Last week I took a look at the growing Bushville on the American River in Sacramento, which has been garnering national attention as a powerful symbol for these troubled economic times. It was clear at that time that the city government led by Mayor Kevin Johnson needed to do something to ameliorate the situation. The decision has been made.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to first make alternative shelter space available for the estimated 150 men and women who inhabit the squalid encampment near the American River, at the edge of the city's downtown.
Johnson, who toured the area with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a day earlier, said he hoped to have the ramshackle settlement cleared of tents and debris in the next two to three weeks.
"We want to move as quickly as we can," he told a news conference, insisting the city was determined to treat the tent dwellers with compassion.
"They are people out there. We have to do whatever we can do," he said. "We as a city are not going to shy away from it. We're going to tackle it head-on."
Advocates for the homeless applauded the mayor's action. Municipal authorities in Sacramento have been debating the fate of the tent city for weeks.
150 seems like a very low number, when news outlets have reported as many as 1,200 homeless staying in the encampment. Of course, that could simply be a matter of media overhype (local shelter organizers apparently fed this as well). However, even if the numbers are correct, finding shelter space for 150 deals with those made homeless as of today. With unemployment skyrocketing, there will be more left homeless tomorrow. And next week. And next month. While most in the encampment did not fit the profile of the "recession homeless" (a closer look reveals that the tent city grew out of multiple closures of other shelters, which is probably because of the recession anyway, so we can go around and around on this), such a group does exist and will need help over the next year as the state struggles. The fact that so many homes lie vacant and are owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, i.e. the US taxpayer, suggests there are solutions to this problem beyond the short term if creative solutions are made.
I first wrote about an Ontario-area Bushville, a tent city of foreclosed Americans, almost a year ago. At that time, it became too big to sustain itself, as people from across the country moved to the tent city to live. The city required that only residents of Ontario be allowed to stay.
A tent city is burgeoning in Sacramento, Calif., prompting local officials to consider whether such an encampment should be made permanent, with plumbing and all.
The primitive settlement sits in the shadow of the state capitol and is home to about 300 people who have no toilets or running water, creating unsanitary conditions that advocacy groups worry could promote diseases like cholera. With the downturn in the economy and more working-class people losing their jobs and their homes, the tent city is expanding [...]
This tent city is in a place of great natural beauty, between two rivers, with birds and open sky and a relatively mild climate. Homeless people have lived there for years, largely unseen, but as more working class people move in, the tents are multiplying and becoming harder to ignore.
The official count of homeless people in Sacramento is 1,226 people, and they are spilling out to the tent city because the housing shelters are full; one of the shelters is turning away more than 200 women and children a day.
Perhaps the most unbelievable part of this is that 10% of rental housing units in Sacramento, and almost 5% of owned units, are VACANT. We have nobody in the houses and people living in the tents by the river. And yet the housing owned by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency is maxed out. It's very upside-down.
I agree with Charles Lemos that this is a test of our humanity and values as a people. Fortunately, the generosity of ordinary people is extending beyond the policymakers. Since a story on the tent city appeared on Oprah and the Today show, donations have been pouring in. Portable toilets and a dumpster have been installed.
But that's a temporary solution. While $2.3 million is coming into Sacramento to deal with homelessness through the federal stimulus package, that's not going to be enough if foreclosures continue to rise. In February, the number of homes threatened went up 30% year-over-year and up 6% since January, despite several large banks agreeing to a temporary moratorium. Five of the top seven areas for foreclosures are in California - Stockton, Modesto, Merced, Riverside-San Bernardino and Bakersfield. While the first wave of subprime failures has already occurred, with unemployment still soaring we are starting to see unemployment-based foreclosures as a second wave. So I don't see any letup anytime soon, and Sacramento is going to have to meet this challenge of dealing with the wreckage of the Bush regime.
I think these open threads are working out. Hope you enjoy them. Here are a few thoughts.
• This is a week old, but Nick Kristof's column about Prop. 2 (the farm animal safety measure) is well worth your time.
