New York Times guest writer laments California's 'continual failure' on homeless crisis

close

Video

Media top headlines July 26

In media news today, a CNN panel agrees that Hunter Biden's art sales are an ethics issue, Andrew Cuomo accuser Lindsey Boylan slams brother Chris and asks whether he 'also harassed and assaulted’ women, and NBC has a 33-year low viewership for Tokyo Olympics

Policy expert and former journalist Ned Resnikoff sounded off on California's homeless crisis in a new guest essay for the New York Times, lamenting its "continual failure" to rein in its homelessness problem.

The images of California's sprawling homeless camps in Venice Beach, Oakland, and Los Angeles "do not come close to capturing the scope of the state’s homelessness crisis," the author argued, before noting that California is home to 28 percent of the country's homeless population, according to federal statistics.

"California’s continual failure to make inroads against widespread homelessness risks fomenting anger, cynicism and disaffection with the state’s political system. A state that appears powerless to address fundamental problems does not make a very persuasive case for its own survival," he wrote.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF URGES LEADERS TO DECLARE STATE OF EMERGENCY OVER HOMELESS CRISIS

California, Resnikoff argues, has "allowed homelessness to metastasize over the past few decades," morphing from a humanitarian crisis into a political crisis that in part led to the upcoming recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom, D. He went on to blame racist policies for the current homeless rate, including what he called a "decades-long effort to keep low-income Black residents out of adequate housing." He designated Berkeley as being the most likely "birthplace of single-family zoning," which, he said, put housing out of reach for low-income households, "in particular the people of color it was intended to keep out."

Most agree when it comes to identifying the crisis, but the solutions to homelessness are up for debate. Resnikoff suggested that the solution would come by increasing its housing supply and in offering immediate Housing First services to the homeless. 

Chuck DeVore, a former GOP California state assemblyman and vice president of National Initiatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, argued that most homeless people would not be helped by having more affordable housing. 

"The vast number of them are on the streets because they have mental illness or drug addiction and they wouldn’t be able to keep a house anyway," DeVore said in an interview with Fox News. "That’s why they are on the street." 

Instead, DeVore said cities struggling with homelessness should focus on treatment for those individuals. Resnikoff did note in his piece that Housing First policies are based on the premise "that people who are homeless need stable housing in order to benefit from the other services, such as behavioral health care and substance use treatment, that will put them on a path to full recovery."

DeVore and Resnikoff did agree that the power of the veto is playing a factor in the high homeless rate. 

"The problem is in many cities property owners have an effective veto over development," DeVore said. In his piece, Resnikoff calls it "vetocracy." DeVore went on to argue that southern states are the most ideal model for property rights, highlighting Houston because it does not have a zoning ordinance.

NEWSOM’S PROPOSAL TO HOUSE CALIFORNIA’S HOMELESSNESS COMES OUT TO MORE THAN $74K PER HOMELESS PERSON

"Those areas tend to have stronger property rights and as a result there tends to be better integration between races, between household income, because property owners are more free to do what they want with their property," he said.

Politicians have also disagreed on how to solve the crisis. Newsom has unveiled his plans to to spend roughly $75,000 per homeless person, but one of his Republican challengers in the recall effort, Kevin Faulconer, said that would do nothing to get Californians under roofs.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"The governor has failed. He called himself the homeless czar," Faulconer told Fox News. "You can throw all the money in the world at this. If you don’t have the political will to make a difference … it’s not going to change."