Typhus is an emergency, but its cause is not?
Gov. Jerry Brown’s beloved Welsh Corgi mix, Colusa, deserves all the love and attention in the world. But California’s first dog has better access to food, shelter and health care than 134,000 people in California who will be homeless tonight. That’s a quarter of the nation’s total.
Cities throughout the state (including San Francisco) have repeatedly petitioned the governor to declare the homelessness crisis an emergency in order to increase state money and staff focus on the problem. To date, he has said no.
Like the state of emergency declared by the governor last year on hepatitis, many problems spill across city borders and demand a coordinated approach by state government.
In fact, the hepatitis outbreak, a deadly symptom of poor hygiene and the lack of proper sanitation within many homeless communities, had caused 18 deaths statewide at the time the emergency was declared. But the underlying cause of the hepatitis emergency, homelessness, caused 831 deaths last year in Los Angeles County alone and negatively impacts quality of life in all 58 California counties.
The typhus outbreak in Los Angeles County is traced to disease-ridden fleas in areas with concentrated homeless populations, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors actually approved a plan Tuesday for mobile health teams to distribute flea collars in the Skid Row area. Dogs often have flea collars, too.
Why is a symptom an emergency while its cause is not?
An additional 1.7 million low-income Californians face the threat of homelessness, with more than half of their monthly spending devoted to housing costs, and any financial misfortune or missed paycheck placing them at risk.
In April, the State Auditor reported that California is doing a poor job on homelessness and requires state leadership to address the crisis. It’s a bad problem that’s getting worse every day. Despite some laudable efforts, the conventional legislative process and administrative tools aren’t working sufficiently, or producing enough tangible results in a timely manner, that we all urgently need.
Permanent supportive housing is the ultimate solution for homelessness, and is more humane and cheaper than the status quo. But it takes many years to plan, construct and staff, and central coordination to make sure it’s built in feasible locations that are affordable for the workers required to support it. We need temporary shelter first, and we need the governor’s leadership firster.
Just as a majority of California voters supported the governor in four gubernatorial elections, I am also a proud Jerry Brown voter and admire him for his financial rectitude and often-fresh thinking. I have thought of him as someone who doesn’t rest on his laurels and has plenty of fight left in him. But his relative inaction on homelessness, so far and with little time left, is a troubling mystery.
Polished plans now exist to promptly provide temporary housing throughout the state in the event of an earthquake or other calamity. One such plan, the governor’s Bay Area Earthquake Plan, cites the availability of shelter for 280,000 people in 16 counties.
The governor can use a fraction of such vast designated resources to shelter the homeless right now, while the state and California cities follow through on current and pending plans to build the necessary supportive housing.
No one is better positioned than a popular four-term governor to demonstrate his mastery of the machinery of state government and set an example for the nation. He can:
Declare a state of emergency.
Use emergency executive powers to effect immediate solutions that are not otherwise possible.
Deploy his Office of Emergency Services and activate the State Emergency Plan as required.
Before the governor and first dog Colusa retire to their Colusa County ranch on Jan. 7, he needs to declare homelessness an emergency and use his powers to begin providing temporary shelter.
It’s much better for Gov. Brown, and for the state’s homeless, for him to be remembered as the leader who took bold action prior to leaving office, not the one who left behind this mess.
If the Democratic governor of a deeply blue state won’t step up on behalf of society’s most vulnerable, it’s not just the homeless who are in trouble. You are.
Ian McCuaig is a fundraising consultant who has worked with the homeless in San Francisco and British Columbia.