• It's still up in the air whether or not we're going to have Alan Keyes on the California Presidential ballot in November. There's a lawsuit between two members of the American Independent Party over who should be their nominee. It seems to me the very definition of "frivolous," but as someone who deeply enjoys mocking Alan Keyes I have a dog in this fight, so do the right thing, Sacramento Superior Court!
• The Log Cabin Republicans, who I also like to call "gluttons for punishment," rolled out their No on 8 campaign last week. The website is Republicans Against 8. It's the libertarian thing to do to get government out of the bedroom, so hopefully they'll sway some folks.
For hundreds of homeless people, posing as phony hospital patients provided them a clean bed and cash. For the hospitals that processed them, it meant a full patient-load and a paycheck from the government.
Now some of those allegedly involved in what authorities say was a massive scheme have been charged with billing government programs for millions of dollars in unnecessary health services.
A hospital CEO was arrested Wednesday after federal agents raided three medical centers. City attorney Rocky Delgadillo's office has also sued the hospitals, saying they used homeless people as "human pawns."
It's kind of the flip side of homeless dumping, or who knows, it was run in concert. Either way, sickening.
• Jerry Lewis is trying to get a bunch of lobbyists to fund his Congressional portrait. The worst part about this deal is that Jerry Lewis will have a Congressional portrait hanging in our nation's capital.
Ian Brennan is an old friend of mine who produces music-- in concert and in the recording studio. He's done concerts as diverse as the Vienna Boys Choir, Green Day, Fugazi, Merle Haggard, Peaches and the Blind Boys of Alabama. But he as another life-- training people and organizations in violence prevention, anger-management, and conflict resolution, something he's been doing since 1993 at shelters, schools, hospitals, clinics, and drug-treatment programs across the country including such prestigious organizations as the Betty Ford Center, Bellevue Hopital (NYC), and Stanford University. Yesterday he told me about an effort he's been working on, basically all alone, in regard to recognizing that our society has a serious and growing problem with homeless people. Here is his report, cross-posted from DownWithTyranny.
Hey all. Sitting here in the spin room at the Kodak Theater prior to tonight's Democratic debate. The place is kind of swamped with media, and I guess Blitzer's doing his live show just outside, so there are a lot of sign-holders afoot.
Earlier today I was down at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, a community college near downtown, to watch a townhall meeting with Senator Barack Obama. A lot of his Southern California supporters were on hand, including Assemblyman Ted Lieu, labor leader Maria Elena Durazo, Congressmen Xavier Becerra and Adam Schiff, LA City Councilmembers Yvonne Burke and Bill Rosendahl, and State Senators Dean Florez, Gil Cedillo, and Majority Leader Gloria Romero. I have as much respect for Senators Cedillo and Romero as anyone in the State Senate. They have been at the forefront of taking on tough issues; in the case of Sen Romero, prison and sentencing reform (Obama expressed support for eliminating the crack/cocaine powder sentencing and for a more intelligent criminal justice system that deals with nonviolent offenders in a different way), and in the case of Sen. Cedillo, immigration measures like driver's licenses and the DREAM Act (which Obama said he would sign). It means a lot to me that they are on board Obama's campaign.
You may remember that in August, Gov. Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto pen to cancel $55 million in funding for the treatment and care of mentally ill homeless people.
If you don't remember it, shame on you. It should be the only thing you think of when you think of this governor. He should be forever known as the "Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator."
The claim was that Prop. 63, passed by the voters, adequately funded this need, and so the dedicated funding that passed the legislature as AB 2034 could be eliminated. That's not true. What was actually going on was that the governor was trying to limit political damage by cutting funding for people who don't vote and therefore aren't of his concern.
Advocates for the mentally ill filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger subverted the will of voters when he eliminated a $55-million program for the homeless mentally ill -- a program he himself had touted as a success.
The suit asks a judge to restore the eliminated funding, order the state to continue paying for the program and declare that the governor acted illegally -- an important provision, the advocates said, in establishing precedent for future disputes over mental health system funding.
