California's Homelessness Problem

CALIFORNIA’S HOMELESSNESS PROBLEM

Californians by a bare 50.2% majority have passed Proposition 1 to deal with California’s homelessness crisis. California now has 180,000 homeless people, and some streets in downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco are lined with tarpaulins sheltering the homeless. Many of these (some estimates are as high as two thirds) are suffering from mental illness. Others suffer from substance abuse disorders, made worse by fentanyl. The proposition specifically addresses both of these problems, allotting $6.4 billion to them, financing 11,000 treatment beds and housing units with health care and social services. The proposition may lead to more involuntary treatment: this year California began ”a program that would allow courts to compel people with severe, untreated mental illness into treatment”, called CARE courts.

It is worrying that Proposition 1 squeaked by with a majority of only 30,000 votes out of more than 7 million cast. Support for the measure is shaky, but anyone who has seen the effect of homelessness in California’s cities has to realize that something must be done. 

Source: The New York Times 3/23/24