focused on the implementation or the infrastructure to support them. So the ideas crash and burn.
IS: It sounds like they're not looking at the whole, total consequences of their plans. Certainly not offering us an end-to-end solution.
TW: That's correct. And I'll share this data with you both. This is just a correlation; I'm not going to make the argument about causation.
Between 2014 and 2023, with the passage of not only Proposition 47 but also AB 109 and SB 57, California's prison population decreased by about 70,000. In that same time period, homelessness increased in California by almost 70,000. I'm not suggesting that everybody that got out of prison ended up homeless. But I'm suggesting it contributed to the increase in homelessness—because, again, we didn't provide the proper infrastructure for folks coming out.
This is despite really well-intentioned efforts by local reentry groups, adult probation, and other probation departments across the State.
ON: What could better “infrastructure” look like for homeless individuals recovering from substance use addiction?
TW: Drug courts could focus less on assisted or intensive outpatient treatment. Imagine a homeless person going to drug court, being put in outpatient treatment and given a prescription for Suboxone, and then released back to the street and expected to stay clean. If you put someone who completed a 90-day Medi-Cal treatment program into an SRO [single-room occupancy] in San Francisco, the relapse rate right now is about 90% for those individuals.
They should focus more on residential treatment. In SF, we have open beds paid for by the Dept of Public Health, and more that are privately funded that are free through the Salvation Army. And San Francisco's new mayor has promised to put up 1,500 shelter beds within six months.
IS: Better infrastructure also means finding an end-to-end solution for homeless sweeps, realizing that a complex, integrated problem also needs a multifaceted solution. Right now, what we're seeing when we don't allow people at the creeks is that they're moving into the neighborhoods downtown. I'm getting constant calls from residents of, “I've got this person on my porch. I've got this person doing harm to my property.”
ON: So how does this idea of fleshed-out supports apply to Permanent Supportive Housing?
TW: We should establish and fund recovery-based PSH, like what the Bay Area Council introduced last year in Assembly Bill 2893—making some of these services compulsory as a condition of individuals' lease agreement.
Also, did you know that in the PSH space in California, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon, they don't report drug overdose deaths as “negative outcomes”? They report them just as deaths. They're unhelpfully obfuscating the data on PSH this way.
IS: A lot is said about the need for a code of conduct for PSH. But some have them and simply don't enforce them. I've observed this with the PSH down here firsthand.
Here's why: when they do enforce a rule and give three warnings beforehand, those warnings get published in, say, SJ Spotlight and get painted as “egregious rules,” and that “these people don't feel comfortable in their living space.” So there's definitely external pressure for PSH management to be lenient on conduct.
TW: Behavioral codes are so important. Look at Denver. In 2022, their new mayor embraced Housing First models and started doing Homekey-style housing. Homelessness went from 5,000 in 2022 to 8,000 at the end of last year (40% increase).
And their big hotel they converted into barrier-free housing had over 600 calls to 911 last year for crimes, overdoses, assaults, etc. And the City of Denver spent over $400 million for these “solutions.”
IS: Homeless folks in our communities are asking for help, and all we're doing is enabling. We're not helping.
TW: We've certainly blurred the line between helping and enabling. Yet every human being is capable of recovery—I'm living proof of that. You have to want it, but you also need to be given the right set of tools to accomplish it.
Tom Wolf, formerly homeless and in recovery from heroin and fentanyl addiction, is an outspoken advocate—and sometimes critic—about California's policies that have impacted homelessness. He also co-founded the California Peace Coalition and founded the Recovery Education Coalition.
Irene Smith—D3 Council candidate and head of Independent Leadership Group—has lived in downtown San Jose for 35 years and observed the worsening homelessness crisis since 2016. She is also a pro tem judge for Santa Clara County and has been a housing provider for 35 years.
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