Politics The Joe Biden Thread

California has more than enough money to solve their current problem.

$7.2 billion is $41,860 per homeless person in California, every year.

That's more than enough to cover a studio apartment for every homeless person twice over. Even in California.

And that doesn't consider savings for families in multi room apartments...

Something like 90% of homeless in California are from California. And 75% have had an address in the county they're homeless in.

It comes down to leadership. Newsom has the tools to solve this problem in California.

I'm not saying he's the problem, but actually solving the issue would go a long way toward showing he's a capable leader.

If California solved it's homeless problem under Newsom he'd be a shoo in to win the presidency, IMO.

 

If I'm running California I fly all my homeless to Florida ...3 local drunks in exchange for each hard working hispanic refugee.

 

With America's two party system this corrupt, Biden is only slowing down our collapse. This two party tyranny must end.

If America ends up with Trump again, it will be the democrats present to America for believing in them. Since they couldn't stop Trump from running somehow.

I keep hearing about Trump being barred from running. We have yet to see that happen. Personally, I think the democrats want to run against Trump. If you have seen the polls. We should all fear this, more than most seem to do now.

Instead of being barred yet. The democrats played their cards out long enough to drag Trump's crimes into an election year. This seems to be their only play to get your votes. Scare your ass with the big orange ape. Pathetic plan imo.

 

I do not think this is something that can be done short term, no matter how capable someone is, especially when Covid was such a huge issue with homelessness - it provided the double-whamy of loss of income for many in weak positions while artificially increasing the price of real-estate with the work from home movement which made a lot of people that had homes before become homeless.

Add the fact that money is not the only issue. There are court issues and city property issues - a lot of encampments cleanups that CA govt. wanted to do were blocked by the courts even tho there were housing and services offered under the 5th amendment (protection against the taking of property by the government without compensation) - even tho it is arguable if the encampments are the homeless properties. Now, even if money is provided for housing, there is a lot of work to get sites, zoning, building etc...

So, the way I judge a candidate like Newsom is on what he says and what he tries to do within the very complicated system of the US and state government. Can he be better? Who can't? Show me someone that is able to hit 100% on all the tasks he has to perform, especially in a complicated system like modern governance (which is why I think anyone that judges politicians in a binary system is out of touch). He has clearly been active on social issues, from same sex marriage in his days as the SF Mayor to health issues and rent relief programs during the Covid pandemic, homeless issues since and actively working on the more traditional governance issues (California's economy contracted less than most during Covid and recovered faster, for example).

 

I don't think this makes any sense. California needs to be better than that and solve it's own problems. Just because heartless bastards do what they do in Florida does not mean that California should do the same. What California needs to do is a lot more affordable housing programs - and while there is a lot of talk about it, it is just a slow process because of all the real estate and zoning problems.

 

California needs the labor force in agriculture and you think it's heartless to swap homeless Americans for unwanted hispanic refugees DeSantis already has flown into Sacramento? I thought California was actually a sanctuary state and Florida wants "muricans only"? Of course I'm being sarcastic but actually when it comes to GOP policies I'm ready to fight fire with fire. Give them what they wish for...more white people only make sure they are the lazy parasitical types . Affordable housing is what the priority should be in California, that I agree with.

 

Yes, I think forcing people, homeless or not, against their will, is heartless.

No one is stopping people that want to move to Florida from California from leaving the state. As it is a problem to move people in homeless encampments to state provided housing as is, I doubt it very much that there is a glut of homeless people in California that are chomping at the bits to move to Florida and can't do it on their own.

 

I'll give you that. It's a lot of people. But there is enough time to see clear progress. Certainly more than just getting money in and doing nothing with it. Leaders get around those obstacles by offering incentives and compromise.

Most homeless people would GLADLY accept an apartment if they were given complete autonomy over themselves (within the law). They would GLADLY move their stuff there, especially with the help of transport. Or they would likely gladly sell nearly all of it for a few hundred dollars. This may be slower than just dumping it all in the trash, but it would be steady progress in the right direction. I would be willing to bet you could get plenty of volunteers to help clean their neighborhoods up by providing transport.

The fact that he pushed for more money in the coffers doesn't impress me. All politicians want that. He's got the money. A good leader will start making an impact. Much of the work can be done fairly quickly if an honest effort is given. Even in the US.

There are solutions to these problems, but it will take somebody wanting to actually solve them enough, who has enough leadership skills to execute that vision.

I'm not saying Newsom can't do it, or doesn't want to. I'm just saying... good leaders solve tough problems.

I'd love to see it. We desperately need good leaders with good intentions.

