Most of the time, sleeping on the street in America’s big cities means you are either mentally ill or high on drugs. These are the facts. The Homeless Industrial Complex would have you believe otherwise. Normal people are scared by the desperate tirades of drugged-out and mentally ill homeless people. The street milieu also breeds crime and degrades entire cities, as Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco can attest.
Businesses and citizens are fleeing those West Coast cities because of the “homeless”. This is especially true in Gavin Newsom’s California where San Francisco had a head start in encouraging lawbreakers, homeless addicts, and other criminals for many years.
The Hilton Hotel Group, as reported in this week’s news, plans to stop paying its bills on a $725,000,000 commercial mortgage-backed security (CMBS), which is secured by both the Hilton Union Square Hotel and the Parc 55. That’s correct: They’ll stop their payments because the city has abandoned the derelicts. He continues: “Unless someone steps in to buy them, those two hotels will shut down, and their shells become new monuments of the cost of electing Leftists as city leaders.”
Santa Barbara’s police chief does not want to see his city turn into San Francisco. Santa Barbara is among the most beautiful cities in the United States, and its residents don’t want it to change. This includes freeloaders. Kelly Gordon, the city’s chief of police, thinks that homelessness is becoming a serious problem in Santa Barbara and wants to give the homeless more tools. The situation has gotten worse. For example, people larger than yourself are required to accompany you into parking garages near the main street of the city, State Street.
Santa Barbara, while Seattle gives in to the extreme Left and refuses to enforce drug laws that are driving the “homeless” problem there, is taking an alternative approach that could help remove many people from the streets.
Gordon wants to start taking people with “psychiatric disorders” off the street on 5150 holds until they are in their right minds again.
Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors 6/6/2023 receives report “Deaths Among People Experiencing Homelessness in Santa Barbara County” for 2019 & 2020.https://t.co/gu5msVPPSu
Homelessness defined as “unstable or no housing during the year prior to death.” pic.twitter.com/jz6lw8UKeZ— Kevin Dayton (@DaytonPubPolicy) June 3, 2023
The graph shows that the death rate of homeless people in the city has nearly doubled from 2016 to 2020. This is likely due to fentanyl, which has been flooding the streets. In 2016, drugs were responsible for slightly less than 50% of street deaths. By 2020, this number will increase to 81%. The numbers only get worse.
Some people may have stopped taking their psychiatric medications and ended up on the street. Others may have suffered a mental breakdown due to lack of sleep. This could be due to days-long binges or “sleeping with one eye opened” due to predators. The Santa Barbara Independent reports that “Santa Barbara County, California, is the only county where law enforcement agencies do not have the authority to issue what is known as 5150 findings, meaning someone is so mentally sick they are an immediate threat to themselves or others.”
Chief Gordon wants more money and authority to remove those dangerous people from the streets. If she is allowed to do this and she follows through on her promise to use the 5150 holds, then she will be a vanguard for Governor Gavin Newsom’s otherwise dysfunctional homelessness approach.
Stephen Frank of Capitol Review reports that California has embraced the “housing-first” model. This means billions are being spent on housing without helping those they claim to be trying to help. He writes that mental illness is a serious issue. “Instead of acknowledging it as a problem, the government has made homelessness a problem. They build shelters and housing for homeless people but do not address the root cause.
We will be cheering for the Chief.
