The suit argues the city is “punishing residents who have nowhere to go” in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The argument draws on the Ninth Circuit’s 2019 decision in the Martin v. Boise case, which found that people who are homeless can’t be penalized for sleeping on public property, if there is no alternative offered.

The suit also alleges violations of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the 14th Amendment’s due process requirement.

“They would come out at, like, four in the morning, five in the morning. Usually when you’re in the dead of sleep and it’s very, very cold,” said Toro Castaño, 51, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. He was living on the streets of the Castro for two years, until the fall of 2021. “It was very traumatic because it’s very cold outside and a lot of things they’re taking are warm clothes, warm jackets, blankets, things that you need just to survive.”

Castaño had his belongings taken from him by the city four times during the pandemic, according to the complaint, and settled a claim against the city for $9,000 after his property was destroyed. He now lives in a co-op in the city.

While Castaño was unhoused, he said he was asked to move nearly every day. “It makes you very sleep-deprived, makes it difficult to make decisions, to make appointments, to try to look for work or try to look for jobs — basically to function,” he said.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said the goal of the lawsuit is to stop sweeps, which she said only perpetuate homelessness. “When the city takes folks’ IDs, their cellphones, the things that they need in order to really navigate a very complicated route off the streets, that ends up extending their homelessness,” she said, explaining that people can lose contact with social service providers and miss out on housing opportunities. “What we hear from folks again and again is they feel like they’re starting from scratch.”

She argues the city’s enforcement resources would be better spent on housing and treatment programs. “It’s in everyone’s interest to really, truly invest in the permanent solutions we need to solve homelessness,” she said.

The suit names the city and county of San Francisco; Major London Breed; Director of the Healthy Streets Operation Center Sam Dodge; and several city departments as defendants.

Jen Kwart, director of communications for the city attorney’s office, said in a statement, “The City is acutely focused on expanding our temporary shelter and permanent housing options to alleviate our homelessness crisis. Once we are served with the lawsuit, we will review the complain and respond in court.”

The city’s latest point-in-time count found a total of about 7,700 people living on the streets or in shelters, a 3.5% decrease since 2019. But, Latinx homelessness spiked 55% and Black people continue to be overrepresented among the unhoused, at 38% of the total homeless population compared to 6% of the general population.

Based on the new count, officials now estimate that as many as 20,000 people experience homelessness in a full year.

From 2015 to 2022, the city built just 2,067 units of very-low-income housing, just a third of its goal, while far exceeding its goal for market rate housing, according to the city’s 2020 housing inventory.

Emily Cohen, deputy director of communications for the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, points out that since 2017, the city has nearly doubled the number of housing units dedicated to people leaving homelessness.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the court to ban the city from conducting sweeps or otherwise enforcing ordinances that punish sleeping on public property while the suit proceeds.

Castaño said he hopes the suit leads to more affordable housing and better conditions for people experiencing homelessness. “I’m hoping that people on the street will be protected a little more, that the things won’t be taken that they used to survive and to stay warm,” he said. “And there’s a little more compassion.”

The post Unhoused San Francisco Residents Sue Metropolis Over Displacement, Rights Violations appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Late yesterday, the Coalition on Homelessness and seven individual plaintiffs filed suit against the City and County of San Francisco and Mayor London Breed for their efforts to criminalize homelessness through an array of brutal policing practices that violate the constitutional rights of unhoused San Franciscans. The plaintiffs are also seeking a preliminary injunction to stop these practices on an emergency basis. Plaintiffs are represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, as well as the global law firm Latham & Watkins LLP.

For years, San Francisco has claimed that it is taking steps to address the City’s homelessness crisis. But in fact, the City is forcing unhoused people out of sight—destroying their survival belongings and citing and arresting them for sleeping in public when they have no shelter to go to. San Francisco has more laws penalizing homelessness than any other place in California, and possibly America. These regressive mass incarceration era policies only perpetuate San Francisco’s homelessness crisis and scapegoat unhoused people for the City’s egregious failure to support affordable housing for San Francisco residents.

San Francisco lacks—and has always lacked—adequate affordable housing and shelter for thousands of unhoused San Franciscans. San Francisco’s threats, citations, arrests, and removal of unhoused residents from public spaces therefore violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The City is also engaged in a practice of illegally seizing and destroying the personal belongings of unhoused residents in violation of the Fourth Amendment. These practices help San Francisco claim that it is solving the homelessness crisis—when it has actually just swept it under the rug.

San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is one of unaffordability. When longstanding residents can no longer afford to stay in their homes, they are forced out onto the street. San Francisco’s politicians have understood this for years, but they have failed to act. Instead, the City has consistently relied on tough-on-crime policies to respond to homelessness instead of addressing the root cause of the problem: the clear lack of permanent affordable housing.

This is immoral, cruel, costly, and ultimately counterproductive—not to mention unconstitutional. The City knows this because it constantly violates its own policies that purport to require a humane, services-first approach to the homelessness crisis. The reality is that unhoused San Franciscans wake up to find their survival belongings seized and destroyed as they face criminal penalties for sleeping outside even though the city has little to nothing to offer San Francisco’s unhoused residents in terms of shelter, housing, and services. This lawsuit combines massive amounts of public data with eyewitness accounts to expose the City’s unlawful conduct, which makes it almost impossible for the thousands of affected San Franciscans to exit homelessness.

Those experiencing homelessness in San Francisco are disproportionately people of color due to decades of discrimination in housing, education, healthcare and the criminal justice system. Today, for example, Black people comprise 6% of San Francisco’s general population but make up 37% of the City’s unhoused population. Black renters in San Francisco still face some of the worst housing discrimination anywhere in the country. That targeted exclusion has only exacerbated the homelessness crisis for people of color.

San Franciscans deserve real solutions to homelessness. That starts and ends with the City actually investing in affordable housing. This lawsuit seeks to hold the City to account for its unconstitutional attack on unhoused San Franciscans. The City cannot punish unhoused people for a housing crisis it created.

Client statements:

Plaintiff Nathaniel Vaughn, a life-long San Franciscan who recently became unhoused, reflects: “We do not deserve to be treated like criminals and to have our belongings thrown in the trash when we are at our most vulnerable.”

Plaintiff Toro Castaño notes the impact this has on unhoused people: “The City’s sweeps [are] a dehumanizing disruption to the small ounce of stability that I was trying to build for myself during one of the hardest times of my life.”

Plaintiff Sarah Cronk says the same: “We are just trying to scrape by and build as much of a life for ourselves as possible—with both dignity and safety. The City makes that impossible for us.”

Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness: “San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is its affordable housing crisis. Instead of investing in permanent affordable housing, the city has spent millions of dollars to rid our neighborhoods of visible signs of homelessness. Punitive approaches make homelessness worse, as it only makes it harder for people to access already limited services, find employment and secure stable housing.”

Attorney statements:

“The City is using unhoused residents as the scapegoats for a crisis of economic and racial justice that it helped to create. San Francisco should fight to end homelessness. But the only real solution to San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is housing. Instead of solving homelessness, the City has invested in carceral policies that make the crisis worse. That’s not only unconstitutional, it’s also just bad policy. We should expect better far better from our political leaders.” – Zal Shroff, Senior Staff Attorney, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area

“Racism is embedded in the criminalization of homelessness in San Francisco as people of color are disproportionately targeted by anti-homeless ordinances. The current system is complaint-driven, allowing housed residents to dictate traumatizing enforcement against unhoused people who attempt to live in whiter, gentrifying neighborhoods. This suggests that the City is doing more to appear wealthy homeowners than it is to support the health and wellbeing of the most vulnerable with real opportunities out of homelessness. Through the lawsuit, we aim to lay bare the City’s illusory shelter options and end the racist results that criminalization produces.” – John Do, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California

The post Metropolis of San Francisco & Mayor London Breed Sued for Harassing Unhoused San Franciscans, Violating Civil Rights to Cowl Up the Metropolis’s Reasonably priced Housing Failures appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Hello, it’s Tuesday, Dec. 13, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

The Cecil Hotel rooms for LA unhoused are still mostly empty

The historic Cecil Hotel, with its haunted reputation and 600 rooms, reopened in December 2021 as a privately funded permanent supportive housing project. It’s open to any of the thousands of unhoused Los Angelenos with a government-funded voucher. Many viewed the project as a promising new model in LA because of its size and flexibility.

And yet, a year later, two-thirds of the Cecil remains unoccupied. Even with solid funding and the best of intentions, the Cecil project has struggled to overcome a system beset with a slow-moving bureaucracy and multiple failure points, and to offer a housing stock that serves a population with myriad needs.

