“Housing First” homelessness model only a Band-Aid fix

SJ’s favored woke approach to homelessness—“Housing First”— provides unhoused people with taxpayer-funded residences and doesn’t require substance abuse treatment or criminal accountability. Edward Ring of the California Policy Center details why such incentives are doomed to further exacerbate homelessness by ignoring true root causes while emptying the state’s pocketbook.

Progressive politicians have created the homeless crisis. Their policies have made housing unaffordable, driven away decent job opportunities, and encouraged vagrancy and drug addiction. Their solution – to build taxpayer subsidized housing, provided free and with no conditions to any homeless person – is a special interest scam, guaranteed to never solve the problem. Nowhere in America is the problem worse than in Los Angeles, California.

Over the past week two local elected officials in Los Angeles have made public statements on the homeless crisis that grips the region. They represent two completely different perspectives on how to resolve the crisis.

The first comes in the form of a thank you letter from retiring Los Angeles city council member Mike Bonin, sent to those of his constituents who wish him well in whatever he does next. With respect to his legacy, Bonin writes:

“By providing housing and services, we are changing lives and providing a pathway out of homelessness. Since the launch of the Venice Beach Encampments to Homes initiative, 76 people have been permanently housed.” Seventy-six people. Remember that number.

Bonin’s philosophy is consistent with what remains the prevailing progressive doctrine regarding homelessness, known as “Housing First.” It is defined on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development website as “an approach to quickly and successfully connect individuals and families experiencing homelessness to permanent housing without preconditions and barriers to entry, such as sobriety, treatment or service participation requirements.”

This approach has made Bonin infamous even among the mostly progressive residents of Venice Beach, where an estimated 2,000 homeless have taken over this tiny beachfront suburb of Los Angeles. Only a small fraction of them have been given “supportive housing” or temporary shelter, and only a small fraction held accountable for using and selling hard drugs, public intoxication, theft, vandalism, or worse.

This article originally appeared in the California Policy Center. Read the whole thing here.

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