
As homelessness surges in California, so does a backlash - simonebrunozzi
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/10/21/breaking-news/as-homelessness-surges-in-california-so-does-a-backlash/
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mdorazio
There are multiple sides to this issue. On one side, homeless people often
seem to feel entitled to live wherever they want to without paying a penny in
rent or taxes, while actual residents in California are paying through the
nose in both those categories. People like myself don't believe people have
the right to live wherever they want regardless of ability to afford it. This
obviously creates tensions.

On another side, California's housing policies at both the government and
NIMBY homeowner level have been so asinine for so long that it's impossible
for lower-income people to afford rent in major metro areas and people are
finding themselves on the street after being priced out of their own homes on
a regular basis. Then they stay in the same area, homeless, because of reason
#1 above.

On a third side, Californians have been paying a huge amount of money for
homeless programs, rehab programs, education programs, and I don't even know
what else (it's hard to keep up with all the ballot measures) for quite some
time with limited visible effect. Now there are measures to build homeless
shelters not in places where residents wouldn't complain, but in extremely
high property value places like Marina del Rey. Again, see reason #1 above.

And on yet another side, articles like [1] like to downplay the effects of
homeless immigration from other states, but at least 13% of SoCal homeless
people came from somewhere else. Politicians at the federal level like to tout
dropping national homeless numbers as something to be proud of, but in reality
Californians are paying, at least in part, for other states' refusal to deal
with their own homeless problems.

[1]
[https://www.politifact.com/california/article/2018/jun/28/di...](https://www.politifact.com/california/article/2018/jun/28/dispelling-
myths-about-californias-homeless/)

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DoreenMichele
At some point, I began skimming, but this article doesn't even seem to list
the worst stuff.

I archived the San Diego Homeless Survival Guide (and started Street Life
Solutions as its replacement) I part because of a string of murders. Someone
was setting tents on fire.

There was also a deadly Hepatitis outbreak disproportionately impacting the
homeless population and other things that factored into my decision, but some
of the backlash against the homeless in California literally includes
murdering some of the homeless.

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Causality1
The government of California has been systematically attacking its own housing
market for years and this is the entirely predictable (and predicted) result.
Regulations and zoning discourages new housing construction while rent control
drives housing providers out of the market.