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Mayor’s new emergency order meets chaos at City Hall

It was the first major policy announcement from the new administration of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — a declaration of a state of emergency aimed at providing immediate relief to thousands of unhoused residents.

That declaration needs a City Council vote today before going into effect, a simple enough task in a quieter political moment. Except the council has left one meeting until mid-January, and has been struggling to conduct its business amid a scandal surrounding Councilmember Kevin de León.

De León faces a furor over his participation in a conversation featuring racist remarks and, more recently, a violent incident involving protesters at an Eastside toy giveaway, which only intensified the tinder keg atmosphere at City Hall.

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The P-22 mountain lion was captured in an LA backyard

P-22, celebrity mountain lion and Griffith Park’s most wanted big cat, was captured in a Los Feliz backyard, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced.

The department confirmed P-22 was captured after they received an anonymous tip that he’d been struck by a car in the area. Officials could not confirm if the mountain lion had been hit but said he was “in stable condition.”

P-22 had been sought for evaluation by the National Park Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife after “exhibiting some signs of distress” in recent weeks, including killing a leashed Chihuahua and attacking another dog.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder and former head of digital-asset exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas.

Bankman-Fried’s detention followed a notification from the US that it had filed criminal charges against him, the Bahamas attorney general said in a statement. Authorities in both countries had been probing his involvement in the company’s collapse last month.

In a statement, US Atty. for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said the arrest was made at the request of the American government.

Can California’s electric-vehicle push overcome the red-state backlash?

Environmentalists, along with industry and government leaders, see a transformation afoot in the electric vehicle industry after decades of false starts. They have acknowledged, however, that they can’t complete the shift if electric cars are viewed as something only for rich liberals in California and New York. They need everyone.

But in places like Indiana, it can be tough to own an electric car. Major cities are located far apart, with few charging stations in between. And the most popular EVs remain out of reach for many consumers in places where incomes tend to be lower.

The state is also deep red. And Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to consider buying an EV, according to a poll conducted for The Times by Leger, a Canadian-based polling firm with extensive experience in US surveys.

Edgar Sargsyan’s journey through LA’s criminal underworld

Edgar Sargsyan’s journey to bankruptcy court began with a one-way ticket from Armenia. It descended into the underworld of Los Angeles, where he learned at the elbow of a crime figure how deals are made and dirty money can underwrite a glittering facade of legitimacy.

Sargsyan shook hands with governors and presidents at a Beverly Hills cigar club and conferred with gangsters in jail. He made a fortune through fraud and drug dealing while surrounding himself with an entourage of corrupt lawmen.

But by 2018, the fun was over, the money was drying up and Sargsyan found himself in bankruptcy court, where what remained of his companies’ assets were to be sold off.

Check out “The Times” podcast for essential news and more.

These days, waking up to current events can be, well, daunting. If you’re seeking a more balanced news diet, “The Times” podcast is for you. Gustavo Arellano, along with a diverse set of reporters from the award-winning LA Times newsroom, delivers the most interesting stories from the Los Angeles Times every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

CALIFORNIA

Drought-ravaged LA seeks out a contaminated Superfund site. As drought and climate change ravage California’s once-reliable supply of drinking water, officials in Los Angeles are setting their sights on a relatively new, almost untapped resource for the city’s 4 million residents: the Superfund site in their own backyard.

Supreme Court upholds California ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products. The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a last-minute plea from the tobacco industry and cleared the way for California to enforce a statewide ban on the sale of most flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes.

Tory Lanez will stand trial in Megan Thee Stallion’s shooting case this week. Prosecutors allege the shooting happened shortly after both hip-hop artists left a party in the Hollywood Hills in July 2020. The case has reinvigorated discussions about misogyny in a hip-hop industry and it comes after a series of violent attacks on hip-hop artists in Los Angeles in recent years.

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NATION WORLD

On same-sex marriage, “the country has caught up with California.” More than 18 years after Gavin Newsom defied federal law by issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples as San Francisco mayor, President Biden is on the cusp of signing legislation that ensures gay marriages are recognized by the federal government and in every state in the nation .

