Trump Has No Clue About Homelessness. This California Lawmaker Actually Does.

Posted On Nov 9, 2019 By admin With Comments Off

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has increased his ongoing feud with California, repeatedly turning his attention and Twitter feed to the state’s homelessness crisis. The administration is reportedly projecting a crackdown that may involve moving homeless person in the government to government-backed facilities. After seeing last-place month, Trump claimed–seemingly without basis–that needles and other junk from San Francisco and Los Angeles are” pouring into the ocean .” Confusingly, he held the cities’ legitimate house questions to water pollution, threatening federal act for theorized Clean Water Act misdemeanors. Then, last week, the EPA lent credence to the president’s claims by citing San Francisco for environmental contraventions relating to its homeless question.( Ironically, Trump and the EPA uttered sudden concern for California’s environmental protections around the same time they officially revoked the state’s ability to set stricter auto releases .) On Thursday, in response to this and other recent EPA actions against the state, virtually 600 onetime EPA officials called for an investigation into the administration’s aimed at providing California, saying the admonishings “were intended as retaliation for the state’s failure to support President Trump’s political agenda.”

Meanwhile, in the 2020 budget solicit, the Trump administration purported cutting the Housing and Urban Development budget by a drastic $9.6 billion( 19 percent below 2019 status ).

“You expect this kind of ridiculousness from Donald Trump, but you don’t is believed that from the EPA .”

The absurdity of Trump’s onslaughts, though, shouldn’t paper over the very real housing crisis in California. State Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco–where the median price for a one-bedroom rental is about $3,700 a month–has seen this crisis up close and has been a vocal affordable dwelling proponent since he dished on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He’s known for jostle forceful but sometimes controversial plans. He is currently patronizing a bill, after a previous iteration disappointed last year, that aims to ease the casing squeeze by increasing high-density suburban structure around transit centres. The proposition has left affordable housing preaches subdivided; more living could ease costs and outsized demand, and the current version of the statement includes more renter armours and affordability requirements, but some think it will exacerbate gentrification.

What they can all agree on is that Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “Our housing policy doesn’t work in California,” Wiener says. Tetapi “the president is not interested in helping us solve our problems.” I recently caught up with Wiener to talk about the real springs of the home quagmire, the solutions he thinks are necessary, and why the president’s comments pretty much oblige no feel. Below is an revised and compressed edition of our conversation.

President Trump has made accusations about San Francisco and California’s homelessness problem justification water pollution. Then last week, the EPA cited San Francisco, saying the city could face fines for transgressing the Clean Water Act.

The strikes are really obnoxious and baseless. This idea that somehow feces or needles could be going into the sewer drain and that would go immediately into the ocean, that’s just flat out inaccurate. If the president knew anything about our sewer system, he would know we have a mixed sewer system. All of our sewage, whether it comes from people’s bathrooms or from the sewer drains, gets treated at a world class water treatment facility and refined. And so there’s just no circumstantial basis for what what he’s saying. You expect this kind of ridiculousness from Donald Trump, but you don’t is believed that from the EPA.

The EPA has been involved with San Francisco’s blended sewer system for a long time. It has persistently signed it on different deepens that we’ve draw. And now the EPA has been politically hijacked by Donald Trump to issue some kind of notice of contravention where there is no misdemeanour. It plays into the president’s broader political narrative attacking California, assaulting San Francisco, for the exclusive aim of ruffling up his locate because his presidency is falling apart.

We need to be clear, we have a real problem with homelessness in California. There’s no doubt about it. Our housing policy doesn’t work in California. We have big problems. But the president is not interested in helping us solve our problems. He’s simply interested in attacking us to compose political points.

“This president has just been atrocious in terms of providing help and resources. If he wants to help us crusaded homelessness by increasing investment in housing and other services, then we welcome that .”

What will happen with the EPA citation?

I think it is a stunt and he’ll probably keep going down this road until the holding of elections. But ultimately, you know, the city of San Francisco strongly disagrees with the EPA’s political affirms, and I suppose it could result in litigation. But we’ve been litigating with this administration quite a bit, so there’s nothing brand-new there.

What does the federal government do to help or hurt states and municipalities undertaking homelessness?

This president has just been atrocious in terms of providing help and resources to metropolitans and states and our efforts to fight homelessness. He’s been curve cheap casing funds, he’s been hack food aid, aggressively criticizing the social safety net, trying to throw parties off healthcare systems. These are all things that mount homelessness. If he wants to help us engaged homelessness by increasing investment in housing and other services, then we welcome that.

There’s still the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit which we are dependent upon. But in the past, the federal government money significant investment in housing and that’s really drying up. And we would love for that to come back so we can structure more public or social housing for low-income people.

Why is the homelessness problem in California so intractable despite big-hearted investments and a lot more focus?

The push has really exclusively been in the last few years. Before a few years ago, California wasn’t doing nearly enough. It’s still not doing enough, but it’s doing more, and I think some of those grains that were seeded will bear fruit. But we also have to fix our underlying house scarcity problem. We’re short 3.5 million residences in California, and it’s propagandizing a lot of working class parties into homelessness, people who don’t have any mental health or craving troubles, but they lose their suite, and there’s nothing they can afford so they live in their car. And that is a result of 50 years of bad casing programme where we’ve give it hard or absurd to build brand-new housing. That’s the underlying root cause. Monetary speculations was crucial, but there is not going to be enough funding to house every low-income person in California. So we have to solve the structural casing famine as well.

What actions are most important to take?

There are three major things we need to prevent people from becoming homeless: We need to be protecting renters, so people aren’t getting evicted in no fracture expulsions and aiming up on the street; we need to invest aggressively in facilitating modulation homeless person into housing with support services; and then we have to procreate structural changes to our casing plan to fix the problem over the long run. That’s what SB 50 is about–my legislation to permit more room by jobs and transit–so we can start crowding in that 3. 5 million dwelling crack.

What do you think of the drama that has played out with a San Francisco place putting up stones on the sidewalk to discourage homeless encampments?[ Ed note: In September, groupings of San Francisco neighbors pooled stores and had boulders positioned along the sidewalk to break up a homeless encampment and cut down on reported dose treat and hassle on the block. Homeless counsels were critical, calling the tactic inhumane; activists and media coverage triggered a bombardment of social media scandalize and menaces against the residents. Last week, the city removed the cliffs, but strategic landscaping to deter homelessness is used in other parts of San Francisco and metropolis .]

Boulders on the sidewalk are not the answer. But with that said, I don’t think it’s appropriate to demonize these neighbours. I used to represent this area when I was on the[ San Francisco] Board of Supervisors, and I’m very familiar with Clinton Park. This was not just about homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk. It was not what pushed these neighbors over the edge. It was the widespread and very dangerous behavior of medicine considering, the brutality, the provocation. The neighbours contact the end of their rope, and I can’t blame them. The municipality was not meeting their needs, and they made it into their own hands. I was really disappointed to see the really brutal affects on these neighbors for trying to address an issue in their place. Again, stones are not the answer, but I understand why they got to the point where they felt they had no other hand-picked.

“Before a couple of years ago, California wasn’t doing nearly enough. It’s still not doing enough, but it’s doing more, and I think some of those grains that were embed will bear fruit .”

I think it is really, really important to distinguish between homelessness and criminal demeanor. Because when people are engaging in criminal violence and hassle and stimulant coping, homeless person are being harassed, very. I’ve had homeless people come up to me on wall street and noted a person that’s being brutal and ask me to call the police. The vast majority of homeless people are not engaging in criminal or viciou behaviors. They’re just trying to survive, and they’re being victimized, as well.

What’s the immediate answer?

In the tent encampments, we need to really focus on transitioning those tribes into piloting centers and then transitional home. Tents on the sidewalk are not a good or safe health coming for the homeless or parties in the enclose vicinity. For people who are engaged in drug distributing brutal behaviour, we have to enforce the law.

But then there’s NIMBY resistance to setting up navigation hubs like in the Embarcadero.[ Ed note: After San Francisco Mayor London Breed recommended a navigation center–a type of streamlined transitional homeless sanctuary — in the Embarcadero neighborhood this spring, residents of the gentrifying SoMa area rallied to block the facility from being built. Their exertions, including invoke coin against the effort and filing a litigation, failed, but were seen for the purposes of the the strong NIMBY( Not In My Backyard) proximity in the the Bay Area .]

I actually passed a regulation this year that reorganizes piloting core acceptances so we’ll be able to avoid these endless litigations and entreaties as occurred at the Embarcadero. That will address the NIMBY-ism that we’re assure around piloting centers.

A lot of beings support services for homeless people, but then they have concerns about lay them in their neighborhood. But what we try to explain to people is that homeless people are in your vicinity. And then why not have a place where we can start transitioning beings into housing and assistances? It’s better to have navigation cores where people proceed than people pitching tents on sidewalks. People are going to go somewhere, so let’s have somewhere for them to go where they can begin the process of getting them lived.