Gov. Newsom: California homelessness crisis is ‘disgraceful’
Fox News host Sean Hannity exclusively interviews California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who addresses the homelessness crisis and businesses leaving his state.
Seeing California Gov. Gavin Newsom say he took responsibility for the homelessness problem in California and calling it "disgraceful" while being interviewed by Sean Hannity this week was unexpected.
Newsom cited housing costs as being too high and regulatory thickets being too problematic, and he acknowledged the disparity of over 170,000 homeless in California compared with 26,000 in Florida, states with comparable good weather, as Hannity pointed out. "I own it," the governor said boldly.
But one central issue he didn’t "own" but should have acknowledged is the associated mental health crisis. Dr. Maria Raven, chief of Emergency Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, pointed out to me on Doctor Radio Reports on SiriusXM this week that there is frequently nowhere for the mentally ill to go from the emergency room after a brief hold except back out on the streets.
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The states lacks the long-term beds and it lacks the housing. Raven feels strongly, and wisely, that the money spent on housing up front would save a huge amount on health care costs down the line.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom interviewed by host Sean Hannity.
"The severe lack of affordable and supportive housing, high rates of mental illness among people experiencing homelessness and a dearth of community based mental health services means that many people experiencing homelessness end up in the emergency department," she also said to me.
California’s dysfunctional approach towards mental health goes back decades and is only getting worse. There has been a long focus on de-institutionalizing those with severe mental health problems, which sounds humane in theory, but not without the community-based services or housing to support it.
There are currently only five mental health hospitals left in California, with only room for 7,000 patients, many of them convicted or accused of crimes.
And as opposed to Rhode Island, the prisons in California are not focused on treatment, but currently on release, which means thousands more people with mental health problems on the street.
Consider that out of the close to 95,000 inmates in California prisons, more than a third suffer from a diagnosed mental illness.
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A study from San Jose State determined that of the nearly 19,000 seriously mentally ill in prison in 2015, almost 14,000 were there because of state hospital closures.
The homeless population of California is already filled with mentally ill people, some chronic, some suffering from reactive depression, few receiving treatment. It goes without saying that living on the streets of San Francisco or Los Angeles or San Diego in a homeless encampment is not the way to treat mental illness.
California’s dysfunctional approach towards mental health goes back decades and is only getting worse. There has been a long focus on de-institutionalizing those with severe mental health problems, which sounds humane in theory, but not without the community-based services or housing to support it.
I guarantee that SF residents’ plan to install big planters to interfere with encampments will be useless. The government throws money at the problem, but that is merely cosmetic, a tough word to apply amid the stench of human waste and sewage.
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The shelter system is extensive in New York City, and while it is far from perfect, and is also riddled with crime and mental illness, it is still an improvement over California, where the vast majority of the homeless population has no shelter.
Newsom told Hannity that he has a $15.3 billion dollar plan to fight homelessness in California. But solving this problem doesn’t mean throwing money at it, it means changing the culture. Creating the housing, extending treatment for depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and psychosis. And providing hospital beds or homes rather than prison cells for those who need them.
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