Immigrants sue ICE for spying on their financial records. Immigrants who say their remittances to family abroad were caught up in what they described as a massive warrantless dragnet are suing the government and the wire-transfer behemoth Western Union, which gave money transfer records to law enforcement.

What’s next for Brittney Griner? Experts discuss a road to recovery. After 294 days in Russian custody, Griner was slated to undergo evaluation at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Those assessments regarding Griner’s physical, mental and emotional state were just the first step in an uncertain path for the two-time Olympic gold medalist.

In Ukraine, a mayor who surrendered his town becomes a symbol of treason. In the small town of Kupiansk, there was no sudden bombardment, no violent mayhem — the city’s mayor, politically friendly with Russia, spoke to a Russian commander over the phone and then simply surrendered. Misery arrived anyway.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

The Golden Globes return after turmoil. The nominations for the 2023 Golden Globes were announced, with the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. showing particular affection for films “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and TV series “Abbott Elementary” and “The White Lotus,” among others.

Elon Musk booed for nearly five minutes straight at Dave Chappelle show in San Francisco. Before welcoming Elon Musk on Sunday stage in San Francisco, Dave Chappelle encouraged his fans to “make some noise for the richest man in the world.” And they did — by loudly booing the billionaire tech mogul.

Angelo Badalamenti, “Twin Peaks” composer and David Lynch collaborator, dead at 85. Badalamenti and Lynch were longtime collaborators, with the composer once calling their relationship “my second-best marriage in the world.”

The rise and fall of canceling culture in comedy. Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff and comics Donnell Rawlings and Tiffany Haddish explain the origins of modern-day culture and its historical equivalents.

BUSINESS

Elon Musk should prepare for “hundreds or even thousands” of arbitration cases, labor lawyer says. As questions continue to swirl around Musk’s next move, ex-employees through their attorneys are seeking every possible avenue to obtain the benefits they feel entitled to in the aftermath of the tumultuous takeover of Twitter.

Will a legal fight over a $70 million Malibu mansion derail a reality star? A saga of power, corruption and allegations of deception involving multiple lawsuits and parties has played out from the courts of Los Angeles and the halls of Congress to as far away as the shores of Central Africa.

OPINION

How did we let the Golden Globes back in? Columnist and culture critic Mary McNamara writes, “Last year, a Times investigation revealed the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s gift-expecting, early-access-demanding, pay-to-play approach to its awards and lack of any Black members. Everyone was outraged. Publicists threatened a massive boycott, Tom Cruise said he would return his statuary. NBC dumped the 2022 telecast. Now, a year later, the Globes are back, announcing their nominations on live TV.”

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SPORTS

How ultimate underdog Morocco became “the Rocky of this World Cup.” In the first World Cup held in the Middle East and the first played in a majority-Muslim country, Morocco has made history by becoming the first African and first Arabic-speaking nation to reach the semifinals.

There was something Bourdain-like about the big, soccer life Grant Wahl led. Wahl died early Friday morning after collapsing in the press center at the men’s World Cup in Qatar. He lifted, popularized and pioneered soccer coverage in the US Above all, he shared that giant, adventurous life with colleagues and strangers alike.

ONLY IN LA

(Michael DeForge / For The Times)

How to find the best tamales from around the world in Los Angeles. Tamales are delicious year-round but are particularly popular during the holiday and New Year’s seasons, often accompanied by a steaming mug of atole, champurrado or other hot beverage.

This year, The Times’ food team is highlighting their love for all the tamales — not just from Mexico, but also from Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia and Cuba, just to name a few places. And they’re even extending the strict definition of tamal to include Chinese sticky rice packets wrapped in lotus or bamboo leaves.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, and Sheldon Leonard hold their awards backstage at Emmy Awards in 1964.

(Los Angeles Times)

Dick Van Dyke was born 97 years ago. The versatile comedic actor became a beloved television icon as the ottoman-tripping — or sidestepping — star of the classic 1960s situation comedy “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Van Dyke displayed his versatility in a variety of roles, including Bert the cheerful Cockney chimney sweep in the Oscar-winning 1964 Disney musical “Mary Poppins” and an alcoholic public relations man in the 1974 TV movie “The Morning After.” Van Dyke also had an eight-season run as the white-haired and mustachioed crime-solving doctor in “Diagnosis Murder,” from 1993 to 2001.

We appreciate that you took the time to read Today’s Headlines! Comments or ideas? Feel free to drop us a note at headlines@latimes.com.

