There are several questions surrounding the homeless situation that the mainstream media simply refuse to ask - and without answering them, we can't really measure the effectiveness of programs meant to address it.
The first of these is this: How many of any area's homeless are organic? By that, I mean, how many lived in the community before becoming homeless, and how many were homeless elsewhere and managed to come to California - either because it's significantly warmer (well, maybe not San Francisco ...) or because it's perceived as easier to evade authorities and the kind of solutions other states employ?
If your policies are serving as a magnet (and that's a big if, as we don't know the answer to question No. 1 above) for homeless to move here, then your problem is qualitatively different than if your homeless are mostly homegrown.
Clearly, given their druthers, someone living on the streets would rather do so in San Diego than Minneapolis or Boston - particularly in the winter. Whether that actually happens - who knows? We have a media that won't ask questions that might lead to difficult answers.
The libertarian in me blanches at the thought of mandatory mental health treatment; the human being in me is heartsick at the reality of so many broken lives - so many broken families.
Thank you for a thoughtful analysis of a very difficult problem.
There are several questions surrounding the homeless situation that the mainstream media simply refuse to ask - and without answering them, we can't really measure the effectiveness of programs meant to address it.
The first of these is this: How many of any area's homeless are organic? By that, I mean, how many lived in the community before becoming homeless, and how many were homeless elsewhere and managed to come to California - either because it's significantly warmer (well, maybe not San Francisco ...) or because it's perceived as easier to evade authorities and the kind of solutions other states employ?
If your policies are serving as a magnet (and that's a big if, as we don't know the answer to question No. 1 above) for homeless to move here, then your problem is qualitatively different than if your homeless are mostly homegrown.
Clearly, given their druthers, someone living on the streets would rather do so in San Diego than Minneapolis or Boston - particularly in the winter. Whether that actually happens - who knows? We have a media that won't ask questions that might lead to difficult answers.
The libertarian in me blanches at the thought of mandatory mental health treatment; the human being in me is heartsick at the reality of so many broken lives - so many broken families.
Thank you for a thoughtful analysis of a very difficult problem.