 

There is a good article about it from about 2 months ago:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/us/california-homeless-spending/index.html

Some of the issues mentioned that the state does is trying to force local communities to build more affordable housing, the fact that some people do not want to accept the free housing, again, leaders need to ensure to make the resources available for the solutions and continuously work for it. Again, anyone that says it is an easy thing to do in 5 years, where 3 of them also including a global pandemic is, imho, out of their depth. I can judge Newsom on what he has done with what he has so far, and to me at least, it seems like his heart is in the right place (can't say that for most politicians) and he is actually doing the legwork.

I do not believe this will be solved within 4, 8 or 10 years honestly - the systems in the US are just too cumbersome for it. But, I believe I once heard him say that success is not a place, it's a trend. This, I believe in.

 

Well you could offer the free trip to Florida and see who signs on because I'm sorry but the ways and means of a homeless person do not allow for the expense of relocating...hell my family in California with jobs and houses would have a hard time relocating..I'm not talking about people who want to improve their circumstances and live in their homeland but I believe a large percentage of the west coast homeless are not native Californians or Native Oregonians. Career homeless people like warm weather and year around produce. Both California and Florida provide those things. Anyway I'm sorry if I got off on this tangent but I'm tired of seeing places I love degenerate and I don't love Florida.

 

Recent studies show that this is not true. Most of the homeless population in CA is local. The issue is mostly related to cost of housing - and as mentioned above, the pandemic really made this problem a lot more acute because of the combination of loss of income and unreasonable escalation in housing costs.

https://www.courthousenews.com/stud...lack or indigenous,to violence, drugs or jail.

 

If what you say is true I stand corrected....when I saw the 58 block skid row in Los Angeles I saw meth heads and drunks and junkies everywhere....career bums. I have no empathy for that element but people who are priced out of the housing market I have great empathy for. Especially those who sign up for staffing services everyday looking for sub work to get ahead. I thought I stipulated that lazy career homeless campers were my target for removal, not people willing to contribute and support themselves..California priced me out of the real estate market in the early 80s I sold out and moved to Hawaii. It's a tough place for a young couple to raise a family in my view. Also I think you can become a "local" Californian as soon as you've lived there six months and gotten an ID card. Los Angeles is sort of the bus station of America.

 

Thanks for the link. There are certainly considerations. It's definitely not easy.

Salt Lake City eliminated homelessness in a matter of years. Finland did as well.

What will almost certainly NOT happen is reducing the price or increasing the affordability of housing. Nobody in power really wants that. So if that is the goal, it is doomed to fail from the start, IMO. What the pandemic has done is allowed a shift to more people working from home. This has caused a huge amount of open space in office buildings. There is 68 million square feet of vacant office space in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. That's enough alone for every homeless person in california to get nearly 400 sq/ft.

Now, I'm not suggesting that those counties actually house all of the homeless in California, but there is clearly enough vacant space across the whole state to get people who need housing into housing. Of course there are other services needed, and I get that. But the space is there. Incentives for cities and companies to retrofit these buildings into housing would be an incredible start (and not necessarily just housing for the homeless) like Boston, for example.

Again, there are solutions out there. Solutions that have been successful in this country. I'll be interested to see what kind of progress Newsom can make on homelessness. Thus far it sounds like he wants to solve the problem, but homelessness continues to get worse in California. Not better...

Again, I'd certainly vote for Newsom over Trump. And probably over Biden as well. And I'd love to see some national leaders making some serious progress on reducing homelessness.

 

Well, we have seen that the programs mentioned above purchase some properties for this conversion. But, we have to remember that the state does not own these properties - so you need to persuade the private enterprises that own them to sell for a price that makes sense for the government - and then you have to go through the local zoning issues converting a lot of buildings to residential dwelling, and I am willing to bet there will be issues with neighbors fighting these conversions.

All I am saying is that just writing checks to house people is not enough. It's a start to get this money, there is a whole lot of work to be done on many levels of government to make this into a reality. It sure seems like the state of CA is devoting a lot more money and work to get it moving, I just do not believe it will be a quick process.

 

First you wrongly interpreted what I said earlier and then used words that I never said...and now "fantasies"?...WTF?...my vote will be based on what I feel is "interesting"/important.

 

Yep, I agree with you. I just want to see the numbers start dropping and those who can get back to self reliance being brought back ASAP.

 

Lloyd Pendleton (Salt Lake City)

Not sure who's responsible for it, but Dallas is doing a pretty solid job...

Houston as well
How Houston Moved 25,000 People From the Streets Into Homes of Their Own