The post At this time’s Headlines: Why 600 rooms on the Cecil Lodge for L.A.’s unhoused are principally empty appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

“I can’t be there anymore,” she said when interviewed in December. “Your body goes through a lot being homeless. I’ve had pneumonia for two months now, from black mold on my tent. My tent is literally killing me.”

While the city said it is taking steps to mitigate delays, months of living in a wet tent site took its toll on residents. In text messages sent late one night, Ladybird described the chaos that had ensued as one of her neighbors had a mental breakdown. “This situation is getting worse by the day, it’s more twisted than anything I’ve seen in my decade out here,” she said. “I would be better off on the streets.”

The situation felt hopeless. “This site hasn’t placed anybody,” Ladybird said. “Anybody who’s getting out of there is doing it on their own. There’s no social worker. It’s just a dead end.”

Paperwork bottlenecks stand the process of moving people indoors

While the policies of the last two years left people like Ladybird living outdoors, those living in shelter-in-place hotels haven’t always fared better, with some of them waiting more than a year to be connected to a home.

Marquita Stroud is one of those. She said that she has been homeless for 15 years, but that about a month before the COVID-19 outbreak began in earnest, she was approved for permanent supportive housing. “God was on my side!” she said when interviewed in december.

In April 2020, she was relocated to the Hotel Whitcomb, a historic tourist hotel repurposed to allow people experiencing homelessness to quarantine safely. Stroud was one of 500 homeless people the city moved from large, warehouse-style shelters into 25 hotels around town.

Stroud is an optimist, high-energy and cheerful, who wears her hair tied up neatly in a scarf. “It’s wet!” she exclaimed on a rainy morning, as she confidently strode down Market Street with an umbrella in one hand, pushing a cart containing her small, fluffy dog, blue, with the other. She headed straight to a corner of the public library, a place she knows well.

Under COVID-19-era rules, Stroud isn’t allowed visitors where she lives, so she meets people at their apartments, outside or in public places. The prohibition on guests didn’t bother stroud too much when she first moved in. But she felt isolated and, as the months dragged on, no one contacted her about moving into her own place. Stroud watched her friends and neighbors — many of whom arrived in the hotel the same day she did — move into permanent housing. Her turn never came.

In large part, that’s because the homelessness department’s process for reviewing and selecting unhoused people for referral is slow. And in the period when Stroud was waiting, things were markedly worse. In October 2020, 32% of vacant units had no pending referrals for a resident. In January, that ratio had more than doubled, to 66% of available units, according to the city’s own data. The department did not respond to questions about why this might be.

Gary ran eight buildings through DISH. In February 2021, before he stepped down, he said the problem wasn’t new, but it was getting worse.

“Somewhere there is a bottleneck where the city is not sending us the housing application — that is, the documented representation of that person that we can process,” he said. “We report the vacancy to the city, and those vacancies languish for weeks to months without a referral of a real live human being who can be housed.”

At least part of the problem is a shortage of case managers, who are the crucial link between vacant units and the hundreds of people approved for housing. There is frequent turnover in the high-stress positions, and non-profit struggles to fill new job openings.

Stroud said she has been assigned six case managers in two years. To figure out who is assigned to her, she regularly checks a piece of paper taped to a wall in her hotel, which lists the name of the case manager assigned to each floor. She describes calling her case manager repeatedly to set up an appointment and not getting through.

“They pretty much don’t go knocking on your door,” Stroud said. “You got to ask for them. If I see one in the hallway — like if I see a worker talking to a client in the hallway — I always ask, ‘Are you a counselor? Are you my counselor?’ Because they don’t tell you.”

Nearly two years after being approved for a housing unit, Stroud is still at the Hotel Whitcomb. Although she dreams of going back to school, publishing her journals and giving back to the homeless community, her reality is much different. She’s had items stolen from her room, and the building has fallen into disrepair. “When we first got to this hotel, it was so cute,” she said. “Now they got the bedbugs, the roaches, the mice. Every other day, the pipes are brassing up.”

Recently she met a woman who had recently moved into the Whitcomb, but was already on her way out: She’d been assigned a housing unit.