The suit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, chosen because the plaintiffs include several mentally ill people in the county who credit the program with improving their lives -- helping them kick a drug habit, for instance, or move from the streets into their own apartment.
Allow me to file an amicus brief:
The Mentally Ill Homeless Terminator is a callous, small man.
Today's column in the LA Times takes the Governor to task for his unconscionable cut of homeless services that were working and saving money, in favor of a tax loophole for Dick Ackerman's yachting pals. Lopez has spent lots of time on the streets of Skid Row, and gotten to know the homeless people that struggle to survive down there. One of them, Bill Compton, died Monday, and it's grimly ironic that this happened at the same time that the program inspired by his successful move off the streets had its funding cut.
Bill Compton's Project Return helped pave the way for AB 2034, which, until its funding was cut by Schwarzenegger last week, was keeping nearly 5,000 people off the streets of California with a smart mix of housing and all the necessary support services.
The governor's staff has argued that the program can be funded with other revenues, such as money from the voter-approved Mental Health Services Act (Proposition 63). But state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, who introduced AB 2034 when he was in the Assembly, said the latter ploy is both illegal and a subversion of voter intent.
"I was sick to my stomach for two days," said Steinberg, who believed until last week that the governor would be on his side, particularly since the program has substantially reduced hospitalization, incarceration and criminal justice costs for its participants.
(Here's a Word doc of the Certificate. You can fax a PDF with a free trial at fax1.com.
Apparently fax1.com requires a non-free email service. If you want to send a free fax and you only have Yahoo! Mail or Gmail, use Fax Zero. - promoted by David Dayen)
This will be faxed to Sen. Ackerman's office today:
CERTIFICATE OF MERIT
The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless (NCYOWHTH) proudly bestows this award upon State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine), who has the courage and foresight to be a yachting enthusiast and not a mentally ill homeless person, and is therefore eligible for a major tax break instead of having his social services eliminated. As an organization of yachters who will also benefit from the same tax cut to the tune of $45 million dollars, coincidentally almost the same amount that would fund the rehabilitation program for mentally ill homeless people, we applaud this setting of the real priorities for our state. Sen. Ackerman has been a leader in the twin fields of yachting and not being homeless for many years, and we are pleased to award this certificate today. We ask you to be the keynote speaker at The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless clam bake in Tustin later this year. After all, there wouldn't be an organization this strong without you.
Sincerely,
David Dayen
Executive Director, The National Coalition of Yacht Owners Who Hate The Homeless
You can send this too:
Capitol Office fax: (916) 445-9754
District Office fax: (714) 573-1859
Here's some trivia about State Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman which may shed some light on the late round of budget cuts for social services. No, Ackerman's not a mentally ill homeless person, but he is a yacht owner.
Several lawmakers at the center of the budget dispute did not return phone calls or could not be reached. They included Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine -- a yacht owner who pushed to ease the tax burden on owners of yachts, planes and RVs.
An Ackerman spokesman said the senator was unavailable.
Here's a little more on this supposedly unnecessary mental health program, cleaved for the benefit of yachting aficianados everywhere:
It has served 13,000 people since November 1999. There are about 4,700 participants today. Among those enrolled as of January, there were 81% fewer days of incarceration, 65% fewer days of psychiatric hospitalization and 76% fewer days of homelessness compared with their pre-enrollment days.
Rusty Selix, executive director of the California Council of Community Mental Health Agencies -- like Steinberg, a Proposition 63 coauthor -- said the cost of incarceration can be six times higher than the cost of enrolling someone in the mental health program.
"Rehabilitation costs money. But it's worth it," said Adrienne Sheff, director of adult services at the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center in Van Nuys. Los Angeles County receives nearly a third of the state funds through AB 2034 and serves 1,700 people.
