Golden State Today

California is leading the nation in one not-so-noteworthy category: Homelessness continues to surge while it's starting to ease in other states.

Policy initiatives that should be reversed have set California apart from the rest of the country, said Dr. Wayne Winegarden, Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), and co-author of the book No Way Home, a deep dive into the causes and solutions of homelessness. One is the wasteful spending of billions of taxpayer dollars on new housing under Project Homekey.

“…with the housing first programs, often after a couple of months, they're not able to track [the homelessness] anymore, but most aren't ending up in sustainable housing situations,” Winegarden said in a recent episode of American Legal Record podcast.

“Most are either back on the street or you don't know where they are or in a shelter, but not in a sustainable environment,” he added. “So, it's incredibly costly where we're spending billions and billions a year and we just don't have the resources to actually build all of it. And you're also not addressing the underlying problem.”

Earlier Research by Winegarden shows that the number of sheltered homeless grew by 3,541 in 2021, yet Gov. Gavin Newsome (D-California), said in his 2022 State of the State speech that Homekey has moved 58,000 people off the streets. The research also shows that preliminary point-in-time homeless counts released by eight California counties shows total homeless populations growing in six out of eight counties. 

Winegarden argues for a carrot-and-stick approach to the problem.

“So a carrot would be things like day rooms, where you can bring somebody in who's homeless and they have shelter, they have showers and other types of places to charge up phones [...] especially if someone's homeless for economic reasons,” he said. 

A stick would be instituting Homeless Courts, and give them the authority to sentence addicts to drug treatment programs. Records for petty crime would be expunged with the completion of the program, which would be another carrot, according to Windgarden. 

Winegarden also pointed out that California should repeal Prop 47, where retail thefts of under $950.00 are rarely prosecuted, and Prop 57's early release for criminal defendants. He said these propositions incentivize homelessness. 

Additionally, he said that private, non-profit groups, such as Shelters to Shutters out of Virginia, are more adept at addressing the crisis than government.

They are helping “people by giving them job skills and helping them find them jobs," Winegarden said referring to the non-profits. "And then to a sustainable housing situation. So there's all sorts of programs out there. We just need the will to implement them."

Governments have been handicapped by a 2018 Ninth Circuit decision in Martin v. Boise where the homeless can only be moved off the street if shelter beds are available. Without available beds, the court reasoned, moving them would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Winegarden said that Martin v. Boise “really created a de facto right to sleep on the street. “…across the West Coast, but in particularly in California. In response to this, what you saw is people's willingness to go to shelters plummeted and so ironically, a number of shelter beds available actually opened up. But you also then saw the proliferation of a lot of homeless encampments, tent cities taking over public spaces, all of these issues that have arisen followed that decision.”

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court in Grants Pass v. Johnson, reversed the Ninth Circuit, paving the way for governments to begin clearing out the camps. 

“Today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court provides state and local officials the definitive authority to implement and enforce policies to clear unsafe encampments from our streets. This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities," Newsom said a statement issued after the ruling. “California remains committed to respecting the dignity and fundamental human needs of all people and the state will continue to work with compassion to provide individuals experiencing homelessness with the resources they need to better their lives.”