Guaranteed shelter – a feasible solution

Subsequent to my last column two weeks ago, Governor Gavin Newsom has put his shoulder to the wheel of the Care Courts Initiative passed by the state legislature in late 2022 by announcing a 2024 statewide referendum to get public buy-in on the concept. This is good politics and good governance: whenever a major change to the order of business and the priorities of the state is proposed, you want widespread public support to make it stick.

This referendum will be preceded by numerous public symposiums to create a consensus around a county strategy for implementation. Last year, Gov. Newsom signed legislation to create a new civil court system – the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Court, or CARE Court – to compel residents struggling with mental health and addiction into court-ordered treatment.

As I predicted, the first line of resistance to my Care Courts thought experiment came from within the nonprofit social services sector. I spent years working in nonprofit public policy advocacy, and I am familiar with the line. I want to end the scourge of public homelessness, not merely manage an untenable status quo.  

If I were writing a news article as a journalist, I would be obligated to gather statements from a wide variety of stakeholders and let the reader decide which solution path is the best. As an op-ed writer, I am not bound by that same standard. I am honor-bound to the public intellectual’s professional code of factual accuracy and fair representation of all viable perspectives. If you have a different opinion, write a letter to the editor. I will read that. Otherwise, it’s not my problem. In fact, I welcome the discussion. That’s the goal.

One important clarification that I have to make is that my proposed county ordinance to create a county-supervised small homes village on county land at the edge of Santa Rosa is not a grand solution to homelessness in the United States. That will take a massive Federal investment in public housing (requiring Congress to rescind the 30-year-old Faircloth Amendment). Sadly, nothing will pass in the current Congress.

My proposal, which at this stage is only an artist’s sketch, is a feasible solution to public homelessness in Sonoma County. We can guarantee shelter for anyone experiencing homelessness in the County. Not a voucher, or getting on a waiting list, or shuttled around overnight shelters one-night-at-a time…no, we have an actual small house with a key waiting in a safely supervised small house village if you lack housing. The facility would have showers, an industrial kitchen, and social workers on site.

No one has to be homeless in that envisioned progressive county of the future. We can cut through the tired ‘housing stock’ debate and just go directly to providing shelter and a safe place to put your life in order without getting criminalized. 

The remedies can range from giving working-class folks living out of their cars a safe place to park and work with the staff to get placed in full-time employment; free medical exams; contacting social services in their county of origin, and giving them a bus ticket and a couple of hundred bucks to return to their hometown; placing low-functioning individuals in a supportive group home setting; using the Care Courts authority to place a mentally ill or severely addicted individual in one of the proposed large mental health centers across the state included in the price tag of the referendum. 

Folks, we’re rebuilding Developmental Centers again!