“I was asking her, what did she do to get her housing that quick? And she said her counselor just came knocking on her door like, ‘You ready to go?’” Stroud said, clearly frustrated. “I haven’t talked to anyone about housing,” she said this month, as she approaches her two-year anniversary at the hotel. “I’m still here just waiting.”

As for Ladybird, she was approved for housing in November, but three months later, she is still without a home. In January, she left the tent encampment for a short-term residential hotel, but it comes with a time limit. “After 28 days, we get put out.”

Are you currently homeless in San Francisco, and trying to get housing? Do you have experience with the city’s housing process? Email the author at nuala@sfpublicpress.org.

The post In San Francisco, Tons of of Houses for Unhoused Folks Sit Vacant appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

Olympic reality show millionaire Caitlyn Jenner has proven she can say a lot about the homeless, but so far none of them have worked terribly well. Immediately after she announced in May that she would challenge Gavin Newsom in her next election. She complained that a private jet owner friend she belongs to fled California to Arizona because she was tired of seeing a homeless man.

In an interview with a local San Francisco news channel this week, Jenner had an idea that we believe would make it easier for wealthy people not to have to look where they don’t have a home.

What kind of field is that?

Big and open.

Where exactly?

As you know, “somewhere”.

Regarding the Venice Beach “destroyed” tent camp, Jenner said, “If you find out at a veterans facility if there is an open field anywhere, we have to provide a place for those people, regardless of whether there are those large open fields and many.” Places there. there are. “

Twitter users were quick to point out that Jenner’s likely unexpected plan was not an apartment but a move.

pic.twitter.com/EWOynTgtpf

– 5’5 Gay (@johni_sweeney) July 2, 2021

Meanwhile, other Republicans who have run for the September 14 elections have begun unveiling plans to tackle the homeless.

On Thursday, John Cox, a businessman who left a bear behind and is currently traveling to the state, promoted a range of activities, including conditioning, empowering, and conditioning shelters for people who for any reason consent to treating mental health and addiction Enforcement of camp crime and repeal of environmental regulations. That makes it difficult to build a house quickly, he says.

“Our plans are at the heart of the homeless problem,” Cox said this week. “If necessary, a court order will treat the homeless and make our city safe and clean again. The politicians of this race do not intend to do that. “

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Caitlyn Jenner Suggests Moving Unhoused People To “Big Open Fields” Source Link Caitlyn Jenner Suggests Moving Unhodged People To “Big Open Fields”

The post Caitlyn Jenner Suggests Transferring Unhoused Individuals Into ‘Huge, Open Fields’ appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

San Francisco AND Chesa Boudin

By Elina Lingappa

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Rory Fleming published an article in The Filter Magazine entitled “Scapegoating of Chesa Boudin Reflects Ugly Attitudes to Unhoused People,” an article that unpacked the dialogue that made up much of the tough-on-crime -Rhetoric powers San Francisco by storm.

“Perhaps nothing triggers some San Francisco residents more than District Attorney Chesa Boudin,” wrote Fleming, “[e]elected on a platform to criminalize poverty and homelessness. “

District Attorney Boudin is in the midst of enormous public scrutiny that many are misdirected, supporters claim.

Last but not least, that effort includes a recall led by Richie Greenberg, a political commentator who has sparked questionable rhetoric about crime rates in San Francisco for the past two years.

More recently, Washington Post reporter Dion Lim falsely accused Boudin of dropping the car theft charges and published a viral article spreading the misinformation.

Amid complaints from public figures like Lim and Greenberg, many San Franciscans have added the city’s large, uninhabited population to their list of complaints about Boudins Office.

Indeed, Boudin has been vocal in favor of decriminalizing the uninhabited since his first campaign for the district attorney.

However, as Fleming reveals in his article, the public rhetoric against Boudin’s policies not only contradicts the progressive image of San Francisco, but also speaks for a long-standing trend in the city’s history.

The housing crisis as it exists now began in the 1980s, according to NPR reporter and Freakonomics producer Greg Rosalsky, who recently wrote an article about this history of California politics affecting the unhodged.

During this time, the federal government cut much of the housing assistance budget as the state of California cut funding for social services and mental health care at the same time. For example, residents who were already in distress found themselves with little to no safety net, and many were left without accommodation, argues Rosalsky.

The problem only worsened in the years to come.

San Francisco passed a rental control bill in 1994, but landlords and homeowners soon found loopholes in the law. The evictions continued and numerous units were withdrawn from the market, further reducing the rental offer.

The infamous cost of living in San Francisco was the nail on the coffin when big tech took off lately.

The city reflected on a 2018 study by Zillow economists that found that the number of uninhabited people is increasing as residents spend more than a third of their income on housing.

In 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that a family making $ 117,400 in the San Francisco area has “low income” given the average one-bedroom rental in the city is $ 3,700 per month according to Fleming.

Unsurprisingly, as the cost of living has risen, so has the number of displaced and unhodged residents.

The current uninhabited population is now over 8,000 in San Francisco and a staggering 151,000 in the state of California in 2020.

The problem has reached unprecedented proportions.

Sometime in 2018, a UN official, Leilani Farha, even commented on the state of the Bay Area in a report titled “On decent housing as part of the right to a decent standard of” Life.”

“[The situation] represents cruel and inhumane treatment and is a violation of many human rights, including the right to life, housing, health and water hygiene … The right to a safe home is a universal right under international human rights law. A lack of legal certainty can never justify evictions of residents of informal settlements, ”she wrote in her criticism of the Bay Area policy.

“Most of the people on the street live with structural trauma,” she continued, which means that they have lost their jobs, cannot afford an apartment, have been evicted by a landlord. The structural trauma causes deeply personal effects that can lead to a life on the street that triggers drug use.

Despite this story and context, much of the hardship is faced with misunderstanding by many Bay Area residents.

“Unfortunately, apart from its liberal reputation, San Francisco has a strong conservative streak directed against the working class, our uninhabited neighbors and reform of our criminal justice system,” local defense attorney John Hamasaki told Fleming.

In this way, many San Franciscans have taken to blaming the uninhabited populations themselves and calling for more robust policies to combat crime.

When prosecutor Chesa Boudin began speaking publicly about decriminalization, he faced significant setbacks.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, those previously incarcerated are ten times more likely than the general public to be out of housing, and this demographic is disproportionately made up of women, people of color, and those over 45 years of age.

These trends are not surprising given that a criminal record has a massive impact on both employment and housing options for previously incarcerated people, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

To complete the cycle, uninhabited residents are much more likely to come into contact with law enforcement, even with acts as minor as sleeping on the street. This leaves us with what the Prison Policy Initiative calls the “revolving door” of imprisonment, Allianz said.

Most people affected by homelessness have either been displaced, lost their jobs, or are fleeing from an abusive partner, according to studies that found drug abuse and criminal acts out of desperation only occur after most people are trapped in the revolving door – despite much of the right rhetoric about uninhabited people.

While the claim has become popular that people without shelter resist change and help, help is far more inaccessible than is often assumed.

For example, according to The Conversation Magazine, many shelters exclude certain populations, most commonly families, LGBTQ youth, and unhodged people with pets.

The magazine adds: “Laws against tramps are counterproductive because they make it difficult to escape homelessness.” In addition to those directly affected by homelessness, taxpayers also suffer from the consequences.

In 2015 alone, the city of San Francisco paid $ 20.6 million for arrests on quality of life charges, a total of 125 arrests.

Chesa Boudin is not alone; Politicians and prosecutors across the country have recognized the negative effects of tough anti-crime laws.

No one has exemplified this more than Boston District Attorney Rachel Rollins.

According to their campaign website, Rollins has promised to stop prosecuting 15 low-level crimes, including drug possession. Each of these low-level crimes has a disproportionate impact on the non-accommodated population.

Several academic sources have found Rollins’ policies useful, including Anna Harvey of New York University.

Harvey’s research found that defendants who were not charged with lower-level nonviolent offenses faced 65 percent fewer misdemeanor arrests and 75 percent fewer crime arrests than those originally prosecuted in the following years.

Therefore, the rhetoric that Boudin is causing the city to get into turmoil is falling short according to these statistics.

Research has not only shown that alternatives to law enforcement are more beneficial to public safety, but Boudin’s policies are nowhere near as radical as Rollins’.

In fact, according to Fleming, Boudin only pledged to halt drug possession prosecutions in the event of a purported hitchhike, a far cry from the 15 crimes Rollins no longer pursues.

Elina Lingappa is a sophomore at the University of San Francisco with a dual focus on sociology and politics. Originally from Seattle, Washington, she is deeply passionate about criminal justice and educational justice.

The post Chesa Boudin Criticized, however Nonetheless Says He Fights for San Francisco’s Unhoused Residents appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

SAN JOSE (KPIX / BCN / CBS SF) – Supervisors and community partners in Santa Clara County gathered Monday to open the opening of Casitas de Esperanza at the Civic Center – a cluster of tiny houses outside of San Jose’s Old Town Hall.

The new tiny residential area at 801 N. 1st Street will provide temporary shelter to 25 unhodged families with children across the county for 120 days.

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First, check out two dozen tiny houses that have been built on the old San Jose City Hall compound that will eventually be used to build permanent housing. Meant for homeless families. Tiny homes funded by @SCCgov, sleep 4, powered by solar, built by @palletshelter @KPIXtv pic.twitter.com/L5f75325iu

– Kiet Thu (@KietKPIX) February 8, 2021

Santa Clara district leader Cindy Chavez said one of the goals is to show that tiny home communities can be good neighbors.

“And then to prove to the neighborhood that it is an advantage for everyone if we tell them it really is,” said Chavez. “One of the things that was so exciting about this project is the focus on children and families.”

The Amigos de Guadalupe Center for Justice and Empowerment, a partner with the county, will operate the website and provide services such as case management and educational services to help children re-enroll in school.

“One of the biggest causes of homelessness is the feeling of isolation and separation that marginalize our homeless population,” said Maritza Maldonado, executive director of Amigos de Guadalupe. “Creating connection points through case management, building a community … helps individuals and families reconnect with the world around them and put them on a path to empowerment, self-sufficiency and, ultimately, permanent living.”

Laura Delgado, the caretaker of Amigos de Guadalupe, remembers meeting the first family to move in, a mother named Araly and her two daughters Raquel (5) and Martha (4).

“One of the little girls opened the door and said ‘Mi casita! ‘Which means my home, my little house in English,’ said Delgado.

Delgado translated Araly’s comments to reporters at a press event Monday.

“First of all, she would like to thank everyone for their support and says that she and her family are very happy and delighted to be here. Your daughters are very excited. “

Casitas de Esperanza was purposely designed to foster a sense of community – something that many unhodged individuals lack, creating further isolation and further removing them from the ability to be re-housed.

Each tiny house has four bunks that can be folded up and used as a bed or table, shelves to store items, air conditioning, and power with outlets for charging cellphones, laptops, and other items.

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The site also includes two HR offices and a 400 square meter common room.

In addition, Plantlush, a small business in San Jose, donated landscaping and plants to create a better sense of community on the site.

The WeHope project will also provide a shower trailer and a laundry trailer four days a week, which will also be on site four days a week.

District officials said the tiny homes made by Seattle-based Pallet were “selected after extensive market research for their timeliness in manufacture and construction, and their relative cost-effectiveness.”

One example is the use of solar microgrids made by BoxPower that provide 85 percent of its electricity consumption, said Consuelo Hernandez, director of the County Office of Supportive Housing.

The development of this new location is part of the county’s goal to end homelessness.

One of the principles of this goal is to double the number of emergency shelters from 2,000 to 4,000. This new location brings the district closer to its goal by a further 100 beds.

The tiny houses are an important step in the district’s “Plan 2020-2025 to End Homelessness”, which aims to reduce the influx of new homelessness by 30 percent per year, build supportive housing for 20,000 people, expand prevention programs and double the number of people current population of homeless includes temporary shelter.

District manager Otto Lee said “NIMBYism” is one of the district’s greatest challenges, but one that can be met with confidence and the fears and expectations of increasing crime and epidemics in the tiny houses.

“When people can see the actual project that works like this pilot, they say, ‘Hey, it’s not as bad as I thought it was. “I think that will be the ultimate goal so that everyone can come together to support our ideas and help our residents,” said Lee.

However, Chavez said the shelters are only a temporary fix to address the emergency exacerbated by the pandemic. The county hopes to convert the land into permanent housing.

“This shelter and the land it is on symbolize how Santa Clara County will transition from temporary shelter to permanent shelter,” Chavez said. “In the meantime, we’re making the best use of this land and making sure we have more shelters until we can build all the permanent shelters we need.”

Site preparation and construction for Casitas de Esperanza totaled $ 1.4 million, with $ 1.6 million earmarked for maintenance and operations over the next two years.

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