On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
That’s troubling. What’s the solution here?
Housing.
IMO, we should start by focusing the conversation on this issue so we can start to collect and socialize ideas.
That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if we needed some sort of way to rigorously audit and report about shelter conditions. That way we could at least have policies that don’t blindly assume every bed is equal or safe.