The race to save lives on the street

Thankfully, the Board of Supervisors voted to renew the Shelter Crisis Declaration to January of 2024. A reasonable timeframe as there is currently no light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to solving the homeless crisis. Supervisor Teeter was the lone vote against this wise decision, his reason being that the problem is the pervasiveness of mental illness in the community and therefore we should be focusing our energies on solving that issue first. Well, wouldn’t it be nice if it were that simple but sadly it’s not. That would be like letting a person bleed out instead of applying a tourniquet until they could be properly stitched up. I appreciate the forethought of opening a mental health hospital in the region (and we can only guess at how long that will take in the governmental bureaucracy that slows everything to a crawl) but, in the meantime, people are literally dying in the streets.

Still, Supervisor Teeter is attempting to address one of the many contributing factors to the homeless situation, and that should not be ignored. He is taking a wide-view of the situation and suggesting that the 50+-year-old policy regarding the mentally ill population needs to be amended or rescinded as it has failed to perform as promised. Course correction in policymaking is to be expected in a dynamic culture; failure to do so results in the sad situation we have today. Thank you, Supervisor Teeter.

— Marcella Seay, Magalia