POLITICO wrote a very long, and “important” piece about California’s Project Roomkey (now Homekey), and how it could change the face of California’s homelessness crisis, and maybe resolve it nationwide.
With 50 percent of the nation’s homelessness isolated to California, it appears it is a crisis of our own making; especially since homelessness has been on decline in every other state except California and New York.
USAFacts.org (a non-partisan organisation that tracks this) has California homelessness at 161,548. New York ranks second with 91 271. Every other state goes down from there and doesn’t even reach to 30,000. The statistics shows data from 2007-2020, and California, New York, and Massachusetts (17,975) are the only states where homeless has increased. All 47 other states have experienced a decline in their homelessness rate.
So this so-called solution to California’s unique problem should also be isolated to the state and should not reach beyond its borders. Some states do an excellent job of managing homeless. California is not doing the same.
In too many words, POLITICO is doing what it does best: Polishing Governor Gavin Newsom’s turds.
The publication first lies by claiming that only 30% of those who are chronically homeless do not cause homelessness. According to the writers, 70 percent of people who have been homeless for more than a decade are those in need.
People often think about homelessness when they picture those who are chronically and visibly homeless. — many of whom suffer from mental illness, behavioral disorders and substance abuse issues that keep them from holding down jobs. However, chronic cases only make up a small percentage of the population. In California, only 30 percent of the people experiencing homelessness in January 2020 had been homeless for at least 12 months of the previous three years, according to a HUD count, which means about 70 percent were newly homeless — often low-income people who’d fallen on hard times and found themselves without a home for the first time in their lives.
“What you don’t see are that many, many of those folks who are out there are getting out of their tents and going to jobs,” said Margot Kushel, head of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative in San Francisco. Kushel, a physician who has studied homelessness’ impact on health, was one of the experts in the room when Newsom’s staff came up with the hotel conversion plan.
As anyone living in major cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles can see, this is fiction that has been published. Erica J. Sandberg, a journalist who closely follows the issue of homelessness and reports on the crisis in San Francisco as a result. Urban Alchemy and Positive Directions Treatment, Recovery, and Prevention Program are two examples of community programs that aim to reduce homelessness and build human lives. It is not work.
She said she’d read it.
“That article was insane. It’s like it was written by someone who is an alien, that’s how insane it was,” she said.
When asked about her assessment of the Project Roomkey model, she had much to say—none of it positive.
“They have rebranded them to ‘Permanent Support Housing.’ Here’s the problem: Take out the word “support.” There is no “supportive” in this equation,” she said.
“You are taking people with very serious problems and placing them in housing without any structure or support. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
POLITICO features glossy pictures of two individuals who have been placed in the new “Homekey” program, and who fit the “citizen down on their luck,” profile, as well as gorgeous views of the new facilities.
The article interviews “leaders” on the homelessness front in California. These are the very same people who, frankly speaking, have overseen the crisis’s growth while simultaneously lining their pockets.
One such nonprofit is PATH (People Assisting the Homeless). Secy of State Rob Bonta recently indicted three women for fraud and corruption related to this organization. What about the other organizations? How many are they operating below board when no one calls them out?
The leaders immediately blame everything: the housing crisis, the NIMBY mindset of Uber-riches and the reason the homeless are not housed.
California has been throwing ever-larger sums of money at homelessness for years, only to see the homeless population continue to surge, increasing by 40 percent in just the last five years. What made Homekey different was the way it streamlined regulations in a state notorious for erecting some of the most onerous and costly barriers to the development of affordable housing.
The Homekey project — and others like it — gets around those hurdles by focusing on existing buildings handpicked by the communities themselves.
Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, one of Newsom’s fiercest critics, has never been shy about pointing out the failures of simply adding to the original $12 billion price tag to combat homelessness, rather than dealing with the root problems: mental illness and drug abuse.
“Everything he’s done in regard to the homeless has been a total failure. Newsom’s operating model seems to be to throw money at it, he said.
“There has been no evidence that this Project Roomkey model works. The state’s general operating budget has increased year after year, and the results have been less and less. Instead of reducing the amount of homelessness, we have seen it increasing.”
One week prior to the September Recall Newsom election I wrote about how much money was wasted on Project Roomkey pilot, even though hardworking people, who are not affected by mental or substance problems, can still find housing in California. Newsom was not opposed to bending CEQA regulations in Project Roomkey but not for more affordable single-family homes.
California Globe reported also the truth on the waste from the pilot program.
The notorious Project Roomkey practice of leaving hotels rooms vacant was a hallmark. At its highest point, the state only filled out about half of the hotel rooms it had rented, with statistics from May showing that only around 7,000 of the 17,000 hotel rooms had been filled. While counties such as Sacramento and San Francisco were well above the filled-room average, counties such as San Diego and Orange barely reached a quarter filled. The filled percent in Los Angeles was never higher than 30%.
[…]
“It was a $100 million program that, in the end, only housed less than 5,000 people,” former county-homeless liaison Edgar Powe explained to the Globe. “Not only was it mismanaged, but they forgot how many homeless people actually volunteer for this sort of thing.”
“Seasoned homeless people are vary wary of relocations because they have been burned by them before, such as anytime they are forced out of areas for big events that come up. Some prefer to live on the streets and they don’t have any help. Others have a line on more stable housing and don’t want to jeopardize it. Others didn’t want that 7 P.M. curfew and found it insulting. And the list goes on.”
POLITICO didn’t bother to visit San Francisco, where the Project Roomkey facilities open only a few months, are already being overrun by the chronically homeless OUTSIDE of the facility, as well as inside.
#SFPanoramic is a 3 year-old apartment building that can be converted into a homeless hotel. Blocks away, there are drug dealers already at this intersection. @LondonBreedis to put in a sobering meth center.
This will make matters worse or better. pic.twitter.com/ztZnt3GXGe
— CleanUpSOMAWest (@CleanUpWestSoma) September 10, 2021
Sandberg spoke the truth for power
“They have created complete chaos, inside the hotels and in the community.
“What happened on the outside is occurring inside. People treat it like it’s the outside. Sh*tting inside of rooms. It’s not okay. It’s not a solution, nor is it ethical.”
Asm. Kiley was also adamant:
“The government approach gets it backwards.
“It’s hard to get someone invested in taking the steps to rebuild their lives when you give them a room without the resources. Some form of transitional housing must offer mental or treatment counseling.
“Have facilities away from where people live. Away from the residential center of a town.”
This does not aim to end homelessness. Instead, it would require treating all homeless persons as people and providing them with the support and tools they need in order to integrate into the society and become part of their community. Although Dr. Drew Pinsky believes that the solutions are moving in the right direction and the leaders of the homeless industry believe he is not fit to serve on a Los Angeles Commission for homelessness, As long as these people get to collect a paycheck, they’ll keep homelessness going until the end of time.
Sandberg exposes the motivation behind the support of a flawed program for homelessness.
“It alleviates the guilt when they [the elites]You will see them out on the streets. If they no longer see them on the street—poof! Problem solved. It allows politicians the ability to say see, I’m doing somethingYou can!
“It’s a big, colossal waste of money, and a big, colossal waste of human empathy.
“It makes so angry,” Sandberg said.
Project Roomkey gives the impression that the problem will be resolved if the homeless are put into some type of housing. The social engineering program is a complete failure to show compassion. The state has made the same insane push for vaccinating people as it did with the push to help the homeless. One size fits all and no one solution is the best. If you cannot get on board with the solutions imposed by the state, then you are simply someone who doesn’t want the problem to be solved.
“We’re not objects you just set someplace. There is no such thing as ‘putting people’ – it’s really offensive to say you’re moving people around, like animals in a cage,” Sandberg said.
“No one who reports on this has been inside the hotels. But, if you want to focus on the anomalies, go for it.”
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