“One of many main root causes of homelessness is severe habit, which is debilitating and ends in individuals not with the ability to operate and even maintain a job,” Reisig stated in an interview with CalMatters.
It’s true that participation in drug courts dropped all through the state within the wake of Proposition 47. In San Diego County, for instance, greater than 650 individuals went via drug court docket within the 12 months earlier than Proposition 47 handed. By 2021, it was down to just 255.
As proof Proposition 47 is tied to homelessness, backers of the measure level to states with stronger drug legal guidelines and smaller homeless populations. Illinois, for instance, has a homeless price about 5 occasions lower than California’s.
However there are plenty of different components — particularly housing prices — contributing to the state’s homelessness disaster. Truthful market hire for a two-bedroom in Chicago is just $1,714 — practically half the going price in San Francisco. The San Francisco area rate elevated by 72% since Proposition 47 handed, hitting $3,359 this 12 months, in line with the U.S. Division of Housing and City Improvement.
For some consultants who research crime and homelessness, the poll measure is baffling.
“I’m not conscious of any information that exhibits a connection between Prop. 47 and homelessness,” stated Charis Kubrin, a professor of criminology at UC Irvine. “So it’s a little bit of a puzzle to me why they’re collectively like that.”
Blaming the state’s spike in homelessness on Proposition 47 is “preposterous,” stated Sharon Rapport, director of California state coverage for the Company for Supportive Housing. “All the modifications that the (poll measure) is proposing don’t have anything, nothing in anyway, to do with homelessness.”
The group hasn’t even taken an official place on the measure as a result of, Rapport stated, it’s not associated to homelessness.
The number one reason Californians end up homeless is a lack of earnings — not drug use, in line with a UC San Francisco study that gives probably the most complete look but on the state’s homelessness disaster. And within the six months earlier than turning into homeless, the individuals surveyed have been making a median earnings of simply $960 a month.
That doesn’t imply drug use has nothing to do with homelessness. Practically a 3rd of individuals surveyed reported utilizing methamphetamines 3 times per week, whereas 11% used non-prescribed opioids. Different research have had various outcomes: a 2022 Stanford Institute for Financial Coverage Analysis research, which cited analysis from a number of surveys throughout a number of states, confirmed that 43% to 88% of the homeless inhabitants struggled with drug abuse.
Drug and alcohol overdoses are also the leading cause of death for homeless individuals nationwide, in line with a February research inspecting mortality charges amongst unhoused individuals between 2011 and 2020.
But it surely’s clear not everybody on the streets has an habit. Subsequently, the proposed poll measure would go away out a big chunk of the state’s homeless inhabitants.
If the measure helps even a 3rd of California’s 181,000 unhoused residents — that’s an enormous quantity, Reisig stated.
“I’ll take that,” he stated. “I’ll take that quantity to attempt to get these individuals effectively, and to get them reintegrated, and to maintain them out of jail and jail, and hold them from dying on the road of overdose or homicide.”
This measure would possibly assist some individuals get sober, stated Benjamin Henwood, director of the USC Heart for Homelessness, Housing and Well being Fairness Analysis. However for many individuals, that gained’t be sufficient to finish their homelessness, he stated. Whereas being sober would possibly make somebody extra prone to get a job, it gained’t make housing any cheaper.
“The query is: As soon as therapy is up, the place do they go?” he stated.
Underneath this measure, the reply to that query will rely on every particular person county and the way a lot, if any, housing they make accessible for individuals popping out of therapy.
How would the Homelessness, Drug Habit, and Theft Discount Act work?
If voters approve the proposed poll measure, sure repeat drug offenses might be prosecuted as a “treatment-mandated felony.” Which means the third time somebody is arrested for a drug offense, they might be given a alternative between jail or obligatory habit and psychological well being therapy.
The measure says individuals collaborating in obligatory therapy additionally could be provided “shelter, job coaching, and different providers designed to interrupt the cycle of habit and homelessness.” But it surely doesn’t say how any of that may be paid for. It will be as much as counties to resolve whether or not to supply shelter and different providers and tips on how to fund them, Reisig stated.