This program was designed to lessen the cost of those homeless who eat up emergency services - like the guy who showed up at San Diego ERs 87 times in a calendar year. Ultimately this move, done purely to satisfy short-sighted bean-counters, will end up costing the state far more. But that burden will be placed on municipalities and local governments, not the state coffers. Making the bean-counters - and yacht owners like Dick Ackerman - very, very happy.
OK, time for a little role-play. You're the post-partisan governor of a large state. The state budget comes into your hands with cuts almost to the bone, but you promised an additional $700 million and just don't know what to do. Who's going to get the shaft?
The Governor used his line item veto to cut the entire funding nearly $55 million for the AB 2034 housing program that serves over 4,700 adults with severe mental health needs, all of whom were homeless and frequently hospitalized or incarcerated before getting into the program. The Governor said in his veto message deleting the funding that:
"...while I support the goals of the program, this reduction is necessary to limit program expansions and to help bring ongoing expenditures in line with existing resources. To the extent counties find this program beneficial and cost-effective, it can be restructured to meet the needs of each county's homeless population using other county funding sources, such as federal funds, realignment funds, or Proposition 63 funds. I am reducing Schedule (6) to eliminate the $12,000,000 legislative augmentation for the 5 percent rate restoration for mental health managed care. This technical veto is consistent with the legislative action taken in [Budget] Item 4440-103-0001."
Mental health advocates say that the immediate effect of the funding cut by the Governor could result in thousands of those people in the program being forced back on the streets at risk of hospitalization and incarceration... The actual outcome of these programs depend on response of local mental health agencies and the Department of Mental Health - but advocates say the cut seeks to supplant funding from the landmark Proposition 63 Mental Health Services Act - funding that was meant they say only for new community based programs - and specifically not meant to fund existing programs.
This is a bait and switch we've seen before by budgetary bean counters. Dedicated funding that's supposed to go ON TOP of budget outlays ends up being the only funding source. So the will of the voters is completely overturned; instead of supplementary mental health funding, Prop. 63 becomes the sole funding.
There were some other cuts, including $6.3 million that would have gone toward the California Discount Prescription Drug Program. But the mentally ill homeless cuts were the most drastic. And it once again shows that those with the softest voice end up getting hit the hardest.
You would think that a governor would try to step in on July 16 when a budget is due July 1. And you would think he would be doing everything he can to manage the prison crisis given the rapidly approaching deadline when judges may cap the number of inmates. But you're just not post-partisan (or lazy as hell, you choose).
last week closed with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attention thousands of miles east as he ventured to Florida for a turn before the cameras and a $25,000-per-table Republican party fundraiser.
To Capitol insiders, the trip was the latest troubling evidence that despite the many big issues before him, the governor's interest in the nuts and bolts of governing has ebbed. Splashy announcements remain his trademark, but after the cameras pack up, Schwarzenegger has often not followed through. As a result, key parts of his agenda are foundering.
I think my biggest problem with those paragraphs is the word "ebbed." When was he EVER interested in governing? Sure, he likes magazine covers, and getting to wear anything with the California state seal on it, but actually GOVERNING. Not his style.
(nice Christmas tale for you. Apparently due to pressure, they're going to open the shelter after all, but the initial reaction by the council says it all. - promoted by dday)
My lovely hometown council told the homeless of our community to freeze to death. In their last meeting of the year before heading to their warm homes in our suburban town, they denied a request by the Interfaith Community Services to use their own building to house a few homeless during our unprecedented cold snap we're having (temps have pretty regularly dipped below 30F, which is very cold for a So Cal town):
Four of the five council members said during their last meeting of the year that they couldn't support a request by officials of the Salvation Army and Interfaith Community Services to open a temporary winter shelter in the gymnasium of the Salvation Army at Las Villas Way near Centre City and El Norte parkways.
The council didn't vote on the matter because no motion was made. Only Mayor Lori Holt-Pfeiler, who put the item on the meeting agenda, said she supported opening the shelter. No city money was requested for the shelter, only the council's approval of the building's additional use. From the NC Times. Read the comments, they're amazingly gross at times.
This will be faxed to Sen. Ackerman's office today: