The League of Women Voters of San Luis Obispo County urges the county and incorporated cities to address housing and homelessness as a priority goal as they develop their work plans for the coming budget cycle. As part of this goal, we ask that they take part in developing and approving the Regional Compact on Homelessness as a basis for coordinating the work countywide.
In August 2022 the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors adopted the San Luis Obispo Countywide Plan to Address Homelessness: 2022-2027. The goal of this five-year plan is to reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness by 50 percent. To achieve this goal, it is essential that the provision of housing and services be coordinated. Lack of coordination in the current system has caused duplication of efforts, competition for resources, service gaps, and an inability to manage efforts effectively across the county.
A Regional Compact for Homelessness will enable the county and cities to allocate responsibilities and resources efficiently. Each jurisdiction will have input on this process to ensure that the burdens and benefits are fairly shared.
Right now, as jurisdictions in SLO County are going through goal setting and adopting work plans for the current budget cycle, each jurisdiction should adopt plans on housing and homelessness, including a plan to join the Regional Compact on Homelessness, as a priority goal. Homelessness is the critical social issue of our day and one that the county and cities must address together.
We urge all residents to ask their city councils to include the Regional Compact in their plans.
Cindy Marie Absey
president
League of Women Voters
San Luis Obispo County
This article appears in Weddings 2023.
We’ve been fighting the “War on Poverty” since the 60s. I would imagine those that are homeless are living in poverty. The problem grows by leaps and bounds as government gets more involved and spends more $. How much more failure do we need to see from government before we realize that they aren’t going to fix this issue? The more you enable people the more dependent they become.
Homelessness is largely a matter of addiction and/or mental illness, and no amount of planning, housing and services will help with their downward spiral of self destruction. At best, involuntary institutionalization can temporarily halt self destruction, but is prohibited by Constitutional restraints.
Here again we have two people who know nothing about homelessness weighing in on its causes and solutions. Tony V says, “The more you enable people the more dependent they become,” also known as the Stray Dog theory: If you feed them, they’ll keep coming back. Better to ignore them and hope they starve to death, I guess, because theirs is such an enviable lifestyle. And, reliably, Johnny D–the Expert on Everything–informs us that people are homeless because of addiction and mental illness, which does little to explain why there is much less homelessness in areas with low housing costs and even higher rates of addiction. Because this in fact is what makes people homeless: The inability to afford a house. Let’s see how your mental health fares after living on the streets for a few weeks, John. (The NIH estimates that alcohol abuse is present in less than 40% among the homeless, and drug abuse less than 15%, but these are just “facts” and they never, ever get in the way of John’s opinin’.) Both readers make the mistake of thinking that those they see on the streets represent the majority of the homeless, ignoring the women and children who make up a higher percentage than generally known, because women hide their homelessness for their own safety. I know a bitty bit about this, gentlemen.
According to Tsankawi, we shouldn’t believe our own, lying eyes when we see a ranting meth zombie or drunk passed out in their own urine – their problem is actually just the high cost of housing. The NIH estimates of addiction are hardly authoritative, as they rely upon self-reporting, and many if not most are in denial about their problem. It is not surprising that high cost areas have more homeless, as these are the more desirable areas and the homeless are mobile and not stuck in any one area. He also counts the voluntarily homeless, such as the functional folks depicted in the movie “Nomadland” who travel to seasonal employment. If throwing benefits at the homeless works, why is the problem in very generous San Francisco getting worse?
Note to John Donegan: Anecdotes do not equal data. Yes, the “homeless” person you are most likely to see is someone who doesn’t mind being seen, and these are the ones most likely to have issues of addiction and/or mental illness. Note also that some people you think are homeless are not; some housed individuals panhandle to supplement their income. Also, the majority of homeless individuals do not “migrate;” can you imagine how much it costs to move from one city to another, when you have no money, no transportation? Opinions are great–god knows I have plenty, including some ill-informed ones–but when you pretend your opinions are backed by facts, you can lose an argument pretty quickly. Shouting doesn’t improve your facts, either.
Data is only as good as the methodology used to collect it. When your source is the notoriously subjective and unreliable self-reporting of the homeless, especially on how they came to become homeless, it may be at best incomplete. And, if someone is living in their car, or traveling by bus or hitchhiking, it wouldn’t seem that they would have ANY moving cost. They are the most mobile people in our population, and rational enough to choose the most desirable locations (“Bakersfield or SLO? Hmmmm”.). In San Francisco, the vast majority of the homeless are from someplace else.