Record Homelessness in California is No Coincidence
According to The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, roughly 25% of our nation’s homeless reside in California. This is not a coincidence. Instead, this is a government-created, state-enhanced legislative crisis.
California lawmakers have decriminalized vagrancy, public defecation, drug use, and theft. This was all done under the state’s false promise to transfer funds from criminal prosecution to homeless services. Needless to say, that never happened. There are serious allegations that elected officials misappropriated funds and self-enriched. So, promises were broken, greed prevailed, and the homeless suffer.
Further adding to the suffering is the lack of criminal law enforcement. Legal intervention is far superior to decriminalization and inaction.
Essentially, California lawmakers have normalized and legalized these behaviors with a harmful impact on the homeless. The police can’t do anything. When the police were allowed to arrest the homeless for illegal conduct, at a minimum, they would appear before a judge who would mandate court-ordered drug treatment, mental health counseling, and assistance programs for jobs, training, or housing. In the absence of intervention, necessary help is not received, and a vicious cycle is created.
The cycle begins with legalized vagrancy. Without laws preventing vagrancy, the homeless are free to remain on the street. Without laws preventing theft, the homeless can steal. They frequently steal to feed their drug problem. Without laws preventing drug use, they can freely and openly use drugs. Worse yet, homeless from legally stricter states flee to California for freedom, thereby making the problem larger.
The problem is now unstoppable. The homeless are left with no choice but to live their life of addiction or mental illness on the streets. Those under extreme financial hardship are also given no choice because appropriate assistance programs were never adequately funded and misallocated. Once again, under the guise of helping the less fortunate, California lawmakers have done nothing more than creating a bigger problem.
