California is now home to more than 171,000 homeless individuals, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a 6.2% increase since 2020.
Roughly 67%, or more than 115,000 are unsheltered meaning that they’re living outside.
If all the state’s homeless individuals lived in one locale, they’d make up the 32nd largest city in California. This may not seem so much. But consider this.
California has nearly 500 cities with populations of 10,000 or more. So the homeless city would be larger than 470 of the state’s cities with such a population.
The city would be larger than Palmdale with 167,987, larger than Salinas with 163,004, Hayward with 162,254, Corona at 157,844, Pomona’s 151,592, Escondido’s 151,443, Torrance with 147,156, Fullerton, Visalia, Orange, Pasadena, Victorville, Santa Clara, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Concord, Vallejo, Berkeley, East Los Angeles,
and … the list goes on.
Of course, we’re not suggesting that all the state’s unhoused population move into one place, into one city — but if they did, they could declare an emergency and ask for county, state and federal help.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This is seriously hilarious, and what a great idea! All of the homeless in California move en masse to one small city, register to vote, float a petition for a special election to replace the city government, and when their people get elected immediately declare an emergency for state & federal funding to house and feed and to keep the city functioning.
Think bigger! Get all the homeless countrywide together and take over the State of Wyoming!
If it was only that simple, eh?
___
Progressive Activist Thom Hartmann pretty much lays out the timeline here on the rise of the homeless numbers, and why over HALF THE COUNTRY cannot afford to rent anything.
(Hartmann is on substack but is being posted free on this site.)
Have You Noticed America Is Looking Like a Third World Nation?
by thomhartmann
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/16/2158577/-Have-You-Noticed-America-Is-Looking-Like-a-Third-World-Nation
___
Thank you Ronald Reagan for your heartless destruction of this country by the madness of neoliberalism these last 40 years. And to all the neoliberals both R & D who have taken part, I show you the bottom of my shoe.
sealintheSelkirks
Brilliant article and analogy Mr. Page. EVICT TODD GLORIA START THE RECALL EFFORT!!!
“Blame the Homeless” is not a housing policy.
It is time to start having a real dialog about Todd Gloria’s entire political carrer being dedicated to emptying our ghettos, concentrating the most financially vulnerable citizens into government internment camps, imposing PTSD on San Diegans uprooted from their homes and society, and then committing them to understaffed mental health facilities.
The City has been diverting Community Block Grant Money to purchase and build the infrastructure of Mass Surveillance License Plate Readers, Cameras and high powered microphones contained in Big Brother “Smart Streetlights”
EVICT TODD GLORIA START THE RECALL EFFORT!!!
Vagrants, homeless and drug addicts should not be allowed to reside on streets, parks or public places. Period. They should be removed by force if necessary by the City
If residents, citizens and property owners whose lives are endangered or otherwise made miserable by the vagrants, homeless and drug addicts living on streets, parks or public places were assembled in one place, that voting constituency would vastly exceed the silly point this article is attempting to make
Your compassion for those less fortunate than you is sobering.
I mean I agree they shouldn’t be in those places. But when they are “removed by force”, where do you propose the city puts them?
Well, somewhere other than “ streets, parks or public places”. You know, all the places the City doesn’t have jurisdiction over.
Here is your shot Carl. Dazzle us with your solution to the problem. I’ll polish your Nobel Prize every month for free.
Carl! Miserable home owners??!! Oy, where’s my tiny violin? So obvious you’ve never learned to walk a moment in someone’s else’s shoes! Its hard for me to comprehend how any adult in America could have such a callous POV.
That subset of unsheltered you refer to as vagrants, homeless and drug addicts? Let’s add a few other adjectives and descriptors : Unemployed, minimum wage earners, children, sick, uninsured, hungry, unable to find rental units, discriminated, old, young, voiceless, uneducated, without family… but then, you probably think they’re ALL mentally ill and its their own fault, right?
But I am going to be compassionate even towards you, though its seemingly undeserved, and I hope you never have to be described by any of the above.
Carl old boy, can you just hear what Jesus would be saying after reading your comment?
Oh wait, he’d probably forgive you…but then he was a vile hippy-like Hebrew Pacifist that probably would reply with the thought that feeding the poor was better than having them ‘removed by force’ by the Roman soldiers…opps, excuse me, the San Diego Police. Same difference.
By the way, you want them removed; to where? Every single city in the US has this happening. Maybe like the Texas and Florida governors are doing with migrants, busing them out to be dropped off in other ‘blue’ states perhaps? Being a Red city in a Blue state, maybe you’d have to be sneaky about it and bus them at night?
I can imagine highways full of buses passing one another endlessly shuttling from city to city.
Or maybe you’re a proponent of the open air prison camp idea. Oops, another slip of the tongue, so shall we called them the Citizen Rest & Relocation Educational Program. You know, CRREP? Just stuff them all in one big heavily guarded cage far from those made miserable by mere sight of such sub-human undesirables sounds like a great idea, yes? Out of sight out of mind as the refrain goes…
Ever see a movie titled ‘Punishment Park?’ It’s about getting rid of undesirables, too, and making it a fun game but with the tech we have now something similar has serious potential to become monetized as a very profitable smash hit on streaming services or youtube.
s/
Did you bother to read the link I posted and then think about all that new information before you replied? Probably not because you’d have a much better grasp of the nuances behind this. Of course then you’d have to suffer that cognitive dissonance that is so annoying to our society.
It’s not much of a drop from dehumanizing others to killing them outright as our human history shows. Not much at all…
sealintheSelkirks
Wow if you really feel the way you express, I almost hope the presence of the less fortunate cause you some suffering. Same with any other home owners who feel the same as you.
This was supposed to be a reply to Carl.
That’s one third of one percent of ca population, most aren’t burn in California and mist are drunks , drug addicts are mentally ill.
A real solution involves utilizing rooftops in cities all around the country: creating lightweight encampments and gardens. Of course, there are those that will say no, but that’s oftentimes because some people would prefer that the homeless continue to suffer and the whole NIMBY attitude that occurs everywhere. Then, of course, there are building codes; some roofs would have to be reinforced. Then, of course, liability becomes a concern in the event a roof dweller falls or is otherwise injured on the premises. For the latter, a waiver system would likely suffice, but of course, it’s never that easy. Eventually someone would be injured, and then someone would be sued, be it a corporation, small business owner, staircase or elevator builder, etc. Liability issues are a big part of why nothing gets done. Then, of course, someone wants to get paid as well.