Gov. was favored by first poll. Newsom’s Proposition One, which adds$ 6.4 billion in debt to finance cover and mental health beds for the acute poor, had easily move. But, 49.8 percent of voters saw through the shenanigans, almost delivering the government a magnificent censure.  ,
Was this represent the very end of” Housing First”?
Prop One sounded empathetic. However, the dragon was buried deep into the legislature’s 68 chapters of details:” Housing interventions must comply with the key components of Housing First”. To conceal the measure’s potential as a “game change,” Newsom spent$ 21 million to conceal it. The opposition raised around$ 2, 000. So why was the measure but close to failing?  ,
Some say that voters voted against the addition of friendship debt. Some claim voters have exhausted their kindness.  , Nevertheless, it appears about half of California voters have had enough of disappointment, and the government who continues to champion it. They no longer trust his commitments to ending poverty, which he made more than ten years ago as president of San Francisco.  ,
They did n’t have to read the 68 pages to know Prop One was another empty promise.
They were right.
Despite little sign of progress, California followed the federal government’s lead and incorporated Housing First into state act in 2016 as a one-size-fits-all solution to poverty. In 2013, President Obama formally adopted Housing First, he promised that the radical policy change would put an end to poverty in ten years.
Cover vouchers were the mainstay of the poverty tool, and money for medical services like mental health and addiction guidance was drastically decreased as was funding for career training. The cash saved was used to provide more certificates for permanent housing without any restrictions.  ,
Needs such as sobriety, tasks, and work participation became “barriers” under this approach, as they 1 ) might preclude a homeless person from accepting housing and 2 ) were not needed because the poor could” home- determine” their need for service when stably housed.
Today — 10 years later — homelessness has not ended. Both its death rate and its highest point ever have been attained. California currently holds the rights to 50 % of its chronically homeless population and 30 % of its homeless population.  ,  ,
Having spent 13 years on the front lines serving homeless women and children in Sacramento, California, I would have been among the “no” votes.
Seventy- eight percent of the homeless struggle with mental illness and 75 percent with addiction, whether a precursor to, or a result of, their homelessness.  , According to the U. S. surgeon general, these diseases are  , complex , brain disorders that can reduce brain function and inhibit an individual’s ability to make decisions and regulate action.  ,
It becomes extremely unlikely that the homeless will use services once they are housed in combination with a disease called anosognosia, which is a deficit of self-awareness with which the majority of the mentally ill and addicted also struggle.
A 14- year study of Boston’s chronically homeless population demonstrated exactly that. Nearly half of the housed were given the death penalty for using non-required services. After five years, only 36 percent of the population remained in housing.  ,
Our clients struggled with similar illnesses: around 78 percent with addiction and close to 60 percent with mental illness. We provided them with a clean and sober environment so they could gain clarity, recover, build a supportive community, and thus begin their transformation.  ,
In the first months, when they were still emerging from the dense fog of mental illness, addiction, or both, were clients required to engage in clinical services, which proved to be particularly crucial. Our graduates left our program with jobs and the ability to support their families within 18 months. Dozens have become homeowners, a rigorous feat for a single mother in California.
Had sobriety and services not been required, our outcomes would have likely mirrored Boston’s.
Prop One supporters may be content to squeak out a nail-bitingly close victory this time, but the flimsy margin for this well-funded measure in dark-blue California signals a turning point in the direction of a failed housing policy.  ,
Nearly half of the governor’s constituency acknowledged that the provision of more housing for the homeless, without funding for services or without conditions, should not be the final chapter in the book.  ,
It ignores one of life’s fundamental realities:” Either we grow, or we die”.
