Christopher Rufo reports on escalating homelessness in San Francisco. As he reports, the city has tried many approaches, yet nothing seems to be working. It is, indeed, an incredibly complex issue that is taxing experts from many specialties. In his article at Real Clear Investigations, Rufo offers many facts and figures, as well as a concern that the currently favored approach, destigmatizing hopelessness and addiction, leads only to more of the same. Here are two excerpts:

The nexus between homelessness, addiction, and crime is clear: According to city and federal data, virtually all of the unsheltered homeless are unemployed, while at the same time, those with serious addictions spend an average of $1,256 to $1,834 a month on methamphetamine and heroin. With no legitimate source of income, many addicts support their habit through a “hustle,” which can include fraud, prostitution, car break-ins, burglaries of residences and business, and other forms of theft.

Boudin’s plan to decriminalize such property offenses – the mirror opposite of the low-tolerance “broken windows” approach adopted in the late 1980s as crime rates began historic declines – has contributed to the sense that he is not holding criminals accountable. In 2019, the city had an incredible 25,667 “smash-and-grabs,” as thieves sought valuables and other property from cars to sell on the black market. The following year, rather than attempt to prevent or even disincentivize this crime, Boudin has proposed a $1.5 million fund to pay for auto glass repair, arguing that it “will help put money into San Francisco jobs and San Francisco businesses.” In literal terms, Boudin is subsidizing broken windows, under the notion that it can be transformed into a job-creation program.

. . .

The final plank of San Francisco’s policy platform is “destigmatization.” Public health experts in the city have gradually abandoned recovery and sobriety as the ideal outcome, preferring the limited goal of “harm reduction.” In a recent task force report on methamphetamine, the San Francisco Public Health Department noted that meth users “are likely to experience high levels of stigma and rejection in their personal and social lives,” which are “often reinforced by language and media portrayals depicting individuals who use alongside images of immorality, having chaotic lives, and perpetual use.”

On the surface, this is a strange contention. If San Francisco’s perilous trifecta is any guide, methamphetamine use is heavily correlated with chaotic lives, perpetual drug abuse, crimes against others, and various transgressions against traditional morality. The harm reductionists’ argument, however, rests on the belief that addiction is an involuntary brain disease, akin to Alzheimer’s or dementia. In this view, addiction is better seen as a disability, and any stigma associated with it is therefore an act of ignorance and cruelty. According to the Department of Public Health, the goal of harm reduction policy is to reduce this unjustified stigma and focus public policy on “non-abstinence-based residential treatment programs,” “supervised injection services,” “trauma-informed sobering site[s],” and “training for staff on how to engage marginalized or vulnerable communities in ways that do not perpetuate trauma or stigma.”

Michael Schellenberger has also recently posted twice on the homeless problem in California, including San Francisco. He notes that between 2010 and 2020, homelessness “rose 31 percent in California but declined 18 percent in the rest of the U.S.” He also notes that there are currently 100,000 unsheltered homeless people in California, and their situation is “precarious and urgent.” Here is an excerpt from Shellenberger’s article critical of the failure to address the problem in a way that reduced homelessness:

[T]he governor and his task force have still not built agreement around a real solution. I asked Jeff Bellisario, a representative of the Bay Area Council, an influential business advocacy group, who also part of the governor’s task force, if Newsom or the task force had developed a plan to end homelessness.

“No,” he said.

What about a proposal to just shelter people?

“There’s a lot of power in Sacramento on the Housing First side,” said Bellisario, “and few people talking about shelter. Housing First has taken over a lot of what happens on the ground whether in the nonprofits or cities and counties. In the end we ended up with nothing.”

According to the Housing First philosophy, homeless people should just be given their own apartments with no requirement that they address their self-destructive behaviors. As a result, the evidence suggests that Housing First may be increasing addiction and overdose deaths by making drug use easier and recovery harder.

Shellenberger has proposed what he characterizes as real solutions in his May 1 article, “Why California Governor Gavin Newsom Keeps Making Homelessness Worse. Plus: How It To Solve the Problem, Once and For All.”  An excerpt: