California boasts the highest population, largest economy, and most visitors of any state in the United States. The Golden State claims the most billionaires and produces the most food. It is home to the country’s largest trees, hottest desert, and arguably the best weather. The state is no stranger to being at the top of lists. But due to a worsening housing crisis, California has gained an unpleasant title: the state with the largest homeless population.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there are 134,000 homeless individuals in California. That is 25 percent of the United States’ total homeless population. California has the third-highest rate of homelessness per capita, after Hawaii and New York. Among U.S. cities with the highest number of homeless people, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and San Francisco all crack the top ten.
Even more striking are the conditions in which California’s homeless live. Sixty-eight percent, or 91,600, of California’s homeless individuals are unsheltered. Compare that with New York, where all but 5 percent of homeless people have some form of regular shelter. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the conditions are poor enough to be considered “a violation of human rights,” according to an October United Nations report. Citing the discouraging and dismantling of tent cities, U.N. special rapporteur Leilani Farha called the area’s policies “cruel and inhuman.” She added, “California is a rich state, by any measures, the United States is a rich country, and to see these deplorable conditions that the government is allowing, by international human rights standards, it’s unacceptable.”
Yet, California’s problem is only getting worse. The state’s homeless population grew by 13.7 percent from 2016-2017, far outpacing the national rate. Jennifer Hark Dietz, Deputy CEO and Executive Director at People Assisting the Homeless said the state’s lack of housing is a big part of the problem.
“We all know that we need more housing. There’s a serious demand for housing, and what we see is that the most vulnerable are going to stay on the streets longer if there’s not more housing available,” said Dietz.
That lack of housing is not a problem limited to wealthy, coastal communities. It persists throughout California.
“LA is not as affordable as it once was, right?” said Dietz. “There’s pockets, but they’re getting harder and harder to find… Places that used to be affordable to families and individuals are really no longer there. The economy hasn’t kept up. Individuals’ income has not kept up with the price of housing.”
In fact, for young Californians, buying a home now is exponentially more difficult than it was fifty years ago. In 1968, the average home was three times the income of an average family aged 25-34. Now, the average home costs seven times a young family’s income. Renting is almost as difficult. Twenty-nine percent of Californians spend at least half of their income on rent. A 2018 report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that California is short over one million rental homes for extremely low income people. With demand outpacing supply, prices increase, and people find themselves on the streets.
Housing 134,000 people is an expensive and nuanced task, but recently several communities and leaders have enacted policy aimed at doing just that. This year, Los Angelenos approved measure H and proposition HHH. The former generates around $350 million a year for services designed to prevent homelessness. The latter is a property tax set to create $1.2 billion that will go directly to building affordable homes. Just last week, San Jose announced that it would pay some homeless residents $15 per hour to pick up litter in heavily-trafficked areas.
Today, Californians go to the polls to decide the fate of three propositions that proponents say would ease the housing crisis.
Proposition 1 would allocate $4 billion to expand existing programs aimed at easing California’s Housing Crisis. Dietz supports the measure because “it’s going to give additional funding to individuals, veterans, who are experiencing homelessness by allowing us to build affordable housing with supportive services that we know are necessary to sustain that housing,” she said. The proposition, which would be the largest ever statewide investment in housing, is supported by veterans groups, Habitat for Humanity, domestic violence prevention advocates, and more. “I think when you look at prop 1 and prop 2, and put them together, this is a significant impact for the state” said Dietz, which brings us to proposition 2.
Proposition 2 exists at the intersection of housing and mental health. The state has a pool of money dedicated to mental health services. If proposition 2 passes, some of that money could be used to finance housing for people with mental illnesses who are experiencing homelessness. “So many people living with mental illness are out on the street. How can you recover when you don’t have a home?” asked Zima Creason, President and CEO of Mental Health America of California, who is on the ballot today as a school board candidate in the San Juan school district near Sacramento. “You can’t really get well until you have a roof over your head… So if I can get someone housing first, and then make sure they have the services, so not just the house, full wrap around services for their mental health and physical health to really keep someone on the road to recovery, that helps best.”
Creason’s reasoning is supported by a “Housing First” philosophy, in which finding stable housing is necessary before other issues can be addressed. The philosophy is gaining traction in the mental health community, but Gigi Crowder, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Contra Costa does not buy it.
“Independent style living for those with the most severe mental illnesses is probably not the best approach to take because of the nature of the illness,” she said. She believes proposition 2’s proponents need to be more specific about the services that will be provided along with the housing. “You gotta say more than comprehensive services. We want housing, but we know you’re going to need wrap around services that include the person checking in on the individual frequently, not once a week, not twice, I mean almost really living in the home.”
Otherwise, Crowder is worried the turnover rate in the new units will be high, and developers will end up benefitting the most. But advocates, including the majority of those in the mental health community, believe that the housing crisis for people with mental health issues must be addressed immediately.
Creason would like to see even more investment. “This is a drop in the bucket,” she said. “I think it’s a good drop in the bucket. We need to do it. We can afford it, but it’s a drop in the bucket nonetheless.”
The most contentious of the three propositions is proposition 10, which would allow local jurisdictions more freedom in imposing rent control. Proponents argue that large corporate landlords benefit from excessively high rent costs at the expense of Californians. Allowing cities to place controls on those landlords would ease the burden of low-income renters. Opponents decry placing local ‘bureaucrats’ in charge of housing, and argue that the supply of housing would decrease in two ways. Rent control would discourage new construction, and landlords would take homes off the market in favor of the profitable short-term vacation rental industry.
In a debate with Lucas Zucker, Policy Director at CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy), Betty Jeppesen of the Santa Barbara Rental Association cites a proposition 10 passage that states, “landlords may charge for new tenants, new construction, and single-family homes.” Zucker focused on the fact that local rent control boards would have to approve such changes, and followed with, “If this was bad for renters, all the tenant organizations in the state wouldn’t be supporting it. Zucker acknowledged that “rent control is not the silver bullet,” but believes “it is part of a comprehensive solution.”
The major newspaper opinion papers are split on the proposition, with the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee supporting it, while the San Francisco Chronicle and San Diego Tribune oppose it.
Some cities and counties are voting on local measures as well, including San Francisco, which is considering a tax on big businesses to aid homeless prevention. While California is focusing heavily on housing this election cycle, even more investment may be needed to solve the crisis. Creason said she “would like to see more systems coming together so we’re addressing this issue intersectionally to help this greater widespread need.”
Still, there is hope. “I think people are definitely in a space where they want a solution,” said Dietz. “We don’t want to put a Band-Aid on it, right? We want to have a lasting outcome, and I think props 1 and 2 really demonstrate that.”
Now, it’s in the hand of the voters, and today Californians will decide whether they think these measures address the growing housing crisis the right way. Stay tuned for the results in our next Weekly World Briefing.
