California made homelessness worse by making perfect housing the enemy of good housing, by liberalizing drug laws, and by opposing mandatory treatment for mental illness and drug addiction.
Other states have done a better job despite spending less money. “This isn’t rocket science,” said John Snook, who runs the, which advises states on mental health and homelessness policy around the country. “Arizona is a red state that doesn’t spend a ton on its services but is the best scenario in every aspect. World-class coordination with law enforcement. Strong oversight. They don’t let people fall apart and then return to jail in 30 days like California does.
As Congress debated mental health reform in 1946, some were suspicious. “Men get strange ideas,” said Republican congressman Clarence J. Brown of Ohio. “They decide the only way in the world they are going to solve all the problems of mankind is to do a certain thing and that their field is the most important.
Over the next two decades, state mental hospitals would empty out. But the vast majority of released patients ended up homeless on the street. Congress had “encouraged the closing of state mental hospitals without any realistic plan regarding what would happen to the discharged patients,” notes Dr. Torrey, “especially those who refused to take medication they needed to remain well.”
When critics faulted the clinics for their abuses, reformers defended themselves behind a wall of political correctness.
Homelessness experts and advocates disagree. “I’ve rarely seen a normal able-bodied able-minded non-drug-using homeless person who’s just down on their luck,” L.A. street doctor Susan Partovi told me. “Of the thousands of people I’ve worked with over 16 years, it’s like one or two people a year. And they’re the easiest to deal with.” Rev. Bales agrees. “One hundred percent of the people on the streets are mentally impacted, on drugs, or both,” he said.
Bales says people have little incentive to do treatment when there is no threat of jail time. “[The Housing First harm reduction advocates] talked about new services, but they were all voluntary.” Things went further in this direction with the passage of Proposition 47 in 2016, which decriminalized hard drugs and released nonviolent offenders from prison without providing after-care support. “Our guests went from 12 - 17% addicted to 50% or higher,” Bales says.
Is the problem a lack of money? “California spends more than most places,” said Snook, whose organization researches and advocates solutions for mentally ill homeless people nationally.
“[Housing First] is a dogmatic philosophy,” said Bales. “I’ve lost friends. One of my closest friends is attacking me for pushing for housing that costs $11,000 instead of $527,000 per person. He can’t get that we can't provide a $527,000 to $700,000 apartment for each person on the street. I’ve been in planning meetings where people said, ‘Everybody deserves a granite countertop,’ but that isn’t going to work for 44,000